As Comey Bolsters "Obstruction" Case, Prospects of Trump Impeachment Rise

On the heels of fired FBI Director James Comey’s “unprecedented” and “devastating” testimony on Thursday, in which he accused the White House of “lies” and said President Donald Trump exerted a “chilling effect” on the FBI’s Russia probe, calls for impeachment proceedings to begin have reached a fever pitch.

Comey’s testimony, declared Indivisible in a statement, “confirms that Donald Trump tried to obstruct justice. That is an impeachable offense. Impeachment takes time but we need to start the process now. It’s time to call for impeachment hearings.”

“[The Comey testimony] confirms that Donald Trump tried to obstruct justice. That is an impeachable offense.”
—IndivisibleMoveOn.org issued its own recommendation to the U.S. Congress, noting “it is now clear that Trump’s effort to use the powers of the presidency to interfere with an ongoing investigation of whether, how, and why a foreign power tried unlawfully to undermine our electoral process is exactly the kind of fundamental abuse of power that the founders believed is an impeachable offense—a ‘High Crime or Misdemeanor’ under our Constitution.'”

On several occasions during Thursday’s hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey himself addressed the question of whether Trump abused the power of his office by expressing his “hope” that the FBI would end its investigation into the conduct of retired general and former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

“I don’t think it’s for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct,” he told Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC). “I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning. But that’s a conclusion I’m sure the special counsel will work toward, to try and understand what the intention was there and whether that’s an offense.”

While Comey expressed his belief that Trump’s comments on the Flynn investigation—which were allegedly made during a one-on-one dinner conversation with the former FBI director—amounted to “a direction,” Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID) questioned whether expressing “hope” for an outcome amounts to obstruction.