Five questions after Comey’s testimony

Former FBI Director James Comey’s dramatic testimony this week answered many questions about the events that led to his firing by President Trump.

But it prompted even more speculation about the future of the Russia investigation and the consequences for Trump.

Here are five key questions raised by the Comey hearing:

Will special counsel Robert Mueller interview Trump?

Comey’s revelations to the Senate Intelligence Committee could prompt Robert Mueller, the special counsel leading the federal investigation into Russia’s election meddling, to question Trump about his interactions with the ousted FBI chief.

{mosads}Comey’s testimony contradicted several public claims Trump has made about their private conversations, which the ex-law enforcement official described as inappropriate. He claimed the president asked him for his personal loyalty and accused him of pressuring him to drop a probe of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Trump has denied both of Comey’s claims in interviews and press conferences, and on Friday, the president said he would “100 percent” be willing to give a sworn statement to Mueller.

The special counsel’s office declined to comment.

If he does chose to conduct such an interview, it would likely take place toward the end of the investigation, which could be months, if not years, away.

Special counsels pose dangers for presidents.

Independent counsel Kenneth Starr accused former President Bill Clinton of perjury in 1998 for denying under oath that he had sexual relations with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, which ultimately led to his impeachment.  

What’s the case for obstruction of justice?

Perjury isn’t the only legal trap Trump’s legal team must worry about.

Some experts say Comey laid out a case that Trump obstructed justice — even though the fired FBI head stopped short of directly making the accusation.

He accused Trump of asking him to back off an investigation into Flynn, who was fired for misleading administration officials about his talks with Russia’s U.S. ambassador.

“The reason I keep saying his words is I took it as a direction,” he said. “This is a president of the United States with me alone saying, ‘I hope this.’ I took it as, this is what he wants me to do,” Comey said.

Comey noted that Trump cleared the room to ask him about Flynn, something that could signal the president intent to affect the outcome of the probe.

He said Trump raised his job status before asking for his personal loyalty, all before he was fired after refused to grant that loyalty or promise to drop the Flynn investigation.

Others say the case isn’t so clear cut.

Republican senators suggested Comey may have misinterpreted the words of Trump, whom they noted has no experience in government. He also acknowledged he was not directly told by Trump to drop the Russia probe.

Trump’s personal attorney vociferously disputed Comey’s account of their conversations and said that the president “never pressured Mr. Comey.”

Did Comey damage his reputation?

Comey gave plenty of ammunition to his political enemies, who immediately began building a case against him as a craven Washington operator hopelessly compromised by politics and driven by ego.

Comey revealed that he had a close friend feed the contents of a personal memo detailing a private conversation with Trump to The New York Times hoping it would lead to the appointment of a special counsel to take charge of the Russia investigation.

The gambit worked, but it has opened Comey up to criticism that he is just another Washington leaker out to undermine the president.

Republicans want to know why Comey would leak damaging information about Trump but refused, until his testimony, to reveal that the president was not the target of an FBI investigation during his tenure.

Furthermore, Comey detailed how he believes his last boss, former attorney general Loretta Lynch, conspired with Hillary Clinton’s campaign to make it seem that there was no criminal investigation into the Democratic candidate’s handling of classified material.

Comey went along with Lynch’s request to describe the criminal investigation as a political “matter.”

And he may need to amend one portion of his testimony.

Comey said that he had not heard from the Department of Justice about why Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation. He intoned darkly that there might be more to Sessions’ recusal than is publicly known.

The DOJ promptly released a statement saying that Comey received a detailed outline of the recusal on the day it happened.

Will Republicans stay with Trump?

So far, there’s little evidence Republicans are abandoning Trump, despite his outsider status and falling approval ratings.

Trump hit a new low of 34 percent in a Quinnipiac University survey released this week.

Given those numbers, it was encouraging for the White House to see Republican senators vigorously question Comey, and in some cases defend Trump against what they view as a Democrat-media narrative on Russia that has run off the rails.

Sens. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) were among those who pried out of Comey his view that many of the media stories based on classified information about Russian collusion are untrue.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) emerged as Trump’s most effective defender at the Comey hearing — although he later denied that he was defending Trump, a sign that there is some unease in GOP circles about being too closely identified with the president.

The next key thing to watch for story line is a special election later this month in Georgia.

Democrat Jon Ossof is up in polls in a race that is widely viewed as a referendum on the Trump presidency.

If Ossoff defeats Republican Karen Handel in the traditionally red Georgia district, it could send Republicans fleeing from Trump ahead of the 2018 midterms.

Are there tapes of Trump’s conversations with Comey?

Trump’s claim, which he tweeted three days after firing Comey, that he may have secretly recorded his conversation with Comey helped set off a chain reaction that escalated the Russia probe.

Comey pointed to Trump’s threat as the reason why he decided to leak the contents of his memos recounting his conversations with Trump.

But there’s one big problem: Trump and his advisers have refused to say on multiple occasions whether the tapes actually exist.

Trump on Friday stonewalled on the question of tapes, telling a reporter during a White House news conference, “I’ll tell you about that maybe sometime in the near future.”

Later, he appeared to tell reporters that they would be disappointed in what they learned, which sounded like a suggestion that there are no tapes.

In one of the most memorable moments of his testimony, Comey himself expressed hope that his conversations with the president were recorded, because they would bear out his side of the story.

“Lordy, I hope there are tapes,” he said.