President Trump has selected Christopher Wray (ex-Bridgegate lawyer to Chris Christie) as his hopeful FBI director, but he can’t wash James Comey out of his hair. Nope, the ex-FBI head will testify in front of the Senate Intel Committee on Thursday, and although he’s expected to “stop short” of saying Trump committed obstruction of justice, all eyes will be on his three scheduled hours of public testimony, after which he will continue to talk with senators behind closed doors. The president may also live-tweet the event, which … can’t possibly work out well. Especially since Comey reportedly collected some corroborating witnesses to back his story up, should he need them at any point in the future.
During his testimony, Comey will reportedly tell Senators exactly why he felt so uneasy about Trump — to the point where he hid from Trump during a White House event and apparently asked Jeff Sessions not to leave him alone with the president — and felt the need to document their encounters for posterity. This included the memo (shared by Comey associates) that detailed Trump’s alleged attempt to kill the FBI probe into Michael Flynn’s Russian ties. Now, Vox reports that Comey also pulled aside three senior FBI officials to tell them his Trump story:
Those three officials, according to two people with detailed, firsthand knowledge of the matter, were Jim Rybicki, Comey’s chief of staff and senior counselor; James Baker, the FBI’s general counsel; and Andrew McCabe, then the bureau’s deputy director, and now the acting director, following Trump’s firing of Comey last month. Comey spoke to them within two days of his Oval conversation with Trump, the sources said, and recounted the president’s comments about the Flynn investigation.
All three officials reportedly regard themselves as “potential fact witnesses” in the event that Special Counsel Robert Mueller calls upon their knowledge of the Comey-Trump situation. They’re also said to be fastidious note-takers like Comey, so one can bet that they’ve got some memos of their own in storage. McCabe is, not incidentally, testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday. Stay tuned.
(Via Vox)