James Comey’s memos detailing his conversations with Donald Trump weren’t released to support his book tour or by the former FBI director’s request. The memos were released because they were demanded by congressional Republicans including Trey Gowdy, Bob Goodlatte, and Devin Nunes. They went so far as to prepare a subpoena—something Republicans were notably unwilling to do in gathering materials for their own “investigation” of Trump’s connections with Russia.
The subpoena effort is an escalation of the confrontation between House Republicans and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees Mueller's probe. Trump allies in Congress have thrashed Rosenstein for what they've described as stonewalling of their requests for sensitive documents related to the probe, as well as the FBI's 2016 investigation of Hillary Clinton's private email server.
Republicans clearly thought that getting the memos out there would help them in some way, and many of them have been quick to repeat the essence of Donald Trump’s morning tweet by claiming that the memos showed “no collusion” and “no obstruction.” But the memos were not about collusion. They were written because Comey felt that Trump was attempting to build an inappropriate relationship, demanding personal loyalty, asking that Comey dismiss charges against Michael Flynn, and trying to get him to make the whole Russia investigation go away.
And that’s exactly what the memos show. If Republicans were hoping to catch Comey out by finding some difference between his public statements and the contents of his memos, getting the real things in hand has to be disappointing. No matter what they may have been expecting, the memos show exactly what Comey has been saying all along concerning Trump. And they do so while adding a wealth of detail that only makes Comey’s statements in the matter have more impact. About all the Republicans have actually accomplished by forcing the release of the memos—is bringing Donald Trump’s obsession with the pee tapes back into the public discussion.
If Republicans hoped they could get Comey about leaking, it certainly doesn’t help that the memos were leaked within an hour after they were turned over. And the core idea that both Trump and Republicans are pushing—that the memos doesn’t show collusion or obstruction—is simply wrong.
On the collusion front, Republicans are happy to point out a sentence in the March 30 memo in which Comey apparently repeats an earlier statement to Trump that he is not the focus of the investigation.
I reminded him that I had told him we were not investigating him and I told the Congressional leadership the same thing.
But they are ignoring another passage from the March 30 memo.
He said that if there were “some satellite” … that did something, it would be good to find that out. but that he hadn’t done anything and hoped that I would find a way to get out that we weren’t investigating him.
Here Trump is asserting that he hadn’t done anything wrong, but admitting that there might have been someone connected to his campaign who did. That’s not “no collusion.” That’s just Trump saying he wasn’t involved in any collusion that took place.
And on obstruction, the whole assertion is clearly ridiculous. The biggest, most public display of obstruction—the one that caused the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel—was Trump’s firing of Comey and his subsequent statements that he had fired Comey to close the Russia investigation. This is clearly something that was not going to be in memos written weeks before the event.
The reason behind the Republican push for the release of the memos may actually turn out to be more important than anything actually found in the memos. It remains unclear exactly what the Republicans were fishing for in demanding these documents. It certainly doesn’t seem like they found it.
Republicans were looking to catch Comey in a lie. But what they seem to have found is just more embarrassing details about Trump.