Carlos Garcia
The Blaze
President Donald Trump responded to the release of prepared remarks of former FBI Director James Comey a day before his testimony before Congress. (SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)
Former FBI Director James Comey set the media’s hair on fire when he released his prepared statement for his highly anticipated testimony set for Thursday. While some are saying there are bombshell implications to the testimony, President Trump has released only a three sentence response.
The statement was made through Marc E. Kasowitz, the president’s private legal counsel on the Russia investigations.
“The president is pleased that Mr. Comey has finally publicly confirmed his private reports that the President was not under investigation in any Russian probe,” the statement read.
“The president feels completely and totally vindicated,” it continued. “He is eager to continue to move forward with his agenda.”
The statement appears to refer to allegations in the media that Trump had embellished the truth in his statement after firing Comey in May. The statement awkwardly proclaimed, “While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation,” something that many found bizarre, including conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer.
Comey’s prepared statements released Wednesday appeared to confirm that contention that he had, indeed, informed the president multiple times that he was not personally under investigation.
Comey discussed telling the president he was not under investigation before a January 6th briefing. “I discussed with the FBI’s leadership team whether I should be prepared to assure President-Elect Trump that we were not investigating him personally,” he said in his statement. “That was true; we did not have an open counter-intelligence case on him. We agreed I should do so if circumstances warranted. During our one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower, based on PresidentElect Trump’s reaction to the briefing and without him directly asking the question, I offered that assurance.”
However, others have noted that the other portions of his testimony point to what some might consider to be obstruction of justice, including conversations where the president appears to pressure Comey to stop the investigation into Mike Flynn, who at the time had just been fired from the administration. CNN’s legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin opined, “If [this] isn’t obstruction of justice, I don’t know what is.”
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http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/06/07/trump-responds-to-comey-testimony-and-its-just-3-sentences/