During the daily press briefing on Monday, Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that President Trump would not invoke his executive powers to stop the testimony from former FBI Director James Comey.
Last week, Kellyanne Conway indicated that President Trump was considering stopping the testimony by invoking executive privileged, though doing so would have made Trump look incredibly suspicious.
Trump isn’t one for paying attention to optics and how things look, but it appears in this case, he allowed reason to guide his decision.
Huckabee Sanders, filling in for Sean Spicer, said:
“President Trump will not assert executive privilege in regard to James Comey’s testimony.”
Sanders: President Trump will not use executive privilege to block James Comey from testifying. pic.twitter.com/AJtix6AwgW
— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) June 5, 2017
Comey is scheduled to publicly testify before the Senate on Thursday, and is expected to confirm earlier reports that President Trump asked him to end his investigation into the Administration’s ties to Russia.
Comey was called to testify, but agreed to do so only if he could do it publicly. Having been called a “showboat” by the Trump administration and insulted repeatedly by the President, Comey appears eager to share his account of Trump’s White House conduct.
Much of what Comey is expected to testify is surrounding President Trump’s conduct concerning the ongoing Russia investigation as well as reports that Trump tried to coerce Comey into signing a loyalty pledge.
Defenders of Trump will likely not be convinced by Comey’s testimony, but at least we will have the former FBI director on-record with his side of the story.
