Senate Intelligence Committee secures Trump-Russia evidence so Donald Trump can’t destroy it
Yesterday afternoon the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee delayed their recess in order to hold an urgent and secret classified meeting with FBI Director James Comey in the basement of the Senate. Democrats in Congress have been publicly calling on Comey to treat the Trump-Russia investigation with more urgency. But they had no complaints about him after this meeting, suggesting they’re finally getting what they want. And one Senate Democrat shared a tidbit which points to just how serious the investigation has become.
When pressed by reporters afterwards, Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Intel Committee all refused to discuss anything that went on during their meeting with Comey, which was so secretive that even the Senators not on the committee weren’t told about it. The only Senator on the committee who was willing to speak about Trump-Russia in any substantive manner on Friday was Democrat Mark Warner from Virginia, and the tidbit that he shared is remarkable: the Senate Intel Committee has taken steps to secure the Trump-Russia evidence so that Donald Trump can’t destroy it.
And that means the Senate investigation has reached the point of no return, as the committee is now securing the evidence it needs, under the presumtion that the guilty party will otherwise destroy it. Here’s how CNN characterized what Senator Warner said about about the matter: “The committee has put in place a process to ensure the White House does not destroy documents lawmakers need for their investigation.”
When an investigation has reached the point where all that’s left to do is make sure the suspect can’t shred the documents that implicate him, there’s no turning back. What may be most notable is that although the Senate Intelligence Committee is bipartisan, it’s majority-republican, meaning that these steps on Trump-Russia would not be happening if the republicans on the committee didn’t want them to happen. And it suggests that things have gotten so serious that neither Comey nor the Senate Republicans have any remaining impetus to protect Trump from his inevitable downfall.
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Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report