Senate Intel's Warner calls Trump's FBI nomination a "distraction" from Senate probes
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, the ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, says that while he hears newly nominated FBI Director Christpher Wray has a "good reputation," he considers the surprise move is an effort by the president to distract from ongoing hearings into Russian interference in the election and any ties to Trump associates.
"If we have a pattern today and tomorrow, I think all these efforts to distract the public that the president may be trying to throw up may not work," Warner said on "CBS This Morning" on Wednesday.
The Senate Intelligence Committee will hear from Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, National Security Agency Director Admiral Mike Rogers and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Wednesday.
Warner says that the committee is prepared for the gentlemen to "hide behind executive privilege" but will press them hard on questions about whether Mr. Trump pressured then-FBI Director James Comey to drop the FBI investigation into Michael Flynn and also urged Coats and Rogers to publicly downplay the investigation.
"You don't have a sitting president ask about an ongoing investigation, particularly when it involves close associates of the president and when the president went as far as to say back off, that is just unacceptable. Others will make decisions if that crosses a legal boundary, but as a former governor, I would never put people who worked for me in that circumstance," said Warner.
When asked about comments made by former DNI chief James Clapper suggesting the Watergate allegations "pale in comparison" to what's happening now with the Russian meddling allegations, Warner told "CBS This Morning," "This has got more moving parts than Watergate or any other investigation in modern times."
He added that there's "not a week that goes by that there's not a new story about contacts, Russian intervention, that really we have to get to the bottom of it."
Warner alluded to a number of other contacts made between Trump affiliates and Russian officials prior to the election that the committee finds troubling .
"We have this whole series of contacts that took place between the election and swearing-in, an unprecedented level of contacts with a country that massively intervened in our elections, and now we've got these series of interventions by the president with top intelligence officials."
Warner added, "If we prove out today that he talked to Rogers, Coats asked him to back off, and if we have Comey forward with memos from the president, in total, we're going to see a pattern here even the biggest skeptic is going to have to say we have to do something."
