Republican: Produce tapes of talks, if they exist
Panel to question AG Jeff Sessions on Tuesday.
Fellow Republicans pressed President Donald Trump on Sunday to come clean about whether he has tapes of private conversations with former FBI Director James Comey and provide them to Congress if he does or — possibly face a subpoena, as a Senate investigation into collusion with Russia or obstruction of justice extended to a Trump Cabinet member.
It was a sign of escalating fallout from riveting testi- mony from Comey last week of undue pressure from Trump, which drew an angry response from the president on Friday that Comey was lying.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions was in for sharp ques- tioning by senators on the Senate Intelligence committee Tuesday. Whether that hear- ing will be public or closed is not yet known.
“I don’t understand why the president just doesn’t clear this matter up once and for all,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a member of that committee, referring to the existence of any recordings.
She described Comey’s testimony as “candid” and “thorough” and said she would support a subpoena if needed. Trump “should voluntarily turn them over,” Collins said.
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., also a member of that
committee, agreed the panel needed to hear any tapes that exist. “We’ve obviously pressed the White House,” he said.
Trump’s aides have dodged questions about whether conversations relevant to the Rus
sia investigation have been recorded, and so has the pres- ident. Pressed on the issue Friday, Trump said “I’ll tell you about that maybe some- time in the very near future.”
Lankford said Sessions’ testimony Tuesday will help flesh out the truth of Comey’s allegations, including Ses
sions’ presence at the White House in February when Trump asked to speak to Comey alone. Comey alleges that Trump then privately asked him to drop a probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s contacts with Russia.
Comey also has said Sessions did not respond when he complained he didn’t “want to get time alone with the president again.” The Jus
tice Department has denied that, saying Sessions stressed to Comey the need to be care- ful about following appropriate policies.
“We want to be able to get his side of it,” Lankford said.
Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said “there’s a real question of the propriety” of Sessions’ involvement in Comey’s dismissal, because Sessions had stepped aside from the federal investigation into con- tacts between Russia and the Trump campaign. Comey was leading that probe.
Reed said he also wants to know if Sessions had more meetings with Russian offi- cials as a Trump campaign adviser than have been disclosed.
Trump on Sunday accused Comey of “cowardly” leaks
and predicted many more from him. “Totally illegal?” he asked in a tweet. “Very ‘cowardly!’”
Several Republican law- makers also criticized Comey for disclosing memos he had written in the aftermath of his private conversations with Trump, calling that action “inappropriate.” But, added Lankford “releasing his memos is not damaging to national security.”
The New York City federal prosecutor who expected to remain on the job when Trump took office but ended up being fired said he was made uncomfortable by oneon-one interactions with the president — just like Comey was. Preet Bharara told ABC’s “This Week” that Trump was trying to “cultivate some kind of relationship” with him when he called him twice before the inauguration to “shoot the breeze.”
He said Trump reached out to him again after the inau- guration but he refused to call back, shortly before he was fired.
On Comey’s accusations that Trump pressed him to drop the FBI investigation of Flynn, Bharara said “no one knows right now whether
there is a provable case of obstruction” of justice. But: “I think there’s absolutely evidence to begin a case.”
Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, a member of the Intelligence committee, sent a letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, urging him to investigate possible obstruction of justice by Trump in Grassley’s position as chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Feinstein is the top Democrat on that panel and a member of both.
She said Sessions should also testify before the Judiciary Committee, because it was better suited to explore legal questions of possible obstruction. Feinstein said she was espec i ally c oncerned after National Intelligence Director Dan Coats and National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers refused to answer questions from the intelligence committee about possible undue influence by Trump.
Feinstein said she did not necessarily believe Trump was unfit for office, as House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi has asserted, but said he has a “destabilizing effect” on government.
“There’s an unpredictability. He projects an instability,” Feinstein said. “Doing policy by tweets is really a shakeup for us, because there’s no justification presented.”