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FBI brass discussed possibility Trump fired Comey 'at the behest of' Russia
By KYLE CHENEY
7-8 minutes
Under questioning in 2018 from a Democratic committee lawyer, James Baker described numerous officials who were distressed that the president may have obstructed justice when he fired FBI Director James Comey. | Alex Wong/Getty Images
James Baker, the former top lawyer of the FBI, said senior bureau officials — including at least one deemed to be free of anti-Trump bias — discussed the possibility in May 2017 that President Donald Trump had fired FBI Director James Comey “at the behest of” the Russian government.
In testimony to two Republican-led committees last October, Baker described mounting concerns that crystallized in the frantic days after the FBI director’s ouster, days that were punctuated by Trump’s on-air declaration that he fired Comey because of the Russia probe and his chummy Oval Office meeting with senior Russian officials, at which he reportedly trashed Comey as a “nut job.”
Baker described a discussion in those turbulent days that he had with Andrew McCabe — who became acting FBI director after Comey’s departure — and the bureau’s top counterintelligence official Bill Priestap, as well as top national security official Carl Ghattas. He also said it was possible that bureau attorney Lisa Page and counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok — whose anti-Trump text messages have drawn attention from Trump and Republicans — attended the meeting as well.
“So there was — there was a discussion between those folks, possibly all of the folks that you’ve identified, about whether or not President Trump had been ordered to fire Jim Comey by the Russian government?” asked Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas), one of the committee members interviewing Baker.
“I wouldn’t say ordered. I guess I would say ... acting at the behest of and somehow following directions, somehow executing their will,” he said. “[A]nd so literally an order or not, I don’t know.”
His comments, some of which have been revealed in news reports in recent months, were included in a 152-page transcript of Baker’s testimony to the House Oversight and Judiciary committees in October 2018, when Republicans led an investigation into the handling of the FBI’s Russia probe. The transcript was released Tuesday and Wednesday by the panel’s top Republican, Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), who has been incrementally entering testimony from last year’s investigation into the congressional record.
Though Republicans have questioned whether senior FBI officials were collectively biased against Trump — especially McCabe, Strzok and Page — investigators probing questions about bias have noted that there’s “no evidence” of bias on Priestap’s part. McCabe, Strzok and Page have also denied that their personal views of Trump affected their decisions at the FBI. In the past year, McCabe and Strzok were both fired amid the scrutiny, and Page left the bureau as well. Priestap left the FBI at the end of 2018.
Baker’s comments are also newly relevant as Attorney General William Barr prepares to release a redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on links between Russian and Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Mueller examined whether Trump attempted to obstruct the probe, and Baker’s testimony provides a window into the FBI’s view of that question in the immediate days following Comey’s firing. Mueller, according to a limited excerpt revealed by Barr, declined to reach a “traditional prosecutorial judgment” on whether Trump obstructed justice, but Mueller’s analysis has not been revealed.
Baker said the discussion among the top officials was meant to discuss the range of possibilities behind Trump’s firing of Comey. Acting at Russia’s urging “was one extreme,” he said.
“The other extreme is that the president is completely innocent, and we discussed that too,” Baked noted. “And so — and then you have things in the middle. And so —— so that was how it came up. There’s a range of things this could possibly be. We need to investigate, because we don’t know whether, you know, the worst-case scenario is possibly true or the president is totally innocent and we need to get this thing over with — and so he can move forward with his agenda.”
Baker’s description of this “hypothetical” concern about Trump acting at Russia’s behest also indicated to lawmakers that there were widespread concerns inside the FBI that Trump had attempted to obstruct the bureau’s investigation into his campaign’s links to Russians, according to a newly released transcript of Baker’s testimony.
Under questioning in 2018 by a Democratic committee lawyer, Baker described numerous officials who were distressed that the president might have obstructed justice when he fired Comey in May 2017. Baker said he had personal concerns and that they were shared by not just top FBI brass but within other divisions and at the Justice Department as well.
“The leadership of the FBI, so the acting director ... the heads of the national security apparatus, the national security folks within the FBI, the people that were aware of the underlying investigation and who had been focused on it,” Baker said, running through a list of officials he said were worried that the president might have fired Comey to hinder the Russia investigation.
Baker said other FBI executives informed him that Justice Department officials raised concerns about obstruction by Trump as well.
Mueller inherited the FBI’s Russia investigation and the obstruction probe that began after Comey’s firing. In a four-page memo, Barr indicated that Mueller reached no traditional conclusion on the obstruction probe, prompting an outcry from congressional Democrats who demanded more details.
Barr said Tuesday he intends to release a redacted version of Mueller’s findings within a week.
In the transcript of his testimony, Baker added that he was briefed on conversations between former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe — who assumed leadership of the bureau after Comey’s firing — and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein about whether Rosenstein could wear a wire to gather evidence in an obstruction probe. Though officials close to Rosenstein have called his suggestion a joke, Baker told lawmakers that he had a far different impression.
“This was not a joking sort of time. This was pretty dark,” Baker said.
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