Conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer said Thursday "it looks pretty improper" President Donald Trump asked former FBI Director James Comey whether he was under investigation on possible Russian ties during the campaign.
"I don’t think it's illegal for that to be asked or answered," Krauthammer told Bret Baier on Fox News. "But it looks pretty improper.
"I thought that's the standard," he said. "You are not supposed to tell someone whether they are or not."
Trump told NBC News that Comey had told him three times – over dinner and in two phone calls – he was not the subject of any Moscow probe by the agency.
"I said, 'If it's possible, would you let me know am I under investigation?' He said you are not under investigation," Trump told anchor Lester Holt.
Krauthammer likened the president's action to last June's meeting between former President Bill Clinton and then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch on her private plane on the tarmac at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix.
The meeting occurred hours before the special House Benghazi Committee released its report on the 2012 Libyan attacks, which occurred when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state.
"We assumed she was improperly approached by Bill Clinton and that he may, or even the fact that he might have asked was, something that Trump himself has called a disgrace," he told Baier.
"There is a line here, apparently what we hear from Grassley and Feinstein, it happened, which clears away one question.
"The other: Sshould it have happened? I think that's still a question."
Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who represents California, is the panel's ranking Democrat.
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