The dramatic three-hour hearing of James Comey before the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee on June 8 has dragged President Donald Trump deeper into the Russia scandal, which he desperately wants to get out of. Mr. Trump once called Mr. Comey, who he fired as the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation last month, a “nut job” and the probe into allegations of Russian intervention in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections a “witch-hunt”. But Mr. Comey’s testimony, under oath before the Senate, lends credence to arguments that the administration’s handling of Russiagate was problematic from the very beginning. Mr. Comey, who questioned the President’s integrity and accused the administration of spreading “lies, plain and simple”, has torn into the White House narrative on both the Russia probe and his firing. He confirmed reports that Mr. Trump had asked him to let go of the investigation on Michael Flynn, the initial choice as National Security Adviser who was fired for lying to the Vice President over his own Russia links. This assertion directly counters Mr. Trump’s claim that he had not asked Mr. Comey to back off on the Flynn probe. Mr. Comey also said he was fired over the Russia probe , not over any mishandling of the investigation, as claimed by the White House, into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while Secretary of State.
In short, Mr. Comey did not directly accuse the President of trying to obstruct justice — when asked he said it is up to the Special Counsel to understand what the President’s intent was. He tactfully presented a timeline of their interactions: Mr. Trump first asks for Mr. Comey’s loyalty, tells him to drop the probe on his aide Mr. Flynn, and later fires Mr. Comey. Mr. Trump is still adamant on his earlier positions. He has called Mr. Comey a liar and dismissed his Senate testimony. But the Senate hearing has already shifted the contours of the Russia probe. It is no longer only about Russian intervention in the presidential election, but also about whether the President of the United States tried to obstruct justice in his country. Here, the parallels between the Watergate scandal that led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974 and Mr. Trump’s current predicament are striking. It is still not established whether Nixon ordered the break-in at the Democratic party office in the Watergate complex in Washington that triggered the crisis, but he had to go over his interference in the FBI probe into the Watergate case. It is up to Special Counsel Robert Mueller to find out if Mr. Trump tried to obstruct justice by asking the FBI chief to let Mr. Flynn go and whether he lied to the American public over Mr. Flynn, Mr. Comey and Russiagate. While the investigation will take time, its widening scope and the new revelations pose greater difficulties for a President who appears to be clueless on how to tackle the issue.
