The fallout from last week’s Senate Intelligence committee hearing with former FBI director James Comey continues. The White House—and Donald Trump’s new outside counsel Marc Kasowitz—has decided on two messages, each distilled into two of the president’s Sunday morning tweets.
The first, arguing that Comey is a compromised witness and individual: “I believe the James Comey leaks will be far more prevalent than anyone ever thought possible. Totally illegal? Very ‘cowardly!'”
The second, projecting the accusations against Trump onto his political opponents: “The Democrats have no message, not on economics, not on taxes, not on jobs, not on failing #Obamacare. They are only OBSTRUCTIONISTS!”
Expect more of this line this week from the White House, outside Trump surrogates, Trump allies in conservative media, and the president’s own best spokesman: himself. At least, until the next Russia-related hearing.
Sessions to Testify
That’s coming sooner than you think—Tuesday to be exact. Attorney General Jeff Sessions will testify before the Intelligence committee then, though it’s not clear yet whether that hearing will be open or closed to the public.
Sessions was a key figure in James Comey’s testimony: The former FBI director said the AG was one of those in the Oval Office on February 14 when President Trump dismissed his aides but asked Comey to stay behind.
In Comey’s telling, Sessions lingered in the room a little longer before the president specifically asked him to step out so he could speak with Comey alone. Comey also testified that he later told Sessions that it was inappropriate for President Trump to speak alone with Comey.
Senators will no doubt ask Sessions, their former colleague, to clarify these elements of Comey’s story. Sessions will also have to answer questions about his meetings with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, and whether there are more than the two confirmed encounters in 2016 that Sessions did not disclose.
White House Lawyering Up? Not Yet, At Least
Marc Kasowitz, the New York Times reports, has ramped up the legal defense of Trump as a presence within the West Wing. There’s even talk of giving Kasowitz a White House complex office. Here’s more from the Times:
For what it’s worth, White House sources of mine say they aren’t concerned about needing legal help, and they say they don’t hear chatter in the West Wing about it, either. But the Times reporting suggests some aides are starting to worry—even as publicly the White House argues it’s been “vindicated” by the Comey testimony.
Hill Republicans Downplay “Obstruction’ Claim
A Republican senator on the Intelligence committee called President Trump’s interactions with James Comey “very inappropriate” but said he doubted they amounted to obstruction of justice. James Lankford of Oklahoma told CBS News’s John Dickerson on Face the Nation Sunday that the one-on-one conversations between Trump and Comey were “awkward.”
“It’s awkward to be able to have the president of the United States sitting down with someone in the FBI, the leadership of the FBI, to be able to have direct questions and for the issue to come up about the Michael Flynn investigation,” said Lankford, who was among those who questioned Comey at last week’s hearing.
And on ABC News’s This Week, Republican senator Mike Lee of Utah agreed Comey’s revelations in the hearing, if true, don’t amount to obstruction on the part of the president. “If he’s got evidence of collusion, bring it forward,” Lee said of Comey. “If he’s got evidence of corruption, of obstruction, bring it forward. I have yet to see anything, even a scintilla.”
Host George Stephanopoulos pressed the senator: “You’re saying that even if what James Comey is saying is true, you don’t see the evidence?”
“Yes. I don’t see that that amounts to obstruction. I don’t see any evidence of intent to obstruct. I don’t see any indication that there was even the potential for corruption here or for obstruction of justice,” said Lee.
Lee added he believed it’s “time to wrap this up and time to move on,” something his colleague disputed on Face the Nation.
Lankford told Dickerson the Intelligence committee’s work investigating Russian ties to the Trump campaign is “far from” complete. “This is one interview of about 36 that we’ve already done,” Lankford said. “We’ve gone through thousands of pages of documents…. We’re trying to get all the facts out on Russia’s trying to interfere in our election — if any American tried to be able to reach back to them to assist Russia in interfering in our election and how classified documents got into the public sphere.”
