Senate Judiciary Committee also demands Comey memos, Trump tapes
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday became the third congressional committee requesting any memos fired FBI Director James Comey wrote about his communications with President Donald Trump and other top U.S. officials, and the committee also asked the White House to provide recordings of interactions with Comey.
The requests -- made in separate letters to FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe and White House Counsel Donald McGahn -- were made after a report that a memo written by Comey says Trump asked him to drop Flynn probe. It described the president's request the Comey end an investigation into former national security director Michael Flynn's ties to Russia and Turkey. The House Oversight and Government Reform and Senate Intelligence committees have already requested any Comey memos. The committee also asked for White House records of any recordings of Comey from McGahn, since the president suggested in a tweet last week that there might be recordings of his meeting with Comey. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer has refused to say whether such recordings exist.
"In order for the committee to fully assess these allegations, we are also asking that the White House please provide the committee all White House records memorializing interactions with Mr. Comey relating to the FBI's investigation of alleged ties between President Trump's associates and Russia, or the Clinton email investigation, including all audio recordings, transcripts, notes, summaries, and memoranda," reads one of the letters from Senate Judiciary Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley and Ranking Member Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
Sen. Lindsay Graham, chairman of the committee's Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism and subcommittee Ranking Member Sheldon Whitehouse to the White House also signed the letter. "To the extent the prior administration's records of interactions with Mr. Comey about these topics may now be housed at the National Archives or elsewhere, we ask that you make the relevant personnel there aware of the request and authorize them to release the records to the committee," the letter reads.
Given that Comey reportedly made a habit of taking notes, the committee also asked the FBI for any notes Comey took from interactions with former President Barack Obama, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, regarding the Clinton email investigation or Trump associates' alleged ties to Russia.
The committee gave McCabe until Wednesday, May 24, to fulfill the request.
Pressure is growing among Republicans to investigate the president's firing of Comey, as well as the claim that Mr. Trump asked Comey to end the Flynn investigation. Democrats are suggesting the president may have obstructed justice, a suggestion Republican Rep. Justin Amash also echoed Wednesday.
