House GOP subpoena

Comey asks court to reject House GOP subpoena

By REBECCA MORIN

Former FBI Director James Comey on Thursday asked a federal court to reject a subpoena he’d received from House Republicans for closed-door testimony, arguing that leaks from the hearing would harm his credibility, in addition to continuing to harm the public perception of investigations by the Justice Department.

Comey’s legal team filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Washington on Thursday to quash the subpoena for the appearance, which is scheduled for Dec. 3. Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch was also subpoenaed for a closed-door hearing scheduled for Dec. 4.

Republican lawmakers are currently investigating decision-making by the FBI and the Justice Department in 2016 and 2017, the period when some officials believe the bureau downplayed the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server and instead began looking into possible connections between Russia and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

In the motion, Comey is asking the court to reject the subpoena in order to prevent the Judiciary and Oversight committees “from using the pretext of a closed interview to peddle a distorted, partisan political narrative about the Clinton and Russia investigations through selective leaks.”

The dispute was assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee.

The president has long criticized special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election. The special counsel’s inquiry has also widened to include possible obstruction of justice by the president.

The motion argues that because of Trump’s criticisms, a combination of leaks and his tweets have created a “corrosive narrative” claiming that Clinton committed serious crimes but was “given unwarranted leniency by an FBI and DOJ that were loyal to her and her party,” while the president has “been saddled with unwarranted scrutiny, for purely partisan political reasons, by the same FBI and DOJ.”

“The broader purpose of these tweets and leaks appears to be to mislead the public and undermine public confidence” in the Justice Department while Trump and members of his administration and campaign are under investigation by Mueller, according to Comey’s motion.

In addition, the former FBI director argued that if parts of his testimony were leaked, he would not be able to counter any leaks or contextualize his comments because his testimony would probably be “kept from public view for reasons known only to members of the Joint Committees.”

Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said on Twitter that he’d offered to publicly release transcripts of Comey’s testimony after the interview, a process that he said “ensures both transparency and access for the American people to all the facts.”

“Mr. Comey should agree to these terms and see that we have the same purpose, which is to find the truth and seek transparency,” Goodlatte tweeted on Wednesday. “In order to do so, he must appear before the Committees and answer our questions.”

Comey, in the filing, argues that a closed-door meeting violates House rules, as all hearings should be public unless they endanger national security, compromise sensitive law enforcement information, or defame, degrade or incriminate any person. He said that none of those exemptions applied to his testimony.

“Because the need for secrecy here is pretextual, because the Joint Committees have abused their powers with the selective leaks, and because Mr. Comey is willing to testify in public, the Joint Committee’s insistence that Mr. Comey appear in private should be closely scrutinized to determine whether the exception to the presumption of openness applies,” the motion continues.

Comey has said multiple times that he is willing to testify before Congress in a public setting. According to the filing, he said that “he does not shy from public accountability” for his time as FBI director and believes both the FBI and Justice Department are “appropriately subject to congressional oversight.”

In June 2017, Comey testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

“Because of this abuse, and because no legitimate purpose is served by the secrecy of the testimony, the subpoena must be quashed,” the filing concludes.