Republicans increasingly call for answers on Comey, Trump conversations

In controversy after controversy, congressional Republicans have defended President Trump. His disclosure of highly classified information may be too far. (Video: Jenny Starrs/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

By Elise Viebeck, Sean Sullivan, Mike DeBonis and Paul Kane May 17 at 5:11 PM

Congressional Republicans are increasing pressure on the administration to produce records related to the latest string of controversies involving President Trump, amid flagging confidence in the White House and a growing sense that scandal is overtaking the presidency.

As the White House sought to contain the damage from two major scandals, leaders of two key Senate committees asked the FBI for documents related to former director James B. Comey, who was leading an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election before Trump fired him last week.

At the same time, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) broke his silence on the Comey affair to say lawmakers “need to hear from him as soon as possible.”

“I think we need to hear from him about whatever he has to say about the events of recent days, as soon as possible, before the Senate Intelligence Committee, in public,” McConnell said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

[How Key Washington players are reacting: Complete live coverage]

The White House defends President Trump’s disclosure of classified information to Russian officials while Democrats demand to see transcripts of the meeting. (Video: Bastien Inzaurralde,Jayne Orenstein,Dalton Bennett,Alice Li,Whitney Leaming/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

The comment came as the Republican chairmen and ranking Democrats on the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees asked the FBI to hand over Comey’s notes about his communications with the White House and senior Justice Department officials related to the Russia investigation.

The Judiciary Committee leaders also asked the White House to provide any records of interactions between Trump officials and Comey, including audio recordings. In a nod to lawmakers’ strong desire to hear from the former director, the Intelligence Committee leaders asked him to testify in both open and closed sessions.

Meanwhile, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) has scheduled a hearing for next Wednesday on whether Trump interfered in the FBI’s investigation. Comey is invited to testify.

Chaffetz has also asked the FBI to produce records of communications between Trump and Comey.
Lawmakers’ requests came after news reports revealed Trump’s disclosure of highly classified material to Russian officials and an alleged attempt to shut down an investigation into his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn. On Thursday, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein will brief the full Senate on Comey’s firing.

The collision of the two stories Tuesday night left Republicans reeling, with a senior GOP senator comparing the situation to Watergate, and Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) directing the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to immediately seek records from the FBI.

Ryan was careful to strike an evenhanded tone Wednesday, saying congressional committees would continue to conduct oversight “regardless of what party is in the White House” but seeming to dismiss some concerns that have arisen in the wake of news about a memo by Comey suggesting that Trump had pressured him to drop the Flynn investigation.

 Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) blasted House Republicans for not taking action to investigate the Trump administration on May 17. (Reuters)

Ryan also questioned why Comey didn’t “take action” after his meeting with Trump.

“There’s clearly a lot of politics being played here,” Ryan said. “It is obvious there are some people out there who want to harm the president.”

[Republicans’ difficult fork in the road: To take Trump at his word … or not, and see where it leads]

Republicans have been more candid over the last two days in describing their concerns about Trump.

On Tuesday night, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) compared the current situation to the Watergate scandal while speaking at an International Republican Institute dinner.

“We’ve seen this movie before. I think it’s reaching the point where it’s of Watergate size and scale and a couple of other scandals that you and I have seen,” McCain told Bob Schieffer of CBS News.

“There’s a lot here that’s really scary,” Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) said Wednesday morning in an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. “It’s obviously inappropriate for any president to be trying to interfere with an investigation.”

Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) said he believes “changes are needed at the White House” to such a degree that he is calling for a Democrat to replace Comey as head of the FBI.

Republican leaders have so far fended off calls for a special prosecutor or independent commission to take over the Russia investigations. But signs of disagreement are increasing within the party.

Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), co-chairman of the moderate Tuesday Group, said the collective political fallout from the past week “will make it difficult” for Republicans to resist backing some sort of independent investigative body.

“We may have to move in that direction,” Dent said Wednesday at a forum moderated by Center Forward, a moderate Democratic organization.

Collins, a member of the Intelligence Committee, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) reissued calls Wednesday for the Justice Department to consider appointing a special prosecutor to probe Russia’s election interference.

And Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), one of two House Republicans to endorse an independent investigation of the Comey matter, joined Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.) in saying that if the details reported this week are true, they could be grounds for impeaching Trump.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said reports about Trump pressuring Comey and sharing classified intelligence with the Russians are inaccurate. He did not directly answer whether Trump supports Comey testifying before Congress.

“The president is confident in the events that he has maintained and he wants the truth in these investigations to get to the bottom of the situation,” Spicer said in a gaggle on Air Force One. “There are two investigations going on in the House and Senate and he wants to get to the bottom of this.”

Democrats blasted House Republicans on Wednesday for doing little to probe Trump’s potential ties to Russia.

“They do as little as humanly possible just to claim that they’re doing something,” said Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (Md.), the ranking Democrat on the Oversight Committee.

“Our committee should already be conducting robust and transparent investigations,” said Cummings, who joined 32 other Democrats on Tuesday night in calling for his panel to partner with the Judiciary Committee on a new probe of Trump’s White House.

“Speaker Ryan has shown he has zero — zero, zero — appetite,” the Democrat said.

Democrats’ priority is advancing a bill from Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) creating a bipartisan congressional commission to investigate Russia’s cyberintrusions, how the intelligence community handled the matter and the president’s potential involvement.

The Democrats are hoping to file a discharge petition — which requires the signatures of a majority of all House members — to compel GOP leaders to schedule a vote on the proposal. But the effort has not gathered much Republican support: as of Wednesday, The Post found only five GOP senators and 10 House Republicans open to some kind of independent investigation.

Republicans blocked another attempt to force a vote Wednesday on the House floor.

Many rank-and-file Republicans dismissed the controversies out of hand.

“It’s being made a bigger deal than what it is,” Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) said, maintaining that leaks to the media were a more serious matter.

Trump “doesn’t fit the model of a typical politician, and that’s what the real issue is here. He’s a business guy, and he wants to get things done.”

Rep. Robert B. Aderholt (R-Ala.) also was unperturbed by the latest reports. Back in Alabama, he said, there is “a lot of frustration that they’re not allowing him to do his job.”

In an interview with KIDO Talk Radio, based in Boise, Rep. Raúl R. Labrador (R-Idaho), who recently launched a bid for Idaho governor, said the Trump administration is making “many of the same mistakes” as the Obama administration.

It is unclear what Labrador believes took place during the Obama administration that is equivalent to Trump pressuring Comey or disclosing highly classified information to the Russians.

“They keep making things up, and they keep saying things that are not true,” Labrador said of the media, accusing journalists of being “complicit” with Democrats and the Russian government in trying to undermine American democracy.

“We need to be so careful about what we say about what a president does … Be very careful with what you say about the president,” he said.

Karoun Demirjian, Carol Leonnig, Ed O’Keefe, Amber Phillips, Kelsey Snell and David Weigel contributed to this report.