Congress ramps up Russia probes |
Sessions testifies to Senate committee in public today
Fired FBI director James Comey’s dramatic testimony last week has ramped up congressional investigations of Russia’s interference in the 2016 U. S. presidential election as House and Senate committees look at issuing more subpoenas for key witnesses and expanding the scope of their inquiries.
“This is nowhere near the end of our investigation,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R- N. C., declared immediately after Comey’s testimony before the panel last Thursday.
The most immediate evi-
dence of that is the fact that Attorney General Jeff Sessions will testify in public Tuesday before the same senators.
Sessions, who originally planned to testify in closed session, will face questions about his role in President Trump’s decision to fire Comey and about his own meetings with Russian officials while he was Trump’s campaign adviser. Comey reportedly told senators in closed session Thursday that Sessions had a third, previously undisclosed meeting with Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the United States.
Beyond Tuesday’s hearing, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee and a member of the Intelligence Committee, is calling on the Judiciary panel to expand its investigation to all matters related to possible obstruction of justice.
Comey testified that he could not say whether Trump engaged in obstruction of justice when Comey says the president asked him to end the FBI’s investigation of Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser who was fired for lying about his contacts with Russian officials. Comey said he believes Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who was appointed special counsel to lead the Russia investigation, will look into any possible obstruction.
“It is my strong recommendation that the Judiciary Committee investigate all issues that raise a question of obstruction of justice,” Feinstein wrote in a letter to Chairman Chuck Grassley, R- Iowa. “These issues should be developed by our legal staff, presented to us and be subject to full Committee hearings.”
Feinsein also asked Grassley to consider issuing subpoenas to compel testimony from Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers about whether Trump asked them to downplay possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials in last year’s election. Coats and Rogers refused to discuss their conversations with the president at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing last week, but they said they did not feel “pressured” to interfere or intervene in the Russia investigation.
Grassley spokesman Taylor Foy said Monday that “no specific decisions on issuing subpoenas have been made at this time.” But he also said Grassley and Feinstein are working toward an agreement on which types of subpoenas — for documents, public testimony or private testimony — they might issue and in what order.
“That all depends on the course of the investigation,” Foy said.
On Friday, Grassley, Feinstein and two other members of the panel sent a letter to Columbia Law School professor Daniel Richman asking him to provide any memos Comey shared with him to be leaked to the media. Comey testified Thursday that he gave memos of his conversations with Trump to a professor friend at Columbia to leak to reporters in hopes that it would spur the Department of Justice to appoint a special counsel in the Russia investigation.
Grassley and Feinstein also are considering subpoenaing Comey to testify before their committee, which oversees the FBI. Comey declined an earlier invitation to appear voluntarily before the panel.
While the most recent news has focused on Comey and Sessions, investigators in both the Senate and House also want to hear from Flynn and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son- in- law and senior adviser. Kushner became a focus for lawmakers after reports that he asked Russian officials last December to set up a back- channel line of communications between the incoming Trump administration and Russia.
Kushner said he is willing to talk to congressional investigators and is expected to meet this month with staffers from the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Four congressional committees are investigating Russia connections: the Senate and House intelligence committees, the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
The House Intelligence Committee announced Friday that it requested Comey provide notes or memos he may still have detailing his conversations with Trump. The panel also is asking White House counsel Don McGahn to provide any tapes of Comey’s talks with Trump by June 23.
The House panel plans to ask former Homeland Security secretary Jeh Johnson to testify about Russia’s possible interference in the 2016 presidential race. Congressional investigators also want to hear from former Trump campaign advisers Carter Page, Paul Manafort and Roger Stone.
Sen. Susan Collins, R- Maine, who serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Congress still has a long way to go to get answers.
“It is pretty clear that the Russians tried to influence the election,” she said in an interview on MSNBC. “What we don’t know the answer to is ... whether or not any members of President Trump’s campaign were involved in that effort.”