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WickedsDesire -> Looking forward to James Comey testifying on Thursday? (6/6/2017 8:10:27 AM)
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James Comey is due to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday
What to expect from James Comey's testimony on Thursday
It’s been nearly a month since President Trump fired former FBI Director James B. Comey. In the weeks since, the FBI has intensified its investigation into Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 election and the possibility that it coordinated with people in Trump’s campaign. Public interest has been keen on Trump’s reasons for firing the FBI chief.
On Thursday, Comey is scheduled to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee. How many questions will be fully answered remains unclear. What’s certain is that all of Washington, and the rest of the country, will wait with bated breath.
Here’s what you need to know about Comey’s testimony.
Why is Comey going back in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee? Hasn't he testified twice already this year?
Good question.
During a House Intelligence Committee hearing in March, Comey and National Security Agency Director Adm. Michael S. Rogers confirmed that the FBI was investigating Russia’s possible coordination with people in the Trump campaign. That same day, Trump dismissed the story as “fake news.”
Comey and Rogers also testified that they had no evidence to back Trump’s claims that President Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower.
In May, just days before Comey was fired, he testified before a Senate Intelligence Committee and defended how he handled the FBI’s investigation during the campaign into Hillary Clinton’s email practices while she was secretary of State. In that hearing, he repeated that the FBI was continuing to investigate Trump associates’ possible coordination with Russia.
But a lot has happened since then.
This latest testimony will focus on parts of the story that have become public since Trump fired Comey.
What's happened since the last time he testified?
Besides the fact that Comey was fired? Quite a bit, actually.
The White House changed stories several times about why Trump fired Comey. First, officials said Trump had acted on the recommendation of Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein, who objected to how Comey had handled the Clinton investigation. Then they said that the rank and file of the FBI had lost faith in Comey. But in an interview with NBC, Trump said that he had made up his mind to fire Comey before he met with Rosenstein and that “this Russia thing” was on his mind when he did so.
More questions were raised when Trump implied that he had tapes of his meetings with Comey.
But the climax came two weeks after Comey’s firing when people close to the former FBI chief revealed that a memo he wrote after a meeting with Trump in February described Trump asking him to drop the investigation into former national security advisor Michael Flynn.
A day later, Rosenstein named former FBI director Robert S. Mueller III as a special counsel to oversee the Russia investigation.
All the while, Trump has continued to call that investigation a distraction from more important matters.
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