House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) on Wednesday tried to play down fired FBI Director James Comey’s prepared remarks for Thursday’s hearing as nothing that hasn’t already come up in news reports.
“I haven’t had a chance to read it. I’ve been briefed on it,” Ryan told Greta Van Susteren on MSNBC. “It’s been a little busy here.”
Ryan said he is “going to get through” Comey’s statement “tonight.”
“It sounds like it’s much of what’s already been reported, but it’s fairly rich in detail and color,” he said. “But the substance seems to me, from what I’ve understood, similar to what we’ve already been hearing.”
“Is it appropriate for the President to ask a question of loyalty for the FBI director?” Van Susteren asked.
“Yeah, no. Obviously I don’t think that is,” Ryan said. “But I don’t think that that’s new. I think that that’s already been reported on. I think that was something that was in the New York Times, gosh, a month or two ago.”
He said Comey’s testimony on Thursday will differ because it’ll be “live and in person.”
“So it’s not difference in substance, but different when we’re hearing it it straight from the director himself,” Ryan said. “And yes, FBI directors are supposed to be independent.”
According to Comey’s prepared opening statement, released by the Senate Intelligence Committee nearly 20 hours ahead of his scheduled testimony, Comey will testify on Thursday that Trump asked him for “loyalty” and to drop the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Trump and the White House have denied both allegations, and the White House on Wednesday questioned “the timing of the release.”
Deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she is “not aware” whether Trump reviewed “any of the specific details” of the statement, and would not say whether he contested any part of Comey’s prepared testimony.
