Attorney General Jeff Sessions' testimony Tuesday will reveal the real reason former FBI Director James Comey was fired, former Justice Department official John Yoo told Newsmax TV.
Comey's testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee last week gave all the information needed to do him in, Yoo told Steve Malzberg on Monday.
"Here's a guy who's leaking memos over which there probably was executive privilege, if not classified information, to the press," Yoo said. "Here's a guy who's taking away the power of attorney generals and even the president to make the final decisions on the executive branch's power to investigate and prosecute people for crimes."
Sessions needed to testify to keep Comey's words from going unanswered in a public forum, Yoo said, who served under President George W. Bush and is currently a law professor at the University of California-Berkeley.
Comey's testimony Trump attempted to get him to call off the FBI probe into Trump's former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was an attempt to set the narrative while expecting his former boss would not dispute it, Yoo said.
"I think Comey was acting more and more outside the control of the people we elect to office to run our government," Yoo told Malzberg. "And so I think especially after his mistake and decisions I think three times in the Clinton email investigation, it was already time for Comey go to in January."
Comey's taking of memos after meetings with Trump show an attempt to cover himself and perhaps protect his job, much as the bureau's first director, J. Edgar Hoover did, Yoo said.
"They also may tend to think themselves more important than the president or senators and that they're some kind of crusading white knight that's better than the other members of the government," he said.
Yoo called Trump's vow to testify under oath on attempted Russian influence on the new administration "a big mistake."
Trump was not required to testify, Yoo noted, but "Now that he's promised to do it, it opens up a whole can of worms for him. . . . Even if he's going to tell the truth, even if Comey's misremembering, it's still going to drag out the investigation for months and months."
Special counsel Robert Mueller late last week named criminal law specialist Michael Dreeben to his team.
Yoo said that does not necessarily signal Mueller is pursuing an obstruction of justice case against the president, but he expects to have to take some issues to the Supreme Court. Dreeben is an old hand at arguing cases before the nation's highest court under administrations of both parties.
"Suppose Mueller wants to interview the White House staff – [Steve] Bannon, [Reince] Priebus, the White House counsel, and so on," Yoo said. "Trump could say I refuse to allow them to testify under executive privilege. That could go to the Supreme Court.
"What if Mueller wants documents? Any documents for the White House, that could go to the Supreme Court. And ultimately, what if Mueller says I want to interview the president, and then Trump changes his mind? That could go to the Supreme Court."
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