President Trump lauded Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley for his role questioning former FBI Director James Comey during a celebratory event marking his acquittal in the Senate impeachment trial.
“A man who got James Comey to choke, and he was just talking in his regular voice. He’s the roughest man, he’s actually an unbelievable, and I appreciate the letter you just sent me today, I just got it,” Trump said at the White House on Thursday.
Grassley, 86, grilled Comey in 2018 when the Iowa Republican was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Grassley demanded to know why Comey had used a private Gmail account when the practice had been prohibited.
Trump praised Grassley’s handling of the “Comey memos” and impersonated the Republican’s deep and rough-sounding voice.
“He’s got this voice that scares people,” Trump said. “Chuck Grassley, he’s looking at Comey, ‘Well, you tell me, what did you say?’ Now, he wasn’t being rough, that was just the way he talks. And that was when Comey, I think, that was when Comey announced that he was leaking, lying, and everything else. He choked because he never heard anybody talk like that.”
On Wednesday, the Senate found Trump not guilty on two Ukraine-related articles of impeachment that the Democrat-held House of Representatives passed in December.
