GOP targets Comey with more attacks
Effort to discredit ex-FBI chief driven by Mueller probe
WASHINGTON — The Republican attacks that accompanied the firing of FBI Director James Comey have sharply intensified in the last two weeks, with broadsides delivered on Twitter, public statements and even from the White House podium.
Comey, who in June said President Donald Trump and the White House had lied about him and the law enforcement agency he led, has been repeatedly accused of delivering false testimony, of prematurely exonerating Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server and of improperly leaking details about his private conversations with the president.
The attacks, which come as Congress and federal investigators probe the circumstances of his dismissal, appear clearly designed to undercut the credibility of a veteran lawman whose testimony and vivid first-person accounts loom as central to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
Though Trump’s lawyers over the summer had been mulling ways to undermine the legitimacy of Mueller’s investigation, the steppedup salvos suggest White House officials and Trump’s legal team see Comey — who, despite enjoying broad support from within the FBI, also received bipartisan criticism for his handling of the Clinton probe — as a more vulnerable target for attack.
Jay Sekulow, one of Trump’s lawyers, told The Associated Press this week that he did not consider Comey to be a “credible witness” and that there were multiple reasons for Comey’s firing.
“I’m not looking at this as a legal strategy. I’m just discussing facts. Read Hillary Clinton’s book,” said Sekulow, referring to the newly released post-mortem of last year’s election that harshly criticizes Comey’s Former FBI Director James Comey has come under more frequent GOP attacks recently. oversight of the email investigation.
But there’s also no question that attempts to sully Comey’s reputation, and to characterize him as a rogue and ineffective leader, are also aimed at undercutting any potential obstruction of justice allegations arising from the May 9 firing and at planting the idea that the dismissal was the culmination of legitimate performance concerns — not an effort to railroad the Russia probe.
“I think there’s a recognition that if there were to be an obstruction case, the credibility of Jim Comeywill be a central issue — no different than the credibility of a central, critical witness to any other case,” said Jacob Frenkel, a Washington defense lawyer who has followed the investigation.
“The best time to cast doubt on a witness’ reputation or reliability,” he added, “is before any case actually hits the courtroom or Congress in a charging document.”
The attacks on Comey’s performance aren’t surprising given the White House’s labored, and evolving, efforts to explain the firing.
The criticism of Comey began immediately after his firing, when White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed to have personally heard from many unsatisfied FBI agents about low morale at the bureau.
But it has escalated in the last two weeks. Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, released segments of interviews with FBI officials that show Comey had begun contemplating how to close the Clinton email investigation without charges months be-