No mincing words: Comey says Trump lied
Obstruction case is Mueller’s call
Fired FBI director James Comey sketched a case Thursday that President Trump obstructed justice by asking him to drop the bureau’s investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
In his first public comments since Trump forced him out of the bureau, Comey described the president’s request as “stunning” but maintained that “it’s not for me to say” whether Trump broke the law. That is an issue for special counsel Robert Mueller, he said.
Still, over more than two hours of testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, he walked lawmakers through a series of events that closely track basic elements of a federal obstruction of justice charge.
Comey said Trump met with him alone in the Oval Office on Feb. 14 after asking his aides and Attorney General Jeff Sessions to leave the room. The then-FBI chief said Trump turned the discussion to Flynn, whom he had fired the day before. Flynn was the subject of criminal investigations into a conversation he had with Russia’s ambassador and statements he made to FBI agents. Flynn, Comey recalled Trump saying, was “a good guy,” and “I hope you can let this go.”
“This is the president of the United States to me alone saying I hope this,” Comey said. “I took it as, this is what he wants me to do. I didn’t obey that, but that’s the way I took it.”
Whether that would amount to obstruction of justice is harder to establish. Federal law broadly prohibits people from “corruptly” attempting to influence or interfere with law enforcement proceedings. Prosecutions for violating those laws are both comparatively rare — Justice Department records list 56 cases in which someone was found guilty of violating the laws since 2013 — and difficult. The government must prove that someone sought to influence the case and that their reasons for doing so were improper.
Former prosecutors said Comey’s testimony laid out sufficiently clear evidence to justify a
tions that “were lies, plain and simple.”
A mile and a half away from the Senate hearing room during nearly three hours of testimony, Trump restrained from tweeting from the White House while Comey spoke and declined to respond to reporters’ shouted questions later in the afternoon.
The president’s personal attorney, Marc Kasowitz, read a statement to reporters gathered at the National Press Club in which he accused Comey of making “unauthorized disclosures to the press of privileged communications with the president” and suggested that might be fodder for an investigation itself.
That was a reference to Comey’s jaw-dropping disclosure that he had allowed a friend to read portions of one of those contemporaneous memos to a reporter for The New York Times in hopes that the story would spark appointment of a special counsel. Indeed, a day after the report was published — alleging that Trump told Comey he hoped the FBI director would “let go” of the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn — the Justice Department named former FBI director Robert Mueller as special counsel.
In response to two of Comey’s most serious allegations, Kasowitz said Trump never told the FBI director he expected “loyalty” from him and never suggested he curb the Flynn investigation. Kasowitz and other Trump defenders noted that Comey confirmed he had told Trump he wasn’t personally under investigation for collusion with Russia and that Comey testified he didn’t believe the president tried to interfere with that broader FBI inquiry.
Comey didn’t emerge unscathed from his testimony. He said he decided to arrange the leak of the Flynn story after Trump tweeted, “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversation before he starts leaking to the press!” (This anecdote might provide some ammunition for Trump allies who have urged the president to curtail his Twitter activity.)
That sort of one-step-removed manipulation of the news isn’t unusual in Washington, but it is rare to have a senior official acknowledge that he was behind it, with such a specific instigation and goal.
Comey said he may have been “cowardly” in not more directly confronting Trump about conduct Comey saw as inappropriate, a point pressed by some Republican senators.
Comey came across as measured, serious, lawyerly. He showed an aw-shucks demeanor when he demurred he was no “Captain Courageous” and expressed the hope that the White House would release tapes of his conversations with the president, if they exist. “Lordy, I hope there are tapes,” he said.
He said he leaked the story because giving it directly to reporters would be “like feeding seagulls at the beach,” swelling the ranks of those staking out his driveway and making them harder to get to disperse.
“There should be no fuzz on this whatsoever,” he said. “The
“There should be no fuzz on this whatsoever. The Russians interfered in our election during the 2016 cycle. They did it with purpose. They did it with sophistication. ... That’s about as unfake as you can possibly get.”
Former FBI director James Comey
Russians interfered in our election during the 2016 cycle. They did it with purpose. They did it with sophistication. They did it with overwhelming technical efforts, and it was an active-measures campaign driven from the top of that government. ... That’s about as unfake as you can possibly get.”
The hearing was political theater laced with legal risk and electoral repercussions. Some Republicans warned of major setbacks in next year’s congressional midterm elections if the Trump White House can’t find its footing and the troubling Russian investigations can’t be resolved.
It was a Washington event that drew multiple listeners, from the senators on the committee to the nationwide TV audience. And, of course, an audience of one: special counsel Mueller.