Democrats Whiff at Intel Hearing, Raising Stakes for Comey

Democrats grilled the nation’s top intelligence officials on Wednesday, but they came up short in their quest for damaging headlines related to what President Donald Trump may have said to them about the Russian hacking investigation.

The Senate Intelligence Committee hearing was supposed to be about reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

FISA allows intelligence officials to conduct surveillance on non-U.S. persons, if there is an intelligence purpose. The program is a key anti-terror tool that has foiled plots, according to government officials.

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The reauthorization is generally supported by the intelligence agencies.

But little of the substance of the program was discussed when senators grilled Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, NSA Director Mike Rogers, and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Wednesday.

Instead, Democrats seemed fascinated with a Tuesday story in The Washington Post that claimed, through anonymous sources, that Trump asked Coats if he could intervene with then-FBI Director James Comey to get the bureau to back off its focus on former national security adviser Michael Flynn in its Russia probe.

Democrats were waiting to pounce on Wednesday morning. But they got a whole lot of nothing from the four officials. It was not for lack of trying.

“I have never been directed to do anything I believe to be illegal, immoral, unethical or inappropriate.”

“Can you share with this committee how you’re determining which conversations you can share and which you don’t feel free to share?” Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) asked NSA Director Mike Rogers.

“Ma’am, the fact that we briefed the president previously, both went into New York and previously, it is a matter of public record,” Roger said.

“So if it’s a matter of public record, then you feel free to discuss those conversations?” Harris pressed.

“If it’s not classified,” Rogers said. “You can keep trying to trip me up.”

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Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) was especially aggressive about “reports, out in the press” that Trump tried to get Coats and Rogers to downplay the investigation into the Russian hacking investigation. Warner likely did not like the answer he got from Rogers — a general comment that Rogers was never directed to do anything untoward.

“In the three-plus years that I have been the director of the National Security Agency, to the best of my recollection, I have never been directed to do anything I believe to be illegal, immoral, unethical or inappropriate,” Roger said, in one of the most gripping moments of the hearing. “And to the best of my recollection, during that same period of service I do not recall ever feeling pressured to do so.”

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Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) took a direct approach on the issue of integrity.

“Well, let me ask this of everyone on this panel,” Rubio said. “Is anyone aware of any effort by anyone in the White House or elsewhere to seek advice on how to influence any investigation?”

“My answer is absolutely no, senator,” said Rosenstein.

CNN, of course, chose to play up Democratic frustration, but only in a way that raised questions about the intelligence officials’ testimony.

“In a tense exchange with National Security Agency Director Adm. Mike Rogers, Senator Angus King [I-Maine] asks, ‘Why are you not answering these questions?'” read a CNN Facebook post made immediately after the hearing concluded.

Rogers had told that King answering would be inappropriate.