Speaker Paul Ryan committed the House Wednesday to “follow the facts wherever they may lead” in response to a growing briar patch of allegations against the Trump White House, including a report that the president discouraged James Comey from continuing an investigation of former national security advisor Michael Flynn. But the Wisconsin Republican, irritated by how the developments have swallowed his agenda whole this week, said he wants to distance himself from the thorny details of the work.
“Just remember, there’s an investigation occurring at the FBI. There’s an investigation in the House, and there’s an investigation in the Senate. So we’ve got three investigations going on. I’m not going to micromanage or armchair quarterback investigations,” he told reporters. This extends to whether he would prefer the former FBI director to testify before Congress in an opening setting, a decision he said he’d “leave . . . to the committees.”
“But the point is this,” he continued. “We can’t deal with speculation and innuendo. And there’s clearly a lot of politics being played. Our job is to get the facts and to be sober about doing that.”
Ryan’s highlighting of “politics” cut the administration some slack. He went further in what he said he instructed Republican lawmakers earlier Wednesday: “It is obvious there are some people out there who want to harm the president. But we have an obligation to carry out our oversight regardless of which party is in the White House.” And he answered “I do” when asked if he had full confidence in President Trump.
The House speaker also conveyed a familiar frustration: How the question and answer portion of his weekly briefings has come to be dominated by the latest from the president and his Twitter feed, not the latest in GOP legislation. “I think people in America turn on the TV and they think this is all that’s happening. This is all we’re doing and all we’re discussing,” he said. “That’s just not the case. I want the American people to know that we’re busy, hard at work fixing their problems.”
In one instance, the displeasure of Republican leadership sounded as apparent as it looked. As is custom for these press events, Ryan was flanked by his top deputies. Toward the end of the Q&A, a reporter asked, “Given your ambitious agenda, have you considered or even identified what the point would be where the current trajectory of the White House is simply unsustainable to trying to get things done?”
Before Ryan began his answer, House majority leader Kevin McCarthy, standing behind the speaker’s right shoulder, shut his eyes and rotated from the podium. It was clear they were doing what the Republican majority hasn’t been: rolling.
