Trump willing to testify under oath
Many in GOP unshaken by Comey’s testimony
WASHINGTON, June 10, (AP): Punching back a day after his fired FBI director’s damaging testimony, President Donald Trump accused James Comey of lying to Congress and said he was “100 percent” willing to testify under oath about their conversations.
Trump cryptically refused to say whether those private exchanges were taped — a matter at the heart of the conflicting accounts of what passed between them at a time when Comey was leading an FBI investigation into Russia’s interference in the presidential election and its ties to the Trump campaign.
He asserted that nothing in Comey’s testimony to the Senate pointed to collusion with Russia or obstruction of justice. “Yesterday showed no collusion, no obstruction,” Trump said.
He further denied ever asking Comey for his “loyalty,” contradicting Comey’s detailed sworn testimony about a private dinner the two men had in the White House.
“No I didn’t say that,” Trump stated abruptly, taking questions Friday at a joint press conference with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis in the Rose Garden. Asked if he would make that denial under oath, he said, “100 percent.”
Trump’s aides have dodged questions about whether conversations relevant to the Russia investigation have been recorded, and so did the president, in a series of teases.
“Well, I’ll tell you about that maybe sometime in the very near future,” Trump said. Pressed on the issue, he insisted he wasn’t “hinting anything,” before adding, “Oh you’re going to be very disappointed when you hear the answer, don’t worry.”
The House intelligence committee sent a letter Friday asking White House counsel Don McGahn whether any tape recordings or memos of Comey’s conversations with the president exist now or had existed in the past. The committee also sent a letter to
Trump to nominate Sales:
US President Donald Trump intends to nominate Nathan Sales, a former Homeland Security official, as State Department’s coordinator Comey asking for any notes or memos in his possession about the discussions he had with Trump before being abruptly fired last month. The committee is seeking the materials by June 23.
Comey told the Senate intelligence committee Thursday about several one-on-one interactions with the president, during which he said Trump pressed him to show “loyalty,” to back off on the FBI investigation of his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and to disclose that Trump himself was not under investigation.
Comey said he refused on all points, told senators of the detailed memos he had written after his conversations with Trump and said he hoped those conversations were taped because he is confident of their veracity.
Commitment
Standing with the president of Romania, a NATO partner, Trump at last confirmed his commitment to the alliance’s mutual defense pact, Article 5, uttering words he deliberately did not say when he spoke at NATO’s gathering in Belgium last month. On Friday he said he was “committing the United States to Article 5.”
He also accused Qatar, a key US military partner, of funding terrorism “at a very high level,” and said solving the problem in the tiny Arabian Gulf nation could be “the beginning of the end of terrorism.” It was a forceful endorsement of this week’s move by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates to cut off ties to Qatar, but a very different message from the one delivered just an hour before by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Tillerson had called on the Arab nations to immediately ease their blockade on Qatar.
Meanwhile, the FBI chief he fired called the president a liar, but the response from many Republicans was a collective shrug. The GOP still needs
for counterterrorism, the White House said on Friday.
Sales is a professor at Syracuse University College of Law, and previously served Donald Trump if it has any hope of accomplishing its legislative agenda and winning elections, and it’s going to take more than James Comey’s testimony to shake them.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Friday boasted of the GOP’s accomplishments under Trump thus far, and promised more to come, making no mention of Comey in a speech. A group of House conservatives discussed taxes and the budget, with no reference to Comey or the federal investigations into Russia’s election meddling and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.
Elsewhere, there were few outward signs of concern from the top Republican officials, donors and business leaders who gathered largely behind closed doors in Park City, Utah, for a conference hosted by former presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
“The people in this room, who give money to the Republican Party and who are focused on helping get Republicans elected, they do it because they believe in an agenda,” Spencer Zwick, House Speaker Paul Ryan’s fundraising chief, said in an interview. As for the Comey testimony, “there’s nothing we can do about it,” Zwick said.
It all underscored what’s become a hardening dynamic of the Trump presidency: Republicans on Capitol Hill and off are mostly sticking with the president despite the mounting scandals and seemingly endless crises that surround him.
Though some are privately concerned, and frustration is regularly voiced about the president’s undisciplined administration and the distractions he creates, Republicans have scant incentive to abandon him now. Trump’s signature remains key to the still-nascent GOP agenda, and he has the ability to appoint judges to lifetime appointments, a thrilling prospect for conservatives.
as deputy assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security and as senior counsel in the Office of Legal Policy at the Department of Justice, the White House said in a statement. (RTRS)
Gowdy targets Trump:
Rep Trey Gowdy is known as a dogged investigator of Hillary Clinton. Now Democrats wonder whether the South Carolina Republican will pursue President Donald Trump with the same vigor that he used when going after the Democratic presidential candidate.
Gowdy led a two-year investigation into the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, focusing heavily on Clinton’s role as secretary of state.
Later this month, Gowdy, 52, is set to become chairman of the powerful House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, where he will lead official scrutiny of the Trump administration, including a budding investigation into possible ties between Russia and Trump’s campaign.
House Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republicans say the four-term lawmaker and former federal prosecutor is the right man for the job. Democrats are not convinced. “When push gets to shove, I think Trey’s a reliable partisan and that’s why Ryan picked him,” said Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Va. (RTRS)