The Associated Press
Eric Tucker
Erica Werner
WASHINGTON–U.S. President Donald Trump today broke his silence on Twitter following explosive testimony by fired FBI Director James Comey, declaring “total and complete vindication.”
Trump, who had not posted on his Twitter account since Comey accused the administration of spreading “lies,” struck back with an early-morning tweet in which he said, “Wow, Comey is a leaker.”
Trump’s tweet came ahead of a news conference planned for today.
In his first congressional appearance since being abruptly fired last month, Comey yesterday described months of distrust of the president, bluntly asserting that Trump had fired him to interfere with the probe of Russia’s ties to the Trump campaign.
Comey also revealed that he had orchestrated the public release of information about his private conversations with the president in an effort to further the investigation.
Trump’s tweet readd: “Despite so many false statements and lies, total and complete vindication . . . and WOW, Comey is a leaker.”
Comey’s testimony, at a hugely-anticipated hearing that captured the country’s attention, provided a gripping account of his interactions with Trump and underscored the discord that had soured their relationship.
He portrayed Trump as a chief executive dismissive of the FBI’s independence and made clear that he interpreted Trump’s request to end an investigation into his former national security adviser as an order coming from the president.
Although Republicans worked to discredit Comey and to blunt the impact of his testimony, the ex-director’s statement deepened questions about the basis for his May 9 dismissal and about whether Trump’s actions constituted obstruction of justice.
The veteran lawman expressed confidence that could be a matter ripe for investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, though he declined to offer an opinion on whether it met such a threshold.
Trump’s private attorney, Marc Kasowitz, seized on Comey’s admission that he had told Trump on multiple occasions that he was not personally under investigation and maintained the testimony made clear that Trump “never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone.”
Kasowitz also jumped on Comey’s revelation that he had released details of his private conversations with the president, casting the former FBI director as one of the “leakers” set on undermining the Trump administration.
Still, there was no doubt the veteran lawman made for a challenging adversary.
“It’s my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation,” Comey said toward the end of more than two hours of testimony before the Senate intelligence committee.
“I was fired in some way to change, or the endeavour was to change, the way the Russia investigation was being conducted.
“That is a very big deal, and not just because it involves me,” he stressed.
At one point, he practically dared Trump to release any recordings of their conversations–a prospect the president once alluded to in a tweet.
“Lordy, I hope there are tapes,” Comey said, suggesting such evidence would back up his account over the president’s.
Thursday’s hearing brought Washington and other parts of the country to a standstill as Americans sat glued to their screens, harkening to the Watergate congressional hearings that held the nation rapt some four decades earlier.
Republicans, mindful of the gravity of the moment, worked feverishly to lessen any damage from the hearing.
They tried to undermine Comey’s credibility by issuing press releases–and even ads–pointing to a past instance where the FBI had to clean up the director’s testimony to Congress.
In his opening statement, Comey somberly accused the Trump administration of spreading “lies, plain and simple” in the aftermath of his abrupt ouster, declaring that the administration “chose to defame me and, more importantly, the FBI” by claiming the bureau was in disorder.
He then dove into the heart of the fraught political controversy around his firing and whether Trump interfered in the bureau’s Russia investigation, as he elaborated on written testimony released a day earlier.
In that testimony, Comey said that Trump demanded his “loyalty” and directly pushed him to “lift the cloud” of investigation by declaring publicly the president was not a target of the FBI probe into his campaign’s Russia ties.
He said that when Trump told him he hoped he would terminate an investigation into Michael Flynn, the ousted national security adviser, he interpreted that as a directive.
“I mean, this is the president of the United States, with me alone, saying, ‘I hope’ this,” he said.
“I took it as, this is what he wants me to do.”
