James Comey will testify before a Senate committee on June 8th
James Comey continues to be a lightning rod for controversy at the national level. After a long year of Clinton email server investigations and the FBI’s conclusion that the Russians allegedly hacked the 2016 election, James Comey is finally getting to tell his own story. According to Bloomberg, the recently fired FBI Director will testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 8th in both an open and a subsequent closed session. The investigation will cover both the possible election tampering as well as Comey’s own dismissal by President Trump.
While the Trump administration initially blamed Comey’s firing on his refusal to charge Hilary Clinton for her use of a private email server while she worked in the State Department under President Obama’s administration. More recently, however, Trump said in an interview with NBC that he had plans to dismissed Comey “all along,” calling the former director a “grandstander.”
Comey’s track record in the technology space has been hit or miss since his appointment to the post by President Obama in 2013. Comey participated in a misinformed push to force tech companies to purposefully compromise encryption systems for law enforcement officials. He also believes that encryption itself subverts the power of court subpoenas, and tapes over his own webcam for security reasons while pushing for backdoor access to iPhones. Though, he’s not a maniac about it.
With Trump’s story changing each time he’s asked about dismissing James Comey, the former FBI Director’s testimony next week could put much of the controversy surrounding his firing and alleged Russian tampering to rest.
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