Comey Senate Intelligence Panel testimony discussion thread

I figured we needed a special thread for what is sure to be a interesting week of speculation leading up to June 8th.

The big question -- will Trump invoke executive privilege?

 

Some fodder to mull on...
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Comey Expected to Testify Before Senate, if He Isn’t Blocked

Senators expect the former F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, to testify next week about his conversations with President Trump, congressional officials said on Wednesday, setting up a test of the White House’s willingness to cooperate with investigations into Mr. Trump’s associates.

Putting the highly anticipated hearing on the calendar would force Mr. Trump to decide whether to invoke executive privilege and try to prevent Mr. Comey from testifying. Mr. Comey is expected to be asked about several conversations he had with the president, including one in which he says Mr. Trump encouraged him to stop investigating his former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn.

Separately, the House Intelligence Committee issued subpoenas on Wednesday to Mr. Flynn and the president’s longtime lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, for documents and their testimony. And in an unusual move, the Republican chairman of the House panel — who has recused himself from leading the investigation — unilaterally issued a series of subpoenas to the intelligence community. The chairman, Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California, is seeking information about how Obama administration officials handled sensitive information about Trump associates.

But Mr. Comey’s testimony would be the most sensational moment to date in a controversy that has engulfed the Trump administration from its beginning. Congress and a Justice Department special counsel are investigating whether Mr. Trump’s associates colluded with Russia to meddle in the 2016 presidential election.

Courts have recognized a president’s constitutional right to keep his discussions a secret in most instances. A White House spokeswoman had no comment on whether Mr. Trump planned to try to block Mr. Comey’s testimony. It is a delicate decision with political and legal consequences.

“If they claim executive privilege, politically it gives the appearance that there’s something to hide, which just amplifies all the criticism,” said Mark J. Rozell, a George Mason University professor and the author of a book on the history of executive privilege.

As the Senate committee prepared for Mr. Comey’s testimony, House investigators moved forward on Wednesday with their own inquiry.

Both Mr. Flynn and Mr. Cohen, a longtime associate of Mr. Trump who acted as a spokesman during his campaign, refused to comply with the House panel’s initial requests, forcing it to issue subpoena for the information.

The subpoenas were issued to Flynn Intel Group L.L.C., Mr. Flynn’s firm. The firm was paid more than $500,000 to represent Turkey in a dispute with the United States government while Mr. Flynn was advising the Trump campaign. He belatedly registered as a foreign agent for that work after being forced out of the Trump administration for misrepresenting his communications with the Russian ambassador to Vice President Mike Pence.

Separately, Representative Adam Schiff, Democrat of California, dismissed accusations from Carter Page, another Trump adviser who is under scrutiny, that the committee is preventing him from testifying.

Mr. Schiff, the House panel’s top Democrat, said the investigation would first review relevant documents before interviewing witnesses. “And while we anticipate interviews to begin shortly, we have agreed that the pace of those interviews will be dictated by the needs of the investigation and not the preferences of outside parties,” Mr. Schiff said in a statement.

Mr. Trump threw his own fuel on that fire on Wednesday. “So now it is reported that the Democrats, who have excoriated Carter Page about Russia, don’t want him to testify,” he said in a series of Twitter posts. “He blows away their case against him & now wants to clear his name by showing ‘the false or misleading testimony by James Comey, John Brennan…’ Witch Hunt!”

Mr. Brennan was C.I.A. director during the Obama administration. The House committee also issued three subpoenas related to the “unmasking” of Trump associates within classified reports, according to a congressional official. The subpoenas went to the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency, the official said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/31/us/politics/james-comey-testify-trump-russia-fbi.html

 

If Trump does go with executive privilege the firestorm will be unreal.

(Full article at the link).
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Can Trump block Comey from testifying? White House could try to invoke executive privilege

Former FBI Director James Comey will have the nation captivated next Thursday when he testifies before a Senate panel about the stunning accusations that President Donald Trump pressured him to end his investigation into his former national security adviser's ties to Russia.

But can Trump stop Comey from talking?

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said Friday that "the President will make that decision," raising the prospect that the White House may try to invoke executive privilege over Comey's conversations with Trump.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said later Friday the decision by the White House counsel's office hasn't been made yet.

"That committee hearing was just notice and I think, obviously, it has got to be reviewed," he said.
When pressed on that not being a no, Spicer added: "Literally, my understanding is the date for that hearing was just set. I have not spoken to counsel yet. I don't know how they are going to respond."

Legal experts, however, are skeptical the President could successfully invoke the privilege to muzzle Comey because Trump has already written a letter about their conversations, talked about them publicly and even tweeted about them.

In other words, they say, the President can't use the privilege as a sword in one context and a shield in another.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/02/politics/trump-james-comey-executive-privilege/index.html

 

White House: Trump will not try to stop James Comey testimony by asserting executive privilege

President Trump will not attempt to stop former FBI director James B. Comey from testifying in a public hearing Thursday by asserting executive privilege, the White House said Monday.

“The president's power to assert executive privilege is well established,” principal deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters during the daily press briefing. “However, in order to facilitate a swift and thorough examination of the facts sought by the Senate Intelligence Committee, President Trump will not assert executive privilege regarding James Comey's scheduled testimony.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...y-testimony-by-asserting-executive-privilege/

Comey Memo Says Trump Asked Him to End Flynn Investigation

President Trump asked the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, to shut down the federal investigation into Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, in an Oval Office meeting in February, according to a memo Mr. Comey wrote shortly after the meeting.

“I hope you can let this go,” the president told Mr. Comey, according to the memo.

The documentation of Mr. Trump’s request is the clearest evidence that the president has tried to directly influence the Justice Department and F.B.I. investigation into links between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia. Late Tuesday, Representative Jason Chaffetz, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, demanded that the F.B.I. turn over all “memoranda, notes, summaries and recordings” of discussions between Mr. Trump and Mr. Comey.

Such documents, Mr. Chaffetz wrote, would “raise questions as to whether the president attempted to influence or impede” the F.B.I.

Mr. Comey wrote the memo detailing his conversation with the president immediately after the meeting, which took place the day after Mr. Flynn resigned, according to two people who read the memo. It was part of a paper trail Mr. Comey created documenting what he perceived as the president’s improper efforts to influence a continuing investigation. An F.B.I. agent’s contemporaneous notes are widely held up in court as credible evidence of conversations.

Mr. Comey shared the existence of the memo with senior F.B.I. officials and close associates. The New York Times has not viewed a copy of the memo, which is unclassified, but one of Mr. Comey’s associates read parts of it to a Times reporter.

“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Mr. Trump told Mr. Comey, according to the memo. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”

Mr. Trump told Mr. Comey that Mr. Flynn had done nothing wrong, according to the memo.

Mr. Comey did not say anything to Mr. Trump about curtailing the investigation, replying only: “I agree he is a good guy.”

In a statement, the White House denied the version of events in the memo.

“While the president has repeatedly expressed his view that General Flynn is a decent man who served and protected our country, the president has never asked Mr. Comey or anyone else to end any investigation, including any investigation involving General Flynn,” the statement said. “The president has the utmost respect for our law enforcement agencies, and all investigations. This is not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation between the president and Mr. Comey.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/...ey-trump-flynn-russia-investigation.html?_r=0