Speaking during the daily briefing Monday, Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced President Trump will not invoke executive privilege in order to block former FBI Director James Comey from testifying in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday.
"The President's power to assert executive privilege to assert executive privilege is very well established, however in order to facilitate a swift and thorough examination of the facts sought by the Senate Intelligence Committee President Trump will not assert executive privilege regarding James Comey's scheduled testimony," Huckabee Sanders said.
Comey solidified plans to testifying in front of the Intelligence Committee last week. Chairman Richard Burr and Ranking Member Mark Warner are leading the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 president elections. Comey turned down a testimony request from the Senate Judiciary Committee and has already spoken with Special Counsel Robert Mueller about the Russia investigation and the circumstances surrounding his May firing. The FBI has rejected a request from the House Oversight Committee to hand over Comey's memos containing notes of a meeting with the President Trump earlier this year.
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President Trump has been accused by the New York Times of pressuring Comey during that meeting to drop the FBI investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, a charge he denies. During testimony on May 3, Comey denied the investigation was being influenced by the Justice Department and Acting Director Andrew McCabe testified weeks later that nobody in the administration has pressured the FBI to drop any investigation involving the Trump campaign.
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