James Comey to testify Wednesday before Senate committee about Russian collusion investigation

Former FBI Director James Comey will testify Wednesday on Capitol Hill in a Senate committee’s review of the bureau’s role in the 2016 investigation into a possible connection between the Donald Trump presidential campaign and officials in Russia.

Comey is set to appear before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary where committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is expected to grill him about the workings of the FBI’s investigation into possible Russian collusion in the 2016 presidential campaign.

The investigation Comey began eventually became the basis for special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian collusion and the 2016 election.

Comey will likely also have to answer questions about a Justice Department inspector general report that found the FBI’s Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants to surveil Trump campaign adviser Carter Page not only contained errors, but also relied on an unverified dossier provided by ex-British spy Christopher Steele.

Comey may also be asked about memos from conversations he had with Trump that he leaked after Trump fired him in 2017.

Comey will be the third official who supervised the Russia investigation to testify before the Judiciary Committee in recent months. Sally Yates, former deputy attorney general, and Rod Rosenstein, also a former deputy attorney general, have testified before the committee since June.

Comey was the director of the FBI when the agency first began to investigate Trump’s campaign in 2016. After Trump fired Comey in 2017, then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe personally OK’d an investigation into Trump. The FBI was exploring Trump, himself, as a potential counterintelligence threat.

On Tuesday, Graham released newly declassified material that showed that U.S. intelligence agencies had found out by July 2016 that a Russian intelligence analysis claimed Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton had approved a campaign plan to “stir up” a scandal against Trump by tying him to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

It is not yet clear if the Russian analysis is accurate, but by the end of July, Clinton’s campaign was suggesting that Trump was favoring policies that would benefit Russia.

According to the Washington Post, Graham said Tuesday that he plans to ask Comey about the issue.

How to watch:

The hearing begins at 10 a.m. ET Wednesday. You can watch the hearing live on C-SPAN 3 and on the Senate Judiciary website.

Cox Media Group