JAMES COMEY/POLITICS/TRUMP PEOPLE/MICHAEL FLYNN: “A growing chorus of congressional Republicans are calling for former FBI Director James Comey to testify before Congress about his interactions President Donald Trump — including whether Trump tried to obstruct the criminal probe into ex-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.
And more Republicans appeared open to appointing a special prosecutor or independent commission to investigate the ties between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.
Yet Trump and the White House have some defenders on Capitol Hill, and party leaders such as Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) are trying to contain the political fallout from the scandal by urging members to avoid “rushing to judgment.”
And a number of Republicans are waving off allegations that Trump tried to derail the Flynn probe and then fired Comey over the issue, claiming it’s all hearsay and there is no concrete proof yet that Trump did anything improper. Comey reportedly kept contemporaneous notes of his conversations with the president.
But there’s been an unmistakable shift in attitude toward Trump among most congressional Republicans since the New York Times broke the story late Tuesday about the president’s interactions with the former FBI chief.”
-Seung Min Kim, Rachel Bade, and Kyle Cheney, “Hill Republicans increase calls for Comey to testify,” Politico, May 17, 2017 10:57am