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WASHINGTON: US intelligence chiefs refused on Wednesday to publicly discuss their conversation with President Donald Trump as the Senate Intelligence Committee probed the circumstances surrounding former FBI Director James Comey’s firing.
The hearing, called to discuss Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) legislation but focused on Comey’s sacking — was watched by millions across the United States and was dubbed by the media as Washington’s Super Bowl. As thousands watch the live broadcast at Washington’s bars and restaurants, some bars offered a special drink on the called “Covfefe cocktail”, a Twitter term coined by Trump who still refuses to explain what it means.
On Wednesday, the senators stayed focused on Trump’s May 9 decision to fire the former FBI director as three spy chiefs — Director National Security Agency Mike Rogers, acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats — and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein testified.
Democratic senator and the committee’s vice chairman Mark Warner told witnesses that it was “jarring” to hear “recent reports of White House officials — perhaps even the president himself — attempting to influence and enlist our intelligence community leaders in attempting to undermine an ongoing FBI investigation” into the Trump administration’s alleged links to Russia.
The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that Trump had asked Coats how he could prevent Comey from investigating his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, over his alleged contacts with Russian officials.
Mike Rogers, the NSA director, said he could not discuss specifics in an open hearing, but assured Senator Warner that in his three-plus years with the agency, he had never felt “pressured” to intervene in, or alter, the course of an investigation. He had never been “directed” to do anything “immoral” or “illegal,” either, he added.
Coats too said he did not feel it would be “appropriate” to address “confidential information” about his conversations with President Trump in a public setting.
Published in Dawn, June 8th, 2017
