Former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony Thursday to the Senate Intelligence Committee could force Robert Mueller, the special counsel leading an investigation into Russian election meddling, to question President Trump directly about his encounters with Comey.
Mueller’s office, the White House and Trump’s private lawyer all remained silent Thursday evening about the possibility that the special counsel could soon require the president to submit for an interview. But legal experts suggest Comey’s testimony exposed too many inconsistencies with the president’s public statements for Trump to avoid an interview with Mueller in the coming months.
“We will decline to comment,” Mueller’s spokesman told the Washington Examiner when asked Thursday whether his office plans to question Trump.
“I would refer you to [Trump’s outside counsel] Marc Kasowitz,” a White House official said. And a spokesman for Kasowitz — who defended Trump after Comey’s testimony on Thursday — did not return a request for comment.
“I can’t imagine that the special counsel would not only want to, but will interview President Trump,” said Mark Zaid, a national security attorney. “Such an interview will be imperative to determine the extent to which any obstruction charge is viable, as well as Trump’s individual involvement with any possible Russian collusion.”
During the roughly three-hour Senate hearing on Thursday, Comey laid out a detailed recollection of conversations with Trump that he considered inappropriate. In one, Comey accused Trump of asking the former FBI director for his personal loyalty. In another, Comey said Trump pressed him to drop an investigation of Gen. Mike Flynn, the president’s recently ousted national security adviser.
Trump had previously denied that either event took place, and his lawyer responded to Comey’s allegations Thursday afternoon by denying them again and accusing the former FBI director of leaking private conversations with the president for “entirely retaliatory” reasons.
Matthew Whitaker, executive director of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, said Comey’s claims are unlikely to implicate Trump or reshape the Russia probe.
“I doubt that today’s testimony will change the course of the Special Counsel Muller’s investigation,” said Whitaker, a former U.S. attorney under President George W. Bush. “Primarily because there was nothing in Comey’s testimony that rises to any criminal offense.”
Whitaker noted that Comey made clear in his account that the FBI’s investigations into Flynn and alleged Russian meddling in the presidential race “do not overlap.”
“Thus, Comey’s testimony today did not have any obvious relevance to the Russia-meddling investigation,” he said.
If Mueller does decide to question Trump, Zaid said, the president’s interview will likely be among the last conducted.
Such was the case with the FBI’s probe of Hillary Clinton and her private email network. Only after months of investigation and dozens of other interviews did agents finally invite the Democratic presidential candidate to FBI headquarters for questioning. Comey publicly closed the case just days later.
Trump would not be the first president to be questioned under oath while in office, either. Bill Clinton submitted for a deposition in 1998 after Paula Jones, a former Arkansas state employee, sued him for sexual harassment. The former president was asked, during the high-profile deposition, whether he had ever had sexual relations with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, and he flatly denied it.
Kenneth Starr, an independent counsel named to investigate the unrelated controversy of a private real estate deal that came to be known as Whitewater, seized on Bill Clinton’s misrepresentation and alleged in his 1998 report on the probe that the president had committed perjury.
Lawrence Walsh, the independent counsel named in 1986 to investigate the Iran-Contra scandal, ultimately interviewed President Ronald Reagan under oath about his alleged involvement in the affair.
Alex Pappas contributed to this report.
