James Comey could be blocked from testifying about his firing by President Donald Trump, with the White House reportedly considering a controversial measure to keep the former Federal Bureau of Investigation director from appearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee next week.
Two unnamed senior administration officials told The New York Times that Trump has decided not to invoke his executive privilege.
Senators are expected to grill Comey-in both an open and a closed panel-on certain conversations with Trump or his aides, including one in which Trump reportedly asked Comey to drop an investigation into former White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn's dealings with Russian Federation and Turkey.
Both the Senate and the House of Representatives also have committees conducting their own probes into possible ties between Russian Federation and the Trump campaign. Legal experts said Trump would face an uphill climb if he asserted executive privilege to stop Comey from testifying before the congressional committee.
Comey is expected to testify on how Trump reportedly pressured him to drop the FBI's investigation into the Russian contacts of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
Executive privilege is a murky legal concept, say experts.
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And then on Friday - the day after Comey testifies before Congress - Trump will visit the Department of Transportation, where he will push for shorter review time in the way the federal government approves road and railways and other regulatory changes.
On Friday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer did not rule out Trump invoking executive privilege. And yet, we hear of all these memos to the file, all of these dinners and meetings between President Trump and the F.B.I. - the former F.B.I. director. "If Congress is investigating a potential interference with our elections and if the president had anything to do with it, then Congress and the public need to know", said Sollenberger.
The case centered around special prosecutor Archibald Cox's demand that the White House hand over tapes of conversations between Nixon and his colleagues in the Oval Office with respect to the Watergate scandal. But Trump's ability to muzzle Comey could be stunted by the fact that he has already written a public letter and used Twitter to discuss the conversations.
"Those who don't know the first thing about the law immediately began hurling words like "obstruction of justice", "high crimes and misdemeanors" and "impeachment", Gregg Jarrett, a former defense attorney who now works as a Fox News Anchor, wrote at the time in a piece entitled "Comey's revenge is a gun without powder". But such a maneuver would likely draw a backlash and could be challenged in court, they said. "You don't do that, I think, by invoking executive privilege on a conversation you had apparently with nobody else in the room", the Missouri Republican said.
His former deputy chief Bridget Anne Kelly and Bill Baroni, former deputy executive director of the Port Authority of NY and New Jersey, were found guilty last November for their roles in the scheme. Comey's associates have said Comey told them Trump had asked for a pledge of loyalty to the president and later asked Comey to consider ending the investigation of Flynn. Mr. Rozell said. Mr. Trump, he said, "has not been careful".
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