Why Comey’s testimony was utterly devastating to Trump
The day before, then-acting attorney general Sally Yates first alerted White House Counsel Donald McGahn that then-national security adviser Michael Flynn had lied about his transition contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak
.. This was no casual get-to-know-you social occasion. It occurred just as Trump was learning that Flynn was in enormous jeopardy.
.. he understood Trump’s expression of “hope” as a clear direction to drop the case. If this request was so benign, why did Trump seemingly feel uncomfortable making it in the presence of witnesses?
.. Even on the question of obstruction alone, he would want to question multiple additional witnesses about Trump’s dealings with Comey and the Flynn case/larger Russia inquiry, including
- Chief of Staff Reince Priebus,
- senior adviser/son-in-law Jared Kushner,
- McGahn,
- Attorney General Jeff Sessions and
- Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein.
- Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats and
- National Security Agency Director Michael S. Rogers
may have stiff-armed senators’ questions about Trump’s reported efforts to have them intervene on the Russia matter; they won’t be able to easily evade Mueller.