Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Thursday the investigation into President Trump’s potential ties to Russia “will not die” and that the Trump administration’s actions “cast tremendous doubt” on whether they have any desire to allow investigations of this sort to continue.
Schumer said on the Senate floor Thursday morning that the firing of James Comey as FBI director raises a “bevy of troubling questions” and argued his ouster is part of a longer pattern of behavior from the administration.
“The dismissal of Director Comey is part of a much longer pattern of this administrations interfering with or removing the people who are in a position to conduct an independent investigation of the president and his administration,” Schumer said.
The New York Democrat pointed to the nomination of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a top political ally of Trump’s during the campaign, as evidence, along with the firings of former acting Attorney General Sally Yates and of over 40 U.S. attorney’s in early March.
“This is about more than just Mr. Comey. This about a pattern of events that cast tremendous doubt on whether this administration has any interest in allowing the Russia investigation or any investigation that could be politically damaging to them to proceed unimpeded,” he said.
Toward the end of his floor speech, he reiterated the wish list from Senate Democrats in the wake of Comey’s dismissal, including a request for an all-senators briefing with Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
“This would help us get a hold on what happened, would explain why, and would help guide us in what to die next because this investigation will not die no matter who wants it to,” Schumer said, adding that this is a “very serious matter.”
