James Comey had a special counsel in mind when he initiated the process getting news of his memos on meetings with Donald Trump into the media. When Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) asked Comey if he’d showed copies of his memos to anyone outside the Department of Justice, Comey said yes. But if Collins was hoping to put him on the defensive, she did not succeed. Comey explained that after Trump’s tweet raising the prospect of tapes of their conversations:
I woke up in the middle of the night on Monday night, because it didn’t dawn on me originally that there might be corroboration for our conversation, there might be a tape. And my judgment was I needed to get that out into the public square. So I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter, didn’t do it myself for a variety of reasons, but I asked him to because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel.
So Comey actively wanted, and tried to prompt, the appointment of a special counsel. That says a thing or two about whether he thinks Trump tried to obstruct justice.