Dropping the investigation into former national security adviser Mike Flynn wouldn’t have greatly hindered the FBI’s overall counterintelligence investigation into Russian meddling in U.S. elections, according to testimony from former FBI Director James Comey.
Comey’s answers on Thursday on that line of questioning could be important as some opponents of the White House have suggested the Trump team’s alleged collusion with the Russians was most likely to come from a subordinate who had numerous contacts with Russia, such as Flynn did.
If the Flynn investigation wasn’t remarkably linked to the Russia investigation, there may be fewer threads on the collusion theory.
“Would closing out the Flynn investigation have impeded the overall Russian investigation?” Senator Angus King, I-Maine, asked.
“No, unlikely, except to the extent, there’s always a possibility if you have a criminal case against someone and you bring in and you squeeze them, you flip them. But I saw the two as touching each other, but separate.”
Flynn has remained one of the lynchpins in the overall “cloud” over the White House, given that his statements about his conversation with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were later found out to be false, which ultimately led to his resignation.
In previous testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey was further pinned down on the nature of obstruction of justice and whether Trump’s request to have Comey “back off” the investigation rose to that level.
Comey’s remarks to King came after almost two continuous hours of testimony on Thursday, and Comey still had hours of testimony behind closed doors with the same committee later.
