Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said Sunday he doesn’t “see anything” that amounts to obstruction of justice in regards to President Trump’s interactions with former FBI Director James Comey.
Lee, a conservative critic of Trump during the campaign, dismissed worries about the seriousness of Comey’s account of his conversations with Trump relating to the FBI’s Russia investigation.
“I don’t see anything that amounts to obstruction,” Lee said on ABC’s “This Week.” “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 obstruction of justice.”
Comey on Thursday testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee that Trump said he hoped the FBI would drop its investigation of Mike Flynn, the president’s first national security adviser.
In a news conference Friday, Trump said he would “100 percent” be willing to testify under oath that he never told Comey he hoped the FBI would stop investigating Flynn.
On Sunday, the president tweeted that Comey acted “very cowardly” by leaking memos he wrote about the conversations with Trump to a friend to give to the New York Times.
Lee also criticized Comey’s decision to release the memos anonymously, although he acknowledged, “I don’t know whether it’s a crime.”
“He [Comey] doesn’t strike me as someone who would lie under oath,” Lee said. “Nonetheless, I am not wild about the fact he had these memos leaked, leaked specifically with the intent of prompting the appointment of a special counsel. That doesn’t seem to be the kind of thing we want out of an FBI director in a bureau where leaking seems to be a problem.”
At the end of his interview with George Stephanopoulos, Lee went further in his defense of Trump, saying he has seen “no evidence” so far of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
“There is no evidence whatsoever of any collusion between the Russian government and any presidential campaign,” Lee said. “If Robert Mueller [the special counsel] or anyone else uncovers evidence suggesting something else, then I am sure that will be pursued. We have to deal with facts that have been brought so far. I just don’t see it. It’s not there.”
