Comey to come clean
WASHINGTON Former FBI director James Comey has agreed to testify in open session before the Senate Intelligence Committee about the bureau’s probe into Russian meddling with the 2016 United States presidential election, intensifying Donald Trump’s troubles at the start of his first foreign trip as president.
The announcement yesterday from committee chairman Richard Burr, of North Carolina, and vice chairman Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, came hours after The Washington Post reported that the FBI’s Russia investigation had identified a senior White House adviser close to the president as a significant person of interest. The Post didn’t name the official.
Comey’s decision ended more than a week of speculation about whether he would appear publicly to make his case since he was fired by Trump on May 9, and underscores how the probe is accelerating.
Investigators were shifting from work that has largely been hidden from the public to conducting interviews and asking for grand jury subpoenas, the Post reported, citing people familiar with the investigation.
Also, The New York Times reported yesterday that Trump had told top Russian diplomats who visited the Oval Office last week that firing Comey relieved ‘‘great pressure’’ on him.
The report, which cited a US official who had seen a document summarising the meeting, said Trump also told the Russians the FBI director was ‘‘crazy, a real nut job’’.
Burr and Warner said the hearing would be scheduled for after the May 29 Memorial Day holiday in the US.
A White House response to Comey’s agreement to testify was not immediately available. Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who is on Air Force One with Trump, issued written statements responding to the stories in the Post and the Times.
Spicer did not confirm or dispute the comments in the Times story on the meeting with Russian envoys.
‘‘By grandstanding and politicising the investigation into Russia’s actions, James Comey created unnecessary pressure on our ability to engage and negotiate with Russia,’’ Spicer said.
He responded to the report that a White House official was a person of interest with one sentence: ‘‘As the President has stated before – a thorough investigation will confirm that there was no collusion between the campaign and any foreign entity.’’
The Trump administration was already engulfed in crisis as the Justice Department appointed Robert Mueller, a former FBI director, as special counsel to lead the probe into Russian election meddling and whether anyone close to Trump colluded in the effort.
Trump had ignited a political firestorm the previous week when he fired Comey, who was running the investigation. After the firing, associates of Comey leaked a February memo the FBI director had written describing a conversation in which Trump asked him to drop an investigation into for- mer White House national security adviser Michael Flynn’s dealings with Turkey and Russia.
Comey is sure to face pointed questions from the committee about whether Trump directly asked him to squash the Flynn investigation, and whether he thinks he was fired for refusing to do so.
When he appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month, Comey defended his decision to reveal that the FBI was restarting its probe into Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton’s email use just days before last year’s election REUTERS while not disclosing a separate probe into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.
Earlier yesterday, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said he thought Trump’s decision to fire Comey was the right call, providing his first public account of his role in the controversial dismissal.
The controversy is following Trump on a high-stakes eight-day trip across the Middle East and Europe packed with crucial meetings with key allies. Trump is scheduled to meet with Saudi King Salman, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Pope Francis, and newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron.
He also plans to make an address to the Arab World while in Saudi Arabia, and make his debut in international summitry at meetings of Nato leaders and leaders of the Group of Seven major industrialised democracies.
The political baggage from home adds to an already big challenge for a president who had no experience in foreign affairs before his election and who has already suffered repeated stumbles in encounters with other leaders. Bloomberg