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According to a Fox News post on Facebook, Comey said during his testimony before the Senate committee that in his opinion, Trump did not try to obstruct justice:

Comey said flatly that President Trump did not tell him to drop his investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election; did not try to obstruct justice in his opinion.

However, I wasn't able to find any quote by Comey expressing this. Most articles on the matter - such as this one - seem to only include quotes about obstruction in the case of the Flynn investigation, such as Comey saying that the issue is disturbing and concerning, and that a special counsel should work on determining if obstruction occurred.

Did Comey say that in his opinion, Trump did not try to obstruct justice? If so, was this in relation to the Flynn investigation, or in relation to the Russia investigation as a whole?

JJJ
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tim
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    @CPerkins That is my understanding as well, but I did not listen to the entire hearing. It could be that Comey did say that in his opinion, there was no obstruction of justice in regard to the whole Russia investigation, and that in regard to the Flynn case specifically, a special counsel should investigate. – tim Jun 08 '17 at 17:28
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    I recall him saying "That's not for me to say" as well, and then stating its up to the special investigation headed up by Robert Mueller to determine if Trump tried to obstruct justice. Whenever someone finds the transcript of today's hearing that would be worth looking for. – Jimmy M. Jun 08 '17 at 18:14
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    Nope. He flat out said the opposite, in a way. He said, "I cannot comment on that in an open session", which means yes. – WakeDemons3 Jun 08 '17 at 21:04
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    @CPerkins - the Flynn investigation was part of the broader Russia investigation, so I think any de-linking of the two is largely artificial. We do need to be aware of the source of this claim - Faux News on Facebook. Their online presence (even more than their actual news coverage on TV) does have a tendency to make claims, both on their website and on social media, that make leaps that are not supported by the stories they claim to characterize. – PoloHoleSet Jun 08 '17 at 21:41
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    I know we interpret the site's charter of "scientific skepticism" broadly but this is too much of a reach, IMHO. Comey's testimony is public record and everyone is perfectly free to read it and see if their interpretation agrees with this one. What purpose does it serve to answer here, except to convey one person's interpretation to readers who are too lazy to read it for themselves? They don't even have to read the whole thing - just search for "obstruct". – Nate Eldredge Jun 08 '17 at 23:42
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    Even though I answered this, @NateEldredge's comment tweeks my discomfort with the prevalence of "Did X say / tweet / post Y?" questions on this site. Has this been discussed in meta anywhere? – Larry OBrien Jun 09 '17 at 00:27
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    @LarryOBrien: It is one thing when the claim is just that "X said Y" and research is required to locate the source; then an answer can quote X's exact words and a reader can decide for themselves whether Y is an accurate description. In this case, everyone already knows the exact date, time, location, and event where X said what he said, and there are reliable verbatim transcripts. There's no research for us to contribute, and the accuracy of the description is outside the scope of this site as I see it. I could argue it should be closed for "no research effort". – Nate Eldredge Jun 09 '17 at 00:32
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    Fox news and the GOP are in full-on spin control mode right now -- note Ryan's comments that Trump is "new at this" and so shouldn't be held to any standards. They'll latch on to any soundbite that they can *possibly* argue into something that helps their case. – Shadur Jun 09 '17 at 08:57
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    @NateEldredge To be fair, the OP asked before transcripts were available, but it could be argued that is too soon to be asking. – called2voyage Jun 09 '17 at 12:29
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    @CPerkins - "there's a clear difference **in my mind**" - Flynn was part of the Trump campaign while this was going on, the Russians interfered to favor Trump. If Flynn has the most obvious criminal violations, dropping his investigation and his role as part of the Trump campaign essentially de-fangs to most obvious criminal difficulties for Trump, in general. It might be something independent, but it's just as possible they are hopelessly intertwined. And, let's be clear, Trump would not be trying to sway an FBI investigation just to be a nice guy. Everything is about him, to him. – PoloHoleSet Jun 09 '17 at 14:21

2 Answers2

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According to the transcript, he did not make a commitment one way or the other:

MANCHIN: Do you believe this will rise to obstruction of justice?

COMEY: I don’t know. That — that’s Bob Mueller’s job to sort that out.

MANCHIN: Thank you, sir.

Also:

BURR: ....In your estimation, was General Flynn, at that time, in serious legal jeopardy? And in addition to that, do you sense that the president was trying to obstruct justice, or just seek for a way for Mike Flynn to save face, given he had already been fired?

COMEY: General Flynn, at that point in time, was in legal jeopardy. There was an open FBI criminal investigation of his statements in connection with the Russian contacts and the contacts themselves. And so that was my assessment at the time.

I don’t think it’s for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct. I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning, but that’s a conclusion I’m sure the special counsel will work towards, to try and understand what the intention was there, and whether that’s an offense.

Community
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Larry OBrien
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The explicit claim is PARTLY TRUE BUT MISLEADING

Comey said flatly that President Trump did not tell him to drop his investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election; did not try to obstruct justice in his opinion.

The first part is true from the transcripts.

BURR: Director Comey, did the president at any time ask you to stop the FBI investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 U.S. elections?

COMEY: Not to my understanding, no.

But the second part is false

At no point did Comey ever take a position on whether Trump obstructed justice. He said "that's not for me to say", and he said Mueller would get into that question but he never said that the president did not obstruct justice.

What he did say is that (speaking of the investigation into Flynn's inappropriate/illegal/dishonestly hidden contacts with the Russians), the president said:

"I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go."

About which Risch attempted to make the point that that's not a direction, to which Comey asserted that he took it as one.

ReasonablySkeptical
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