President Donald Trump feels “vindicated” following the release of former FBI Director James Comey’s written testimony before Congress about their past conversations, the President’s lawyer Marc Kasowitz said Wednesday, The Hill reports.
“The President feels completely and totally vindicated. He is eager to move forward with his agenda”, Marc Kasowitz, an attorney representing Trump in the special counsel probe into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, said in a statement.
Kasowitz pointed to sections of Comey’s planned remarks in which the former FBI chief said he informed Trump that he “was not under investigation in any Russian investigation”, a claim that the President made in his letter informing the former director of his dismissal last month.
However, Trump’s lawyer did not dispute other parts from Comey’s testimony, which contain confirmed reports that the President previously denied.
For example, Comey says in his opening statement that Trump asked him to “let go” of the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, whom Trump asked to step down after he misled senior officials, notably Vice President Mike Pence, about his conversations with the Russian Ambassador.
Comey listed another private conversation when Trump asked him to “lift the cloud” of the FBI’s probe into whether Trump associates collaborated with Russia’s election-meddling effort.
The ex-FBI chief is likely to be pressed for further details about his conversations with Trump during his testimony before the Senate panel Thursday. Lawmakers are likely to examine Comey’s claim that he did not take Trump’s request to “let this go” in reference to Flynn to be a broader reference to the Russia investigation, as well as a list of other claims that were made in Comey’s prepared testimony.
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