Former FBI Director James Comey is set to testify before Congress on Thursday about his discussions with President Donald Trump related to the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. In his opening statement, released by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Comey details his contacts with Trump — nine one-on-one conversations, according to the former director — and the president’s repeated requests for “loyalty” from him.
The president fired Comey last month, saying that he had been thinking of “this Russia thing” when he made his decision. In the wake of Comey’s dismissal, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special prosecutor to oversee the investigation into whether there was any coordination between Trump's campaign and Russia to interfere in last year’s presidential election.
Comey confirmed the FBI’s investigation for the first time in March, noting that the counterintelligence probe began in late July 2016.
According to Comey’s prepared statement, Trump described the Russia investigation to him several times as a “cloud” hanging over his administration. During a March 30 phone call, Comey said Trump told him “he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia. He asked what we could do to ‘lift the cloud.’”
Comey also detailed his February 14 meeting in the Oval Office, where Trump raised the investigation of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn with him. The president “began by saying Flynn hadn’t done anything wrong in speaking with the Russians, but he had to let him go because he had misled the Vice President. He added that he had other concerns about Flynn, which he did not then specify,” according to Comey.
“He then said, ‘I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go,’” Comey wrote. “I replied only that ‘he is a good guy.’”
The Cipher Brief reached out to its network experts for their assessment of Comey's opening remarks.
The Cipher Brief: How do the Comey opening remarks impact the overall Russia investigation?
John McLaughlin, former Acting and Deputy CIA Director: Comey's written statement will deepen suspicions regarding the Trump-Russia relationship by conveying the impression that Trump was seeking to influence the person driving the investigation. At the same time, it leaves Trump's precise intent debatable. I am not an attorney, but I expect legal authorities to debate whether this is obstruction of justice, with the majority probably concluding not quite — at least not without more elaboration from Comey.
Michael Sulick, former Director of CIA's National Clandestine Service: While the various Congressional investigations will become even more politically divisive (if that's possible), I don't think the Comey remarks will have any impact on the special counsel's investigation —Bob Mueller will stick to the facts and follow them wherever they may lead, regardless of conversations between Comey and Trump.
John Sipher, former member of the CIA's senior intelligence service: I find former Director Comey's statement fascinating. I do not think it will have any effect on the formal investigation but will nonetheless have profound political impact.
I am a strong believer in our institutions and I believe that it is important to allow the FBI counter-intelligence investigation and former Director Mueller's probe to run their course. While the public is very focused on the leaks, news stories and the Congressional hearings, it is the work of the professional investigators that will determine whether there were criminal or inappropriate actions taken by the Trump campaign. If anything, Director Comey's testimony will only heighten the public and political pressure and make it harder for the investigators to do their job. So, while the testimony will do little to change the investigation, it will certainly keep political pressure on the President and the White House.
TCB: How should the Senators be focusing their questions to Comey?
McLaughlin: Senators should seek to determine how Comey judged Trump's intentions. He clearly saw it as inappropriate, but did he judge the president as pushing him or ordering him actually to drop the investigation or threatening to fire him If not given an ironclad guarantee of loyalty?
Sipher: I think that the most striking aspect of the statement is the implication that President Trump instructed former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn to contact the Russians. If I read it correctly, President Trump told then-Director Comey to consider backing off any investigation of Flynn, implying that he did nothing wrong other than lie to the Vice President. This suggests to me that that Trump was implying that Flynn had his support to engage with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Even if I mis-read the implication, I am certain that Democratic senators will pick up on the nuance and push to get a clear answer from Comey.
Democratic (and some Republican) Senators will also use their questions to highlight the extremely inappropriate efforts by President Trump to influence Comey — or as Comey stated, create a "patronage relationship." The fact that Comey had to inform the President and Attorney General that the FBI Director's job is a non-partisan one, is shocking. Comey's statement makes very clear that he saw the president's efforts to engage with him awkward, inappropriate, and worthy of mention to his leadership team at the FBI. I am sure that the senators will try to show just how outside the norm the president's actions were.
Further, there will certainly be questions surrounding President Trump's repeated efforts to have Comey state publicly that the president himself was not under investigation. The statement suggests that President Trump was obsessed with this detail. Democratic senators will look to probe these statements to imply that Trump was only concerned about himself and not those on his team. Also, the wording of Comey's statement in this regard could also suggest that he (Comey) considered it possible that President Trump could well become a target of the investigation in the future, even if he wasn't at the time of the discussion. Comey's advice to the President to avoid a public statement that he was not under investigation due to the possible need to correct it later on (or, as Comey called it, "Duty to Correct") could be read to suggest that Comey was unsure that the president would not become a subject of investigation down the road.
There is a lot for the Senate to unpack in Comey's statement, and his testimony will likely further heat up the uproar over Russian involvement in the election and campaign. It will also provide Democrats with plenty of fodder to show that President Trump is either ignorant of how the government is meant to run, or worse, does not care and is willing to be seen to be abusing his power.
The Cipher Brief’s Mackenzie Weinger and Pam Benson contributed to this report.
