Counter Intelligence: Testifying before the House Intelligence Committee, FBI Director James Comey repudiated President Trump’s claim that his phones were tapped last fall on the orders of President Obama. Comey also confirmed that the FBI is investigating any possible links and collusion between Russia and associates of then-candidate Donald Trump.

It was a bad morning for the president. Asked later in the hearing about President Trump’s series of tweets claiming President Obama ordered phone taps, Comey said, “We have no information to support those tweets.” Pressed, Comey said, “All I can tell you is that we have no information that supports them.”

Comey said the Justice Department gave him permission to confirm the existence of an active investigation because of the “unusual” circumstances. He said that because of the classified nature of the investigation, “I cannot say more, about what we are doing and whose conduct we are examining.”

In the middle of the hearings, Trump tweeted from his POTUS account that, “The NSA and FBI tell Congress that Russia did not influence electoral process.” They didn’t say that. What they said was that there was no evidence that the Russians changed vote counts.

In their statements and questions, Democrats on the committee focused on the Russia connection and the Trump wiretap accusation, while Republicans pursued questions about leaks of classified information. In a 15-minute opening statement, Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the committee, laid out a series of events like a prosecutor, linking Trump associates and Russians.

Speaking of Russian hacking and election influence, Adm. Michael Rogers, director of the National Security Agency, said, “It would be difficult to overstate the breadth and scale of the malicious cyber activity occurring today. Our adversaries, including nation states, have not rested in trying to penetrate government systems, steal our private industry’s intellectual property, and making even greater strides toward the development and achievement of cyberattack capabilities.”

Advice and Consent: The confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch was overshadowed by the Intelligence Committee, but it’s expected to  go on for several days and promises some fireworks.

In his opening statement, Gorsuch said he would follow the law where it takes him. “We sometimes hear judges cynically described as politicians in robes, seeking to enforce their own politics rather than striving to apply the law impartially. If I thought that were true, I would hang up the robe.” But he was chosen for his conservative views.

Three Democratic members of the committee noted with some unhappiness that Gorsuch was up for the position that should have been filled by President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, who never got a hearing or a vote.

More From 1600: President Trump’s daughter Ivanka has been given security clearance and an office in the White House. She will not have a paid position.

No Go: Citing an unspecified threat, the US is banning passengers from bringing electronic devices bigger than a cellphone into the cabins of airliners taking off from eight Middle Eastern and North African countries. The ban includes laptops, tablets, cameras, DVD players, and electronic games. They’ll have to go in baggage.

The countries are: Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

No Sweat: The Super Bowl jersey swiped from New England quarterback Tom Brady in January has been found … in Mexico. Investigators tracked the missing swag to a credentialed Mexican reporter, who will never get into another locker room. The jersey is valued at about half a million dollars.

Brexit: The British government announced that on March 29^th it will pull the trigger to leave the European Union, completing the exit by early 2019.

The Obit Page: David Rockefeller, a major philanthropist and the longtime chief of Chase Manhattan bank, has died at age 101. He was the last surviving grandson of oil magnate John D. Rockefeller.

His bank was not huge, but Rockefeller became very influential in New York City, Washington, global finance, as well as in art and universities.

Off Air: Fox News appears to have benched legal analyst Andrew Napolitano, the commentator who started the unfounded story that Barack Obama ordered the wiretapping of Donald Trump’s phones in New York. He wasn’t on the air last night after a busy day in Washington. Fox is actually embarrassed by something said on their air.

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