The circus surrounding former FBI Director James Comey‘s hotly anticipated testimony on Thursday may add a wild new act: President Donald Trump.
Comey, whom Trump fired on May 9, is set to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee at 10:00am ET Thursday. The former law enforcement official is expected to face a slew of questions regarding his interactions with Trump, particularly those related to his firing and the president’s alleged attempts to convince Comey to drop the investigation into Russia’s ties to members of Trump’s team.
According to Washington Post reporter Robert Costa, however, Trump may decide to livetweet during Comey’s testimony “if he feels the need to respond.”
I'm told by two WH sources that Pres. Trump does not plan to put down Twitter on Thursday. May live tweet if he feels the need to respond.
— Robert Costa (@costareports) June 6, 2017
Whether Trump will be free to tweet his thoughts during Comey’s testimony remains to be seen. The president has a speech at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s “Road to Majority” conference scheduled for 12:30pm ET, more than two half hours after the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing is set to begin.
Anything Trump says may have legal ramifications. There are currently five ongoing investigations into Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election, including four by congressional committees. The fifth is led by Special Prosecutor Robert Muller, whom the Department of Justice appointed after Trump fired Comey. Muller’s probe is reportedly a criminal investigation into ties between Trump team members and Russia, as well as potential attempts by the president to influence the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s probe into Russia.
Trump has become increasingly unhinged on Twitter over the past few days, during which he criticized London’s mayor just after the city suffered a deadly terrorist attack and declared that his executive order temporarily barring immigrants from several Muslim-majority nations is, in fact, a “travel ban”—a phrase that may complicate the administration’s ongoing legal battle over the order due to its loaded connotations.
On Tuesday, Trump addressed criticisms of his tweetstorms in a new tweetstorm, boasting that the “fake MSM” (mainstream media) would not convince him to stop using Twitter. “They hate that I can get the honest and unfiltered message out,” Trump wrote.
What that “honest and unfiltered message” will be come Thursday is anyone’s guess.