"**Mr. Comey did brief Ranking Member Feinstein and me on who the targets of the various investigations are. ** It would not be appropriate for me to reveal those details before the professionals conducting the investigations are ready. So, I will not answer any questions about who are targets of the ongoing Russia investigations. But I will say this: Shortly after Director Comey briefed us, I tweeted that he should be transparent. I said he should tell the public what he told Senator Feinstein and me about whether the FBI is or is not investigating the President.
On Tuesday, the President’s letter said that Director Comey told him he was not under investigation. Senator Feinstein and I heard nothing that contradicted the President’s statement. Now Mr. Comey is no longer the FBI director. But the FBI should still follow my advice. It should confirm to the public whether it is or is not investigating the President. Because it has failed to make this clear, speculation has run rampant."
But if he’s confirming that Trump isn’t under investigation then isn’t he inappropriately giving details? If he’s confirming it, why does he want the FBI to do it?
Step 2 is incorrect. Trump says Comey told him he is not under investigation. Step 3 just says that Grassley and Feinstein heard nothing that contradicts Trump’s claim that Comey told him he wasn’t under investigation. Comey could have briefed the ranking members that Trump was under investigation but that he would tell Trump that he wasn’t (I’m not saying this is likely, just that it is possible).
Perhaps that is over-parsing. But when you have the President and the former director of the FBI publicly disagreeing, I’m not sure over-parsing is possible.
Not really. All of these could be true and they could still be investigating Trump. Try this hypothetical:
2.5. Comey told Grassley and Feinstein that he is investigating Trump. He ALSO told Trump he is not investigating him, or declined to comment on Trump’s questions to Comey.
Comey briefed them on the targets. That’s not an indication that he said the President isn’t a target, just that he didn’t say the President IS a target. It’s still possible that the President is a target, but Comey didn’t tell them that in his briefing.
I tend to doubt it. I expect that the President is not currently himself under investigation. That, of course, will disappoint a lot of Democrats who expect more.
No definitive statement appears in what you quoted. If you see it as indicating that Comey did so, then you are simply believing what you want to believe.
The thing is, yes this all strongly implies that Grassley is confirming that Trump is not the “target” of an investigation. But technically, wasn’t Hillary also not the official target of the email server investigation? If all of Trump’s family and underlings were targets, is it a very meaningful distinction wrt politics?
It’s entirely possible that Trump himself is not guilty of treason or malfeasance or international corruption. He may only be guilty of HIRING people who are guilty of treason or malfeasance or international corruption.
And remembering Nixon, it is likely that he had no knowledge even of the idea of breaking into the Watergate Hotel to get damaging info from the opponents of Nixon. The problem was when he decided to cover his connections and to help protect and defend the ones that did the deed when he got into trouble.
It’s also possible that, depending on what the investigation finds, he could at some point become a target.
He certainly seems to be trying to hide something. He could simply be trying to protect family or friends, but doesn’t that make him guilty of obstruction?
It’s meaningful because it works against the narrative that Trump fired Comey to interfere with the investigation against Trump. If Comey told Trump he (Trump) was not under investigation, Trump has that much less reason to fire Comey. And also that Comey is kind of a blabbermouth - one of the things the Dems were complaining was that Comey shouldn’t have said anything before the election about the Hillary email investigation. Now he is telling Trump that he isn’t being investigated. That’s not illegal AFAIK, but neither was what he said about Hillary.
It really doesn’t. If Trump’s associates (members of his campaign and/or staff) are under investigation, that alone is motivation for Trump to interfere with the investigations. Especially if the associates are in a position to implicate Trump’s involvement in it.