Comey’s Testimony: A Study in Contradictions

In his sworn testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday, former FBI Director James Comey directly contradicted his previous sworn testimony from May 3. Not only that, but he made conflicting remarks in Thursday’s testimony.

In his May 3 testimony, Comey said — under oath and on camera — that no one had ever told him to kill an investigation. In Thursday’s testimony, he said that President Trump had done just that, by telling him to drop the investigation into Michael Flynn and that Attorney General Loretta Lynch told him not to call the Clinton e-mail investigation an “investigation,” but to refer to it as a “matter.”

The issue here comes down to two things: The first is the independence of the FBI from the political process — a principle Comey repeatedly mentioned in his testimony Thursday. The second is that — when under oath, a witness is only required to answer the questions that he is asked, however, if he goes beyond that, he is still under oath and everything he says must be true.

 

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