THE WHITE HOUSE and its allies are scrambling for ways to offset potential damage from fired FBI Director James Comey’s highly anticipated congressional testimony on Thursday.
The appearance could expose new details about his discussions with President Donald Trump about the federal investigation into Russia’s election meddling.
Asked about the testimony today, was tight-lipped: “I wish him luck,” he told reporters before a meeting with lawmakers.
It’s also been reported by both the Washington Post and MSNBC that Trump may tweet during Comey’s testimony and respond to claims if he feels it necessary.
Despite this, some White House officials appear eager to keep the president away from television and Twitter on Thursday, though those efforts rarely succeed.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the president has plans throughout the day.
“The president’s got a full day on Thursday,” Spicer said.
Trump’s White House and its allies are crafting a strategy aimed at undermining Comey’s credibility.
Both White House officials and an outside group that backs Trump plan to hammer Comey in the coming days for misstatements he made about Democrat Hillary Clinton’s emails during his last appearance on Capitol Hill.
An ad created by the pro-Trump Great America Alliance also casts Comey as a “showboat” who was “consumed with election meddling” instead of focusing on combating terrorism.
The 30-second spot is slated to run digitally on Wednesday and appear the next day on CNN and Fox News.
Comey’s testimony before the Senate intelligence committee marks his first public comments since he was abruptly ousted by Trump on 9 May.
Since then, Trump and Comey allies have traded competing narratives about their interactions.
The president asserted that Comey told him three times that he was not personally under investigation, while the former director’s associates allege Trump asked Comey if he could back off an investigation into Michael Flynn, who was fired as national security adviser because he misled the White House about his ties to Russia.
Democrats have accused Trump of firing Comey to upend the FBI’s Russia probe, which focused in large part on whether campaign aides coordinated with Moscow to hack Democratic groups during the election.
Days after Comey’s firing, the Justice Department appointed a special counsel, former FBI Director Robert Mueller, to oversee the federal investigation.
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