Deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Monday said President Donald Trump will not use executive privilege to stop former FBI Director James Comey from testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee this week.
“The President’s power to exert executive privilege is very well established,” Sanders said at the daily White House press briefing. “However, in order to facilitate a swift and thorough examination of the facts sought by the Senate Intelligence Committee, President Trump will not assert executive privilege regarding James Comey’s scheduled testimony.”
The White House released a statement by email with the same wording a few minutes later.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer would not say last week whether Trump would try to block Comey from testifying before the committee on Thursday. Legal experts said Trump could certainly try, but had undermined his own argument with comments about Comey’s firing, and the Associated Press reported on Sunday that Trump was leaning against doing so.
Comey is expected to discuss how Trump pressured him to drop the FBI’s investigation into his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, CNN reported last week.
