WASHINGTON �� Former FBI Director James Comey's lawyer asked a Washington federal judge to issue what he conceded would be the first trial court order blocking a House subpoena.
Attorney David Kelley made the request Friday, telling U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden that House Republicans want his client to give a deposition in private so they could selectively leak and distort portions of it. He accused the Republicans of attempting to use the leaks to back their predetermined conclusions about the FBI's handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation and Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The judge didn't rule on the request, and scheduled another hearing for Dec. 3, which is when Comey was scheduled to testify. The committee volunteered to put off that testimony by a day.
The unprecedented nature of Comey's request was raised first by Thomas Hungar, a lawyer for the House, who told the judge that "no federal district court in the history of the republic" had ever granted such relief. "This court should not be the first," Hungar said.
"That doesn't mean that it can't happen and it doesn't mean that it shouldn't happen," Kelley said.
Comey was subpoenaed to appear before members of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees last week. He took to Twitter and filed court papers to object to the summons, contending that anything he said was going to be misused for political purposes. He said he is willing to answer questions, but only in public.
President Donald Trump fired Comey last year and has continued to denounce him. Some Republicans have joined Trump in contending that Comey went easy on Clinton's use of a private email server while allowing anti-Trump bias in the bureau and the Justice Department to taint the early stages of the Russia probe.
Republican lawmakers have also summoned former Attorney General Loretta Lynch to testify at the closed hearing.
Hungar argued that the Constitution's speech-or-debate clause immunizes Congress from the type of judicial interference Comey seeks. He said the committee needed Comey's testimony to finish a report by year-end, before control of the House shifts to the Democrats.
Hungar said Comey wasn't barred from discussing his testimony in public, and a transcript of the hearing would be made available within 24 hours.
That prompted the judge to question why a closed session was necessary in the first place.
