Former FBI Director James Comey sidestepped a direct question asking if President Trump colluded with Russia in an effort to tilt election results in 2016.
When asked by Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton if he could say Trump never colluded with the Kremlin in the 2016 election, Comey demured.
“It’s a question I don’t think I should answer in an open setting,” Comey said. “As I said, when I left, we did not have an open investigation into President Trump. It’s a question that will be answered by the investigation [of the special counsel] I think.”
Comey added that he didn’t want to suggest anything nefarious by not answering, but that he simply didn’t want to talk about it in a public setting.
In numerous instances during his Thursday testimony, Comey has said that at least while he was at the FBI, there was no open investigation in which the president was the prime target.
Many Democrats have accused Trump of colluding with the Russian government in order to beat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. The American intelligence community has determined the Russians worked to harm Clinton, and eventually developed a preference for Trump, there’s no evidence Trump worked with the Russians.
