Trump pushed for testimony

Experts say move raises questions on presidential interference

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump urged the Justice Department to allow an FBI informant to testify before Congress about Russian efforts to enter the U.S. energy market during the Obama administration, a senior White House adviser confirmed Friday.

Trump supported the request of Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who last week asked the Justice Department to lift the undercover informant’s gag order.

By getting involved, however, the president seems to have ignored long-standing restrictions put in place after the Watergate-era abuses of the Nixon years to limit White House involvement in criminal law enforcement matters. Earlier he was criticized for intervening in DOJ matters for firing FBI Director James B. Comey in May over the FBI’s investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The White House was unapologetic. “It is not unusual for a president to weigh in,” Trump’s senior adviser, Kellyanne Conway, said on CNN on Friday, refuting numerous legal analysts who say otherwise.

“He believes — and many others do — frankly, that the FBI informant should be free to say what he knows,” Conway said.

Despite investigations that found no wrongdoing, Trump has repeatedly pointed to the Obama administration’s approval of the 2010 sale of U.S. uranium mines to a company backed by the Russian government as an example of Hillary Clinton’s helping the Russians.

The sale of the Canada-based Uranium One to Russian energy company Rosatom was approved while Clinton led the State Department. Some investors in Uranium One had donated to her husband’s global philanthropic foundation.

So far, there is no publicly available evidence that Clinton was aware of Russian efforts, or that the FBI investigation uncovered any wrongdoing related to the deal. The State Department was one of nine U.S. departments or agencies that approved the sale.