During a speech on the Senate floor on Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called for an all-senators briefing to pose questions to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and stated, “No doubt, we’ll have an opportunity to question Mr. Comey, now a private citizen, about what happened.”
Schumer began by casting doubt on the administration’s rationale for firing Comey and calling for a special prosecutor to handle the Russia probe.
He later said, “I will be requesting that the majority leader call a closed, and if necessary, classified, all-senators briefing with the attorney general and the deputy attorney general, separately. At which they can be asked questions.”
Schumer then laid out the questions, “Why was Attorney General Sessions, who had recused himself from the Russia investigations, able to influence the firing of the man conducting the Russia investigation? Did Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein act on his own, or at the direction of his superiors or the White House? Are reports that the president has been searching for a rationale to fire the FBI fdirector for weeks true? Was Director Comey’s investigation making significant progress in a direction that would cause political damage for the White House? Why didn’t the president wait for the inspector general’s investigation into Director Comey’s handling of the Clinton email investigation to conclude before making his decision to fire him? Was this really about something else?”
Schumer further stated, “No doubt, we’ll have an opportunity to question Mr. Comey, now a private citizen, about what happened.”
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