White House misses deadline on Comey Kevin Johnson
Senate investigators demanded former FBI chief ’s records
The White House and Justice Department broke a Senate committee’s deadline Wednesday to turn over any records detailing conversations between President Trump and James Comey before the FBI director was fired this month.
The administration requested more time to respond to lawmakers’ demands.
The Senate Judiciary Committee called for the records this month after reports that Comey documented his telephone calls and meetings with the president in highly detailed memos. At a dinner meeting in February, Trump allegedly pressed Comey to shut down the FBI’s inquiry into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. The contents of the memos were described by a person who reviewed the documents to news outlets, including USA TODAY, but lawmakers seek the original text.
The committee sent a separate request to White House counsel Donald McGahn asking for any audio recordings of the president’s interactions with Comey. Trump raised the prospect that secret recordings exist in a tweet after Comey’s dismissal.
“James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” Trump tweeted May 12. The White House has since refused to confirm or deny whether the president records his conversations.
“We are still awaiting official responses from both the Justice Department and White House,” the Senate Judiciary Committee said in a statement late Wednesday. “The committee is seeking a broad set of material, some of which may be related to the spe- cial counsel’s investigation, but some of it certainly is not.”
After Comey’s removal and the reports about the former director’s memos sparked questions about possible obstruction of justice, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed a special counsel, former FBI director Robert Mueller, to oversee the FBI’s Russia investigation.
Unless the administration seeks to claim that documents cannot be disclosed because they represent “privileged” communication involving the president, the committee said, the “expectation is for the request to be met.”
“Both the White House and the Justice Department have indicated that they need additional time but gave no indication of when they’d comply with the request,” according to the committee’s statement.
In its request to the Justice Department, committee leaders requested not only Comey’s notes of his interactions with Trump — but any documentation of his communication with President Obama.
Should the administration assert privilege, the claim could set off a separate fight, possibly threatening Comey’s appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee. A fight over whether notes and recordings are privileged could draw the White House deeper into a dispute that threatens to stall the Trump administration’s legislative agenda.
Congress has had trouble getting some documents for its investigations. This week, Flynn, who was fired as national security adviser in February after he misled administration officials about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States, rejected a Senate Intelligence Committee subpoena for records of his communication with Russian officials, asserting his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
The retired Army lieutenant general has figured prominently, along with other former Trump advisers Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and Carter Page, in the FBI’s wide-ranging investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
The Judiciary panel appears determined.
In its initial request for Comey documents, the committee acknowledged some information may not be public.
“We are writing to request that the FBI provide the committee with all such memos, if they exist,” the committee’s request stated May 17. “We anticipate that some of these documents may be classified, some may not, and others may contain both classified and unclassified information.”
Even as Trump continues his foreign trip this week, back in Washington the Russia story shows no sign of going away.
Comey is likely to testify before an open session of the Senate Intelligence Committee about his interactions with the president at an open hearing after the Memorial Day holiday. The intelligence panel also seeks Comey’s memos.
“Both the White House and the Justice Department have indicated that they need additional time but gave no indication of when they’d comply with the request.” Senate Judiciary Committee