Another disclosure as hearings begin today
Trump wanted Coats to intervene on probe, intel official says
WASHINGTON — The investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election is entering a highstakes phase for the White House as lawmakers prepare to publicly question former FBI Director James Comey and other top intelligence and law-enforcement officials about whether President Donald Trump sought to block the FBI inquiry.
The testimony before the Senate intelligence committee will get underway a day after it was revealed that the nation’s top intelligence official told associates in March that President Donald Trump asked him if he could intervene with Comey to get the bureau to back off its focus on former national security adviser Michael Flynn in its Russia probe, according to officials who spoke Tuesday evening.
On March 22, less than a week after being confirmed by the Senate, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats attended a briefing at the White House together with officials from several government agencies. As the briefing was wrapping up, Trump asked everyone to leave the room except for Coats and CIA Director Mike Pompeo.
The president then started complaining about the FBI investigation and Comey’s handling of it, said officials familiar with the account Coats gave to associates. Two days earlier, Comey had confirmed in a congressional hearing that the bureau was probing whether Trump’s campaign coordinated with Russia during the 2016 race.
After the encounter, Coats discussed the conversation with other officials and decided that intervening with Comey as Trump had suggested would be inappropriate, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal matters.
Coats will testify today before the Senate intelligence committee. Lawmakers on the panel said they would press him for information about his interactions with the president regarding the FBI investigation.
The Senate intelligence committee will hold hearings today and Thursday into the intensifying legal and political thicket, one that already has spawned a special counsel to oversee a multi-pronged FBI investigation, a related criminal grand jury inquiry and four separate congressional investigations.
Comey’s testimony Thursday will be the marquee event, broadcast live on nearly every TV network and cable news channel, since the former FBI director will be speaking out for the first time since Trump fired him without warning May 9 for what the president later called the “Russia thing.”
Whatever light they may shed, the political theater of nationally televised hearings will be a reminder of previous Congressional nail-biters — especially Watergate in the 1970s, Iran-Contra in the 1980s and the Monica Lewinsky scandal in the 1990s — that riveted the nation and brought down or sharply undermined Presidents Nixon, Reagan and Clinton.
The political risks may be just as high for Trump, who has been forced to retain his own lawyer for the Russia-related probes as he struggles to take control of a sprawling political agenda and a skeptical Republican Party more than four months after taking office.
Lawmakers said Tuesday that they expect Comey to provide details about his phone calls and meetings with Trump but to refrain from discussing the FBI probe into any Trump campaign ties to Russia. It’s not clear how far Comey will go in public in laying out his legal concerns about Trump’s comments.
If he comes close to affirming in public the same level of concern that associates have said he expressed in private, it will be an explosive hearing that could further cloud Trump’s White House with questions of whether he sought to obstruct justice.
“If he confirms what’s been alleged, it’s obviously serious business,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said in an interview. He added, “I don’t think we ought to anticipate the consequences until we get all the facts.”
Comey is likely to face withering questioning from some Republicans intent on defending the president.
“If he has the view that he can talk about specific things he wants to talk about and can’t talk about exactly similar things that he doesn’t want to talk about, I think that’ll be a big problem with me — and with the committee,” said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., a committee member who is part of GOP leadership.
Before a White House meeting with congressional leaders Tuesday, Trump was asked if he had a message for Comey. “I wish him good luck,” he said.
The kickoff starts today when some of America’s top national security officials — Coats, the director of national intelligence, Adm. Michael Rogers, director of the National Security Agency, Andrew McCabe, acting FBI director, and Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general — will testify.
Lawmakers are likely to press the intelligence officials about the leak of a classified report on Russian hacking to The Intercept, a national-security news website. Federal prosecutors filed a criminal complaint against a government contractor in Georgia, charging her with sharing classified information.
In a House hearing last month, Coats and Rogers both refused to discuss reports that Trump also had sought to pressure them to ease up on Russia. Both said they would not discuss their private conversations with the president.
But Comey insisted on testifying in public, raising the likelihood that he will provide an account of his private meetings and calls with Trump.
Before he was fired, Comey’s associates have said, he had carefully rebuffed what he interpreted as requests from Trump to stop the FBI investigation of former White House national security adviser Flynn, who was forced to resign in February for lying about his meetings with Russian officials.
On Tuesday, Flynn turned over 600 pages of business records to the Senate Intelligence Committee, complying with a subpoena seeking documents from his consulting business related to Russia, according to a congressional aide.
Comey apparently cleared what he plans to tell Congress when he spoke last week with Robert Mueller, the special counsel appointed by the Justice Department to oversee the federal probe.
Although nearly a month has passed since he fired Comey, Trump has yet to name a new FBI director.
The president has scheduled a speech to religious conservatives Thursday shortly after Comey is expected to begin his testimony.