After firing James Comey as director of the FBI in May, President Donald Trump over the summer directed his frustration at the Senate, pressuring top Republicans in the chamber to end their Russia investigation, the New York Times reported Thursday night, citing lawmakers and aides.
Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), who leads the Senate’s Russia probe as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told the New York Times that Trump told him that he’d be happy to see the investigation end.
“It was something along the lines of, ‘I hope you can conclude this as quickly as possible,’” Burr told the Times.
Burr said he told Trump that “when we have exhausted everybody we need to talk to, we will finish.” He told the Times that he was not moved by Trump’s comments and suggested that Trump made the comments because he’s “never been in government.”
The President also talked to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), a member of the GOP leadership team, about ending the probe, aides and lawmakers told the New York Times.
White House spokesman Raj Shah denied that Trump tried to pressure Republican leaders, telling the New York Times that the President “at no point has attempted to apply undue influence on committee members.”
Before firing Comey in May, Trump asked him to end a probe into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, Comey testified in June.
Read the New York Times’ full report here.
He told the Times that he was not moved by Trump’s comments and suggested that Trump made the comments because he’s “never been in government.”
Nah. He’s guilty and wants them to stop digging.
And then there is this rather cryptic tweet from Josh.
You know, in any other administration, this act alone would be immediate grounds for impeachment. The case for Obstruction of Justice, if this is verifiable which it seems it is, just got a whole lot stronger.
The fact that Burr is on the record here is quite extrordinary. Again, not a lawyer, but if true this would appear to be ‘open-shut’ obstruction. Oh and there’s this…
I hope we get follow up with more details. Josh is such a tease
If Trump’s statements to Burr were over the summer, by that point Trump had been in government several months holding the highest office on the planet, and none of this would have been Trumps first go-around with legal matters. He’s not some child with no frame of reference just wandering into movie wanting to know the ending. And the Russia investigations were’n’t new. Trump has all the legal counsel anybody could hope for when being investigated for these or any other type of serious allegations. Trump knew he should’t be doing this. If somehow he didn’t, he and his legal team are even more brazenly incompetent than we thought.