Sen. Kamala Harris set to play unique role at Comey hearing
Carolyn Lochhead June 6, 2017 Updated: June 6, 2017 7:01 p.m.
California Sen. Kamala Harris will get a blockbuster debut in the national spotlight Thursday when former FBI director James Comey testifies to Congress for the first time since being fired a month ago.
WASHINGTON — Freshman California Sen. Kamala Harris will get a blockbuster debut in the national spotlight Thursday when former FBI Director James Comey testifies to Congress for the first time since being fired a month ago by President Trump, a spectacle that is drawing live coverage from the prime-time anchors of the big three television networks and promises to rival Washington's most storied public hearings.
Harris, a Democrat, has a seat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is conducting an investigation into Russian interference in last year's presidential election, including allegations of collusion between Russian President Vladimir Putin's regime and Trump's election campaign.
Comey was leading a parallel investigation of the same issues until Trump fired him. The question is whether Trump pressured Comey to stop his investigation of former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn for his dealings with Russia, potentially exposing himself to charges of obstruction of justice.
1of11Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., is a member of the Senate Intel ligence Committee that will question the former FBI chief.Photo: AL DRAGO, NYT
2of11Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., greets people at a town hall meeting in April at a church in Los Angeles. Harris will be in the national spotlight at the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing.Photo: David McNew, Getty Images
3of11James Comey is sworn in for his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee to become FBI director in 2013.Photo: Mark Wilson, Getty Images
4of11All eyes will be on former FBI Director James Comey as the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence testifies Thursday about investigations of Russian election meddling and possible collusion with President Donald Trump's campaign. / AFP PHOTO / Nicholas KammNICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty ImagesPhoto: NICHOLAS KAMM, AFP/Getty Images
5of11WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 27: Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)(L) walks with Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) (C), to a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence closed door meeting at the U.S. Capitol, on April 27, 2017 in Washington, DC. ThPhoto: Mark Wilson / Getty Images 2017
6of11File - May 9: According to reports, US President Donald Trump has removed James Comey as FBI Director on May 9, 2017. WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 07: FBI Director James Comey is sworn in during a hearing before House Oversight and Government Reform Committee July 7, 2016 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. The committee held a hearing "Oversight of the State Department," focusing on the FBI's recommendation not to prosecute Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for maintaining a private email server during her time as Secretary of State. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)Photo: Alex Wong
7of11WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 16: Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) heads for her party's weekly policy luncheon at the U.S. Capitol May 16, 2017 in Washington, DC. Many Republican and Democratic senators expressed frustration and concern about how President Donald Trump may have shared classified intelligence with the Russian foreign minister last week at the White House. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)Photo: Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images
8of11Senator Kamala Harris at the California Democrats 2017 State Convention on Saturday, May 20, 2017 in Sacramento, CAPhoto: Paul Kuroda / Special to The Chronicle
9of11FBI Director James Comey testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2015, before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Comey said the two San Bernardino shooters were radicalized at least two years ago and had discussed jihad and martyrdom as early as 2013. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)Photo: Susan Walsh, Associated Press
10of11WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 25: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence member Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) (R) talks to journalists before attending a closed-door meeting in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill April 25, 2017 in Washington, DC. The committee has entered the third month of its investigation into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)Photo: Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images
11of11Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., leave the Senate on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Feb. 17, 2017, following the final vote to confirm Scott Pruitt to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)Photo: J. Scott Applewhite, Associated Press
As a first-term senator in the minority party, Harris will be the last in line to ask questions, and will be hard-pressed to find a new angle that would elicit any bombshell revelations from the former FBI director, a man well rehearsed in the choreography of congressional hearings.
"I'm getting used to it," Harris said Tuesday of being the last committee member to question witnesses. A former San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general, Harris typically employs a prosecutorial style in hearings that attempts to get facts on the public record.
She said that's what she'll do Thursday. "It's going to be about being probative of the facts," Harris said in a hallway interview on Capitol Hill.
Her preparation includes "reviewing everything that has happened in previous hearings, reviewing public source documents," including press reports and interviews, she said. And, she said, she spends prep time "refining the calendar around some of the dates that we know certain conversations ... occurred, where there were answers to certain questions and checking whether they're consistent."
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, also a Democrat, is the committee's former chair and ranking member. She traded her role as ranking member after the last election to take on the top Democratic slot on the Judiciary Committee. But with her seniority, Feinstein will still be the second Democrat to question Comey after top Democrat Mark Warner of Virginia.
"You know the way this works," Feinstein told The Chronicle. "It goes down the line, back and forth (alternating Republican and Democrat). So you can have a question and somebody else asks it who's ahead of you, so we sort of keep our powder dry and you have to follow the flow of the questioning.
"Obviously, what we're looking for is what transpired at (Comey's) meetings with the president, with respect to the president asking him to lay off of Gen. Flynn, that's one thing. And another thing is to discuss, to the extent he'll discuss with us, some of the Russia investigation."
Nick Akerman, a former Watergate prosecutor and U.S. attorney now at the law firm Dorsey and Whitney, said Comey is unlikely to divulge details of the investigation, but that discussing his conversations with Trump is "totally in bounds." According to news reports, Comey left a detailed memo trail of his meetings with the president.
The job for senators on both sides of the aisle, Akerman said, will be to "develop as many facts as they can" about Comey's conversations with Trump. "Everything," he said. "The atmosphere, what was said, who else was present, who else was spoken to, the who, what, where, why, when, et cetera. Trying to set the entire stage so you know exactly what happened."
That includes questions about why Comey wrote memos of the meetings with Trump, and whether he did the same after meetings with former President Barack Obama, Akerman said.
For Harris, he said, "You're talking about the junior senator who gets last word. I think she's just got to be ready as former prosecutor to do the cleanup. Where there's some kind of hole or something that hasn't been covered, her job is going to be to make sure that everything gets questioned about that can be questioned about.
"So what she's really got to be doing is sitting there with a checklist to make sure that nobody misses anything."
The Comey hearing has generated such intense media interest that it is already being compared to the Watergate hearings and those over Clarence Thomas' nomination to the Supreme Court. Hearings of such magnitude can provide a "staging ground" for those with higher aspirations, said Bill Whalen, a political analyst at the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
The challenge for Harris, who has batted down questions about her presidential aspirations since coming to Washington in January, is, "What can she ask that's unique by the time it's her turn?" he said.
Should Harris ever decide on a White House run, Thursday will be "not just a hearing for Comey, it's a job interview for Harris," said Jack Pitney, a professor of politics at Claremont-McKenna College in Claremont (Los Angeles County). "She's going to have to bring her best game to the event. This is probably the biggest national audience she's had up to now."
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Democrats walk a fine line between trying to get to the bottom of Russian interference in the November election — and possible continuing interference in U.S. politics — and demands from their base for Trump's impeachment. Harris has not ventured into that territory and party leaders such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco have discouraged such talk.
Whalen noted that Republicans suffered a voter backlash after their impeachment of former President Bill Clinton on perjury and obstruction of justice charges in a case that began with an investigation of Clinton's Whitewater real estate dealings and wound up with an investigation of Clinton lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. The House voted to bring impeachment articles, but the Senate dismissed both charges, largely on party lines.
Nonetheless, Pitney said the Russia investigation and related hearings pose enormous political peril for Trump, whose public approval has sunk to the high 30s.
"The danger for Trump is an erosion of his political support," Pitney said. "So far, Republicans have been pretty reluctant to stand up to him, but if the polls start turning, particularly if he leaks Republican support, then some Republicans on the Hill might begin to feel their spine again."
Carolyn Lochhead is The San Francisco Chronicle's Washington correspondent. Email: clochhead@sfchronicle.com
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Carolyn Lochhead is the Washington correspondent for the San Francisco Chronicle, where she has covered national politics and policy for 22 years. She grew up in Paso Robles (San Luis Obispo County) and graduated from UC Berkeley cum laude in rhetoric and economics. She has a masters of journalism degree from Columbia University.
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