Grassley has low expectations for Comey’s testimony

Sen. Chuck Grassley said Wednesday he has low expectations for the testimony that fired FBI Director James Comey is expected to deliver to a Senate committee looking into the possibility President Donald Trump attempted to block an investigation of his former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Comey, who was fired by the president earlier this spring, is expected to be asked Thursday about his investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server as well as allegations that Flynn had improper communications with Russia during the transition from the President Barack Obama administration to the Trump administration.

'Well, obviously we are going to hear his version of what the president and he talked about in regard to Flynn,” Grassley said.

'I think we're going to be in the same boat we're in right now reading the memo he wrote after the meeting,” Grassley said during his weekly conference call with Iowa reporters. 'We're going to end up with a she-said, he-said sort of dispute about what went on in a private conversation.

'So I don't know whether we're going to be any smarter when it's said and done” other than hearing it directly from Comey rather than reading a memo leaked by the former director's friends, Grassley said.

There's only one way to resolve that, Grassley said, and he doesn't think that's likely.

'I don't know how you get clarity unless you get the president before the same committee,” Grassley said. President George Washington did once 'and he said he'd never do that again.” Another was President Gerald Ford, who testified about his pardon of Richard Nixon.

Grassley, R-Iowa, is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee but is not a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee that Comey will testify before.

Grassley seemed skeptical that Trump, like Nixon, taped conversations in the Oval Office.

'Well, if they do have, they haven't learned anything from Nixon, have they?” Grassley said. 'After Nixon's experience, any president would be stupid if he tried to get away with that stuff.”

l Comments: (319) 398-8375; james.lynch@thegazette.com