WASHINGTON -- Congressional Republicans are increasing pressure on President Donald Trump's administration to produce records related to the latest string of controversies involving the president.
As the White House sought to contain the damage from two provocative incidents, leaders of two key Senate committees asked the FBI for documents related to former Director James Comey, who was leading an investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 election before Trump fired him last week.
The Republican chairmen and ranking Democrats on the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees asked the FBI to hand over Comey's notes about his communications with the White House and senior Justice Department officials that are related to the Russia investigation.
The Judiciary Committee leaders also asked the White House to provide any records of interactions between Trump officials and Comey, including audio recordings. In a nod to lawmakers' strong desire to hear from the former director, the Intelligence Committee leaders asked him to testify in both open and closed sessions.
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Meanwhile, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, scheduled a hearing for next Wednesday about whether Trump interfered in the FBI's investigation and invited Comey to testify.
Over in the Senate, the top members of that chamber's Judiciary Committee invited Comey to testify publicly.
Sen. Charles Grassley, the Republican chairman of the committee, and Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein wrote Comey on Wednesday. They asked him to testify on the "circumstances of your termination" and his interactions with Trump's administration about the FBI's investigation into Russia. A date has not been set for the public hearing.
The requests came after news reports revealed Trump's disclosure of highly classified material to Russian officials and an alleged attempt to shut down an investigation into his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will brief the full Senate today on Comey's firing.
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On Wednesday, some members of the GOP began predicting that the party will rally behind some sort of independent investigative body to probe the two matters.
Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa., co-chairman of the moderate-Republican Tuesday Group, said the collective political fallout from the past week "will make it difficult" for Republicans to resist a change in approach.
Dent said he does not like investigations by independent prosecutors because they "tend to take on a life of their own," and instead preferred an independent commission of outside experts.
"We may have to move in that direction," Dent said Wednesday at a forum moderated by Center Forward, a moderate Democratic organization.
The conjunction of the two controversies Tuesday night left Republicans reeling, with a senior GOP senator comparing the situation to Watergate, and Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., directing the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to immediately seek records from the FBI.
Ryan was careful to strike an evenhanded tone Wednesday, saying congressional committees would continue to conduct oversight "regardless of what party is in the White House" but seeming to dismiss some concerns that have arisen in the wake of news about a memo by Comey suggesting that Trump had pressured him to drop the Flynn investigation.
"There's clearly a lot of politics being played here," Ryan said. "Our job is to get the facts and to be sober about doing that."
He noted FBI acting Director Andrew McCabe's recent comment that there has been "no effort to impede our investigation." McCabe made the remark in a congressional hearing when asked whether the firing of Comey had affected the bureau's work.
Ryan also sounded a skeptical note about Comey's actions after the meeting in which Trump allegedly asked him to "let this go," referring to the Flynn investigation.
"If this happened as he described, why didn't [Comey] take action at the time?" Ryan said.
Asked on his way out of the news conference whether he still retained confidence in Trump, Ryan replied, "I do."
Meanwhile, Rep. Elijah Cummings, top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, accused the Republicans of taking great pains to "do as little as humanly possible, just to claim that they're doing something."
"Speaker Ryan has shown he has zero, zero, zero appetite for any investigation of Donald Trump," he said.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has not directly commented on allegations that Trump tried to pressure Comey. He did not mention the president or the controversies facing the White House during his morning remarks on the Senate floor and ignored questions from reporters in the halls of the Capitol.
Putin's offer of 'record'
Interest was hardly limited to the U.S., as Russia's Vladimir Putin called the allegations surrounding Trump evidence of "political schizophrenia spreading in the U.S." He offered to furnish a "record" of the Oval Office meeting with Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, and its Washington ambassador, Sergei Kislyak, if the White House desired it.
Putin, watching from afar, said the "evolving political struggle" had gone from something of an amusement to serious cause for concern, and he suggested Trump's critics were stoking anti-Russian sentiment to damage the president.
"These people either don't understand that they are hurting their own country, and in that case they are just dumb," Putin said. "Or they do understand everything, and that means that they are dangerous and unscrupulous."
Lawmakers from both parties rejected Putin's offer.
"The idea that we would accept any evidence from President Putin is absurd," Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said in an interview with CNN.
"I don't talk to murderous dictators like Vladimir Putin, so Putin's word to me doesn't mean a whole lot," Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, a member of the Republican leadership, told the news channel.
"Probably the last person the president needs to vouch for him right now is Vladimir Putin," Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in an interview with CBS News. "Its credibility would be less than zero."
There was no word on what Putin's record might entail, a question many were likely to raise in light of Trump's recent warning to Comey that he had "better hope" there were no tapes of a discussion they'd had.
The White House disputed Comey's account of the February conversation concerning Flynn but did not offer specifics. Several members of Congress said that if Trump did suggest that Comey "let this go" regarding Flynn's Russian contacts, it was probably just a joke, light banter.
Trump did not offer any commentary on Twitter and did not directly address the controversies during a commencement address at the Coast Guard Academy, though he delivered a broadside against the forces he sees as working against him.
"No politician in history, and I say this with great surety, has been treated worse or more unfairly," he said. "You can't let the critics and the naysayers get in the way of your dreams. ... Adversity makes you stronger. Don't give in, don't back down. ... And the more righteous your fight, the more opposition that you will face."
McCain: Like Watergate
Questions about Trump's conduct have been mounting for weeks, most recently with revelations that the president allegedly pressed Comey to drop a federal investigation into Flynn's contacts with Russia and that he disclosed classified information to the senior Russian officials last week.
Initial information about both matters came from anonymous sources, and the White House was quick to denounce the leaks and deny any impropriety, insisting that the president never tried to squelch the Flynn investigation and that the disclosures to the Russians weren't inappropriate.
On Tuesday night while speaking at an International Republican Institute dinner, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., compared the current situation to the Watergate scandal, which led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon .
Asked Wednesday whether the current situation could lead to impeachment, McCain responded: "I have no idea on that -- come on."
The senator's spokesman, Julie Tarallo, said the comparison was "simply meant to convey that the constant revelations of events surrounding Russia's interference in the 2016 election are reminiscent of past scandals, are not good for America and require further scrutiny."
When asked what he'd say to Trump, McCain replied: "Get it all out. It's not going to be over until every aspect of it is thoroughly examined and the American people have made a judgment. And the longer you delay, the longer it's going to last."
While several Democrats have called for Trump to be impeached over the Comey firing, the party's leaders reiterated that their priority was a special investigation.
Schiff cautioned that hasty talk of impeachment would distract from the need for a bipartisan probe -- and mire the investigation in partisanship.
Other Republican senators, while saying they need to review documents before making a final judgment, voiced doubts about Trump.
"There's a lot here that's really scary," Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., said Wednesday morning in an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. "It's obviously inappropriate for any president to be trying to interfere with an investigation."
Collins, a member of the Intelligence Committee, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, reissued calls Wednesday for the Justice Department to consider appointing a special prosecutor to probe Russia's election interference.
The White House has been largely silent since The New York Times first reported on Trump's alleged effort to end the Flynn investigation by pressuring Comey. Trump aides have not directly commented on the story and were absent from television shows starting Tuesday night, a notable difference from last week, when they blanketed the networks to defend Comey's firing.
Trump is preparing to leave town Friday on his first foreign trip, and aides have been hopeful the journey will be a chance for the administration to get back on track after weeks of chaos and distractions.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speculated Trump was probably happy to get out of town -- "and a lot of us are glad he's leaving for a few days."
His advice to the president: "Stay disciplined, stay focused and deliver on the world stage."
Information for this article was contributed by Elise Viebeck, Sean Sullivan, Mike DeBonis, Paul Kane, Karoun Demirjian, Carol Leonnig, Ed O'Keefe, Amber Phillips, Kelsey Snell and David Weigel of The Washington Post; and by Eric Tucker, Nancy Benac, Deb Riechmann, Eileen Sullivan, Erica Werner, Matthew Daly and Mary Clare Jalonick of The Associated Press.
A Section on 05/18/2017
