On Wednesday, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released the prepared opening statement of former FBI director James Comey, kickstarting the most anticipated event in Washington since President Trump’s inauguration.
Comey’s statement confirms previous reports about his multiple one-on-one meetings with Trump—that the president asked Comey to “let go” of the FBI’s investigation into former national security adviser Mike Flynn; that Trump asked Comey for his “loyalty”; that in return Comey promised only his “honesty.” It also confirms that Comey had stated three times that Trump himself was not under investigation by the FBI. In an interview on May 11, two days after firing Comey, Trump told NBC News’ Lester Holt that Comey had told him he was not “personally” under investigation, though Trump was clear that he was “not talking about campaigns” or anything else.
What substantive news do we learn from Comey’s statement? Not much, except for this interesting detail: On January 27, President Trump invited Comey to dinner at the White House that evening, the same day that acting attorney general Sally Yates first warned White House counsel Don McGahn that Mike Flynn could be compromised by his dealings with Russia.
Otherwise, Comey’s detailed account of four one-on-one meetings he had with Trump (starting with a January 6 briefing when Trump was president-elect) are most useful in filling out Comey’s own perspective and interpretation of those interactions. Comey describes the president as having a fixation on publicly announcing that Trump was not under investigation, of which Comey says he assured Trump of three times. Trump repeatedly told Comey that he felt his presidency was operating under “the cloud” of the broad Russia investigation and that it was “interfering with his ability to make deals for the country.”
In a statement, Trump’s outside counsel Marc Kasowitz said the president felt “completely and totally vindicated” by Comey’s statement. “The president is pleased that Mr. Comey has finally publicly confirmed his private reports that the president was not under investigation in any Russian probe,” Kasowitz said in a prepared statement. “The president feels completely and totally vindicated. He is eager to continue to move forward with his agenda.”
A person who knows the president’s views tells me that Trump disputes Comey’s account of their interactions “in certain small ways and one or two more substantive ways.” This person did not elaborate on which details Trump disputes.
Of course, Comey’s opening statement is the beginning, not the end, of the exploration into what President Trump did or said about the Russia investigation. Here are three questions senators on the Intelligence committee should ask Comey on Thursday:
(1) Did anyone on the White House senior staff or cabinet officials ask you to intervene in the FBI investigation into Mike Flynn at the behest of the president?
Comey’s opening statement is very narrowly focused on his interactions with President Trump, but there are other players he mentions, notably Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Sessions was present at the February 14 Oval Office meeting on counterterrorism, after which Trump asked Comey to stay behind. Comey says Sessions “lingered” by his chair as the other aides filed out of the room before Trump told Sessions he wanted to speak to Comey alone.
After his one-on-one meeting with Trump, during which he says Trump asked him to let go of the investigation on Flynn, Comey says he “took the opportunity to implore the attorney general to prevent any future direct communication between the president and me.” Comey says Sessions did not reply. The Justice Department has not responded to a request to confirm or dispute Comey’s recollection. Did Sessions at any other time mention any part of the Russia investigation to Comey?
Sessions is not the only figure of interest. Comey mentions that Jared Kushner also stayed behind at the February 14 meeting before Trump dismissed him. White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, Comey says, “leaned in through the door” partway through their private meeting, and was waiting outside the Oval Office when Comey left. Did Kushner, Priebus, or any other White House aides bring up the investigation with Comey?
(2) Did any of administration officials ask you more broadly to act—in any way—on the investigation into Russian interference?
Comey claims that Trump asked him several times to “let go” of the investigation of Flynn. “I did not understand the president to be talking about the broader investigation into Russia or possible links to his campaign,” he said. But the New York Times has reported that Reince Priebus asked Comey “to help push back on reports in the news media that Mr. Trump’s associates had been in contact with Russian intelligence officials during the campaign.”
Is that true? Did any aides in the administration make similar requests? Again, the narrowness of Comey’s opening statement invites these questions about whether or not others in the administration were involved in placing pressure on Comey to abandon the investigation.
(3) Why did you feel compelled to document your interactions with President Trump?
Comey has details about his meetings with the president because he took the extraordinary step of immediately documenting their talks in unclassified memos he would distribute among senior FBI staff.
“I felt compelled to document my first conversation with the president-elect in a memo,” Comey says of his January 6 encounter. “To ensure accuracy, I began to type it on a laptop in an FBI vehicle outside Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the meeting.” That, he says, became his regular practice following one-on-one conversations with Trump.
Why? As Comey admits, he met with President Obama twice in one-on-one settings after becoming FBI director in 2012. “In neither of those circumstances did I memorialize the discussions.”
It would be good to know what exactly gave Comey reason to change this practice with Trump.
