James Comey wouldn’t say and that made the White House furious. Asked in public on May 3 whether or not President Trump was under investigation for possible collusion with the Russians, then FBI Director Comey demurred.
“I’m not going to comment on anyone in particular,” he told the Senate Judiciary Committee, “because that puts me down a slope of — because if I say no to that then I have to answer succeeding questions.” Six days later, Comey was fired.
Since then the interactions between Trump and Comey have been laid bare in the press. As Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Roy Blunt of Missouri insinuated, every single subsequent leak seemed designed to harm the president.
“The only thing that’s never been leaked,” Rubio just told Comey, “is the fact that the president was not personally under investigation.”
And there’s something to that. Comey made detailed memos of his conversations with the president. He leaked that information to the press through Columbia University Professor Dan Richman. But not once did he answer whether or not Trump was personally under investigation by the FBI.
Readers of the New York Times got their money’s worth. They learned on May 11 that Trump demanded Comey’s loyalty in a private dinner. On May 16, they read that Trump asked Comey to end the investigation of former national security advisor Michael Flynn. And on June 6, they learned that Comey asked Sessions not to leave him alone with the president.
Each of those are bombshells, important news that completely changed the national conversation. They all have something in common: They made Trump look bad and were confirmed by Comey’s opening statement.
Here’s another previously unconfirmed fact confirmed by Comey’s prepared statement: That Comey three times told Trump he was never under investigation.
Rather than feed the beast of media speculation, it seems that maybe a straight-arrow like Comey might’ve wanted to lead with that?
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
