The White House has denied the account of the conversation. “It was very bad of him”.
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If Republican lawmakers had seemingly settled on a rote response to Trump’s outrage du jour, however, on Tuesday they faced a new shock: a New York Times report detailing an exchange in which Trump urged Comey to close a federal investigation into Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn. The Senate intelligence committee has already demanded a briefing on what was said at the meeting from members of the Trump administration who were present. And James Comey, whose actions may well have put Trump in the White House, might also be responsible for the political implosion of his presidency.
Chaffetz sent a letter to acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, demanding that the agency produce all “memoranda, notes, summaries, and recordings” of Comey’s meetings with Trump no later than May 24.
“He’s around and the best evidence of what happened in that meeting would be to call him as a witness”, said Barbara McQuade, former USA attorney for the Eastern District of MI.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has hit out at U.S. politicians for whipping up “anti-Russian sentiment” and branded them “stupid”. Nor is looking into these matters with an eye toward impeachment and possible removal from office optional: Article II Section 4 of the Constitution says the “President [and] Vice President. shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”.
Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, which is among those probing alleged Russian interference in the 2016 USA election, called Putin’s offer “quite amusing”.
Putin mocked the idea that Trump went off-script to share secrets with the Russians, saying he could issue a “reprimand” to Lavrov since the minister hadn’t passed on the information. Russell Feingold (D-Wisc.) on Capitol Hill on March 31, 2006 in Washington, D.C. Dean said that the Comey Trump memo was like a “smoking gun”.
Russian Federation has repeatedly denied interfering in the US election.
A US official who confirmed the disclosure to The Associated Press said the revelation potentially put the source at risk. If they do see the light of day, we could have a whole lot of stories like the one about the loyalty pledge and Trump asking Comey to shut down the Flynn investigation. “The President of The United States can not just do or say or speak whatever the hell he wants”.
“What else can these people can come up with, people who generate this kind of nonsense, this kind of delirium?” he asked. “They are shaking up their internal politics while using anti-Russian slogans”.
Trump, in a pair of Tuesday morning tweets, also defended the information he chose to share in the meeting.
President Putin dismissed the USA politicians, whom he did not identify, as either being “stupid” or “dangerous and unscrupulous”, who are wittingly “causing the damage to their own country”.
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One US official told the Post that Trump had “revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies”.
