Trump allies’ strategy aims at Comey’s credibility
President on fired FBI chief ’s upcoming Senate hearing: ‘I wish him luck’
WASHINGTON — The White House and its allies are scrambling for ways to offset potential damage from fired FBI Director James Comey’s highly anticipated congressional testimony, an appearance that could expose new details about his discussions with President Donald Trump about the federal investigation into Russia’s election meddling.
Asked about the testimony, Trump on Tuesday was tightlipped: “I wish him luck,” he told reporters before a meeting with lawmakers.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday evening a person familiar with the situation said Comey had told Attorney General Jeff Sessions that he did not want to be left alone with Trump.
It was not immediately clear when the conversation occurred. But The New York Times, which first reported the interaction with Sessions, said it came after Trump had asked Comey in February to end an FBI investigation into Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn.
Justice Department spokesman Ian Prior declined to comment. He said Sessions “doesn’t believe it’s appropriate to respond to media inquiries on matters that may be related to ongoing investigations.”
Trump’s White House and its allies are crafting a strategy aimed at undermining Comey’s credibility. Both White House officials and an outside group that backs Trump plan to hammer Comey in the coming days for misstatements he made about Democrat Hillary Clinton’s emails during his last appearance on Capitol Hill.
An ad created by the proTrump Great America Alliance — a nonprofit “issues” group that isn’t required to disclose its donors — casts Comey as a “showboat” who was “consumed with election meddling” instead of focusing on combating terrorism. The 30-second spot is slated to run digitally on Wednesday and appear the next day on CNN and Fox News.
The Republican National Committee has been preparing talking points ahead of the hearing, which will be aired live on multiple TV stations. An RNC research email Monday issued a challenge to the lawmakers who will question Comey. There’s bipartisan agreement, the email says, that Comey “needs to answer a simple question about his conversations with President Trump: If you were so concerned, why didn’t you act on it or notify Congress?”
Comey’s testimony before the Senate intelligence committee marks his first public comments since he was abruptly ousted by Trump on May 9. Since then, Trump and Comey allies have traded competing narratives about their interactions. The president asserted that Comey told him three times that he was not personally under investigation, while the former director’s associates allege Trump asked Comey if he could back off an investigation into Flynn, who was fired as national security adviser because he misled the White House about his ties to Russia.
Democrats have accused Trump of firing Comey to upend the FBI’s Russia probe, which focused in large part on whether campaign aides coordinated with Moscow to hack Democratic groups during the election.
Days after Comey’s firing, the Justice Department appointed a special counsel, former FBI Director Robert Mueller, to oversee the federal investigation.