The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said Wednesday that former FBI Director James Comey’s prepared remarks for a Thursday hearing in the Senate shows that President Trump was trying to exert influence over Comey in a bid to dismiss the FBI’s probe into Russia.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., accused the president of “trying to form a patronage relationship with him, in which the director would guarantee loyalty in exchange for job security.”
“The fact that this request, and the subsequent effort to have the director drop the Flynn case, were made after the President excused everyone else from the room, strongly indicates that the president was more than aware of the illegitimacy of such demands,” Schiff added, referring to the FBI’s investigation into former national security adviser Mike Flynn.
Comey himself suspected in an early meeting with Trump that the president was trying to form “some sort of patronage relationship” with him.
Comey testimony confirms @POTUS demanded his loyalty and asked for Flynn case to be dropped. Did his refusal to do either cost him his job? pic.twitter.com/I7nfMC1Y20
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) June 7, 2017
Senator Edward Markey, D-Mass., went further by saying Comey’s testimony shows that Trump was trying to obstruct justice.
“By repeatedly and improperly asking Mr. Comey to ‘lift the cloud’ that was darkening his administration, asking him to ‘let it go’ in reference to the investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, and then summarily firing the FBI Director, Donald Trump appears to have obstructed justice,” Markey said.
Other Democrats were more reserved.
“I think it’s devastating,” Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., said to CNN. “I’m an engineer, not a prosecutor, so I can’t tell you what the exact legal standard is, but if the president said those words, I believe it’s absolutely devastating, completely inappropriate and I would leave it to someone like Bob Mueller to, as to whether it’s prosecutable.”
Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., told the Washington Examiner that Trump will need proof to back up his claims and refute those of Comey.
“Unless President Trump presents something extraordinary to the contrary, it appears that what has been reported by both the Washington Post and the New York Times … is 100 percent accurate representation based on what’s in Comey’s testimony.”
Comey will say Thursday that President Trump asked him to drop the bureau’s investigation into Flynn. But Comey will also confirm Trump’s claim that Comey told the president he wasn’t under investigation.
Testimony is still slated to begin at 10 a.m. on Thursday.
