President Trump is not expected to invoke executive privilege in an attempt to block FBI Director James Comey from testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee next week.
The White House has left open the question of whether Trump would intercede in order to scuttle Comey’s testimony. But two senior administration officials told The New York Times that Trump is unlikely to make the attempt, partially because it would be unsuccessful anyway.
The newspaper noted that it is possible that Trump could change his mind about executive privilege before Thursday, when Comey is set to testify on Capitol Hill.
On Friday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer did not rule out Trump invoking executive privilege.
[give_form id=”79809″]
“I have not spoken to counsel yet, I don’t know how they’re going to respond,” he said.
Any attempt by the White House to block the testimony would likely have deep political consequences given that Comey was overseeing the investigation into possible collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russian government. The former FBI chief is expected to testify about that investigation as well as his interactions with Trump prior to being fired on May 9.
Comey filed memos detailing those interactions, his associates have told news outlets. In one memo, Comey reportedly wrote that Trump asked him to back off of investigating former national security adviser Michael Flynn. The memo was filed on Feb. 14 following an Oval Office meeting with Trump and a day after Trump fired Flynn for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador.
Comey can also expect to field questions about Trump’s claims that Comey told him three separate times that he was not under investigation as part of the Russia probe.
Any invocation of executive privilege would face a tough legal road, mainly because Comey is no longer an FBI employee. If Comey still led the bureau, Trump would have more recourse to block his testimony. Trump’s public comments about Comey — including a series of critical tweets — would also hurt the case against executive privilege.
[contentcards url=”http://dailycaller.com/2017/06/03/report-trump-not-expected-to-block-comeys-senate-testimony/” target=”_blank”]Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].