“The administration chose to defame me and, more importantly, the FBI by saying the organization was in disarray … those were lies,” Comey said.
He told the Senate intelligence committee Thursday that the “shifting explanations” from the White House for why Trump fired him last month “confused” and increasingly concerned him.
Comey seized center stage in a compelling national political drama as he took his seat in the hearing room to deliver congressional testimony that has grave implications for the fate of Trump’s presidency.
Comey testified that it was not up to him to say whether the conversations that he had with Trump amounted to an obstruction of justice.
“I don’t think it’s for me to say whether the conversation I had with the President was an effort to obstruct,” Comey said, though he allowed that he was disturbed by the encounter in the Oval Office on February 14, in which the former FBI chief said that Trump had asked him to ease up on the probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Comey walked into the hearing room, wearing a dark suit and red tie, and sat impassively while a phalanx of press photographers crowded in front of him to take his picture. He sat alone at the witness table, facing the committee senators.
Republican Senate intelligence committee Chairman Richard Burr promised that the panel would establish the “facts separate from rampant speculation” and lay them before the American people so the nation could move on from the drama over alleged Russian interference in last year’s election.
The top Democrat on the committee, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, summed up the Democratic case against Trump, building from the prepared testimony that Comey submitted Wednesday.
“The President himself appears to have been engaged in an effort to influence or co-opt the director of the FBI,” Warner said. “Think about it: the President of the United States asking the FBI director to drop an ongoing investigation.”
The hearing room of the Hart Senate Office Building quickly filled to capacity Thursday morning in advance of the event, as hundreds lined up in the hallway, a queue that stretch into the next building over and for which some staffers and interns started standing in the 4 a.m. ET hour. Among those high-profile names in attendance include Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee and Maxine Waters, as well as another well-known fired Justice Department official, Preet Bharara.
Trump’s camp was reacting in real time to Comey’s testimony, which was being carried on network television as well as streamed on multiple mobile devices in a rare moment of common national experience in the Internet age. An administration official said the President would monitor the hearings from a White House dining room in between meetings.
A person close to Trump’s legal team said that the President “disputes ever saying that he wanted Comey’s loyalty or to drop the case against Michael Flynn.”
His testimony represents a pivotal moment in the saga of Russian election hacking and alleged collusion by Trump aides that has cast a dark shadow over the opening months of the new administration.
Comey will face questions about whether Trump abused his power in demanding loyalty from the former FBI chief. He will also be grilled on claims the President obstructed justice by asking him to shut down part of the bureau’s Russia probe.
The drama seems destined to take its place alongside televised Capitol Hill cliffhangers of the past, including the Anita Hill hearing in 1991, parts of the Watergate hearings in 1973 and the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954, which all contributed vignettes that have gone down in political lore.
In essence, this comes down to a showdown between two versions of the same events — one offered by Trump, the other presented by the respected FBI director whom he fired.
And given Trump’s obsession with news coverage and belief that he has been unfairly maligned in the Russia probe, his reaction to Comey’s testimony — possibly on Twitter — is likely to add to the atmospherics of a seminal political moment.
Comey’s penchant for making a theatrical splash has already turned what was set to be a one-day drama into a two-day feeding frenzy, after he released his prepared opening statement Wednesday afternoon, transfixing Washington.
The former FBI director wrote that the President had demanded his loyalty, pressed him to drop a probe into Flynn and repeatedly pressured him to publicly declare that Trump himself was not under investigation. Comey made clear his discomfort with the President’s actions, saying it seemed as though Trump was trying to create a “patronage relationship” with him. He will also testify Thursday that he felt compelled to immediately write down details of his encounters with Trump for the record. He also said he implored Attorney General Jeff Sessions to shield him from future one-on-one conversations with the President.
Democrats at Thursday’s hearing will highlight one of the most stunning revelations of Comey’s testimony, his statement that Trump asked him to halt the FBI probe into Flynn’s conversations during the transition with Russia’s ambassador to Washington.
He wrote that Trump said during a private meeting in the Oval Office: “‘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.”
“I replied only that ‘he is a good guy.'” Comey wrote, then added: “I did not say I would ‘let this go.'”
Comey’s account of this encounter conflicts with Trump’s own statements. At a news conference May 18, the President was asked whether he had asked the FBI director to pull the plug on the Flynn component of the Russia investigation.
“No. No. Next question,” Trump said.
Democrats believe the exchange between Trump and Comey about Flynn is more evidence that could build a case that the President obstructed justice — which in several times in history has been regarded as an impeachable offense.
“I think it is devastating. … If the President said those words, I believe it is absolutely devastating, completely inappropriate,” said New Mexico Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich, a member of the Senate intelligence committee, on CNN.
While Comey’s prepared testimony electrified Washington, it remains unclear how much further he will go in the hearing. For instance, he’s not expected to make an assessment whether Trump obstructed justice. Given that he is now a witness rather than a prosecutor, the former FBI chief is expected to leave that judgment to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
Comey’s early release of his testimony gave Democrats a chance to hone their questions for Thursday, but also flushed out how Republicans will respond.
Trump’s personal lawyer Marc Kasowitz highlighted Comey’s statements in the testimony that he had told Trump twice and congressional leaders once that the President was not a target of the FBI’s Russia investigation.
“The President is pleased that Mr. Comey has finally publicly confirmed his private reports that the President was not under investigation in any Russian probe,” said Kasowitz in a statement.
“The President feels completely and totally vindicated. He is eager to continue to move forward with his agenda.”
But Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that selectively reading Comey’s testimony did not exonerate Trump.
“You have got to wait until the end of the investigation before anybody can say they are vindicated,” Whitehouse said.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct the year of the Army-McCarthy hearings.
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