I have learned that some — though definitely not all — members of President Trump's inner circle share his belief that the Obama administration tapped his Trump Tower phones in October. And a White House official told me President Trump not only doesn't regret this weekend's fracas despite the lack of evidence for his astonishing claim, he is "absolutely convinced" he'll be vindicated. 
 
 "The president just has a great nose for these things," the official said. "It's the bureaucratic leaks — the deep state — that bother him most. Even if it turns out not to be true that they surveilled Trump Tower, he will have a very good point to make about the level of sabotage coming from Obama holdovers." 
 
 Those facts help explain Trump's high-stakes decision to ask Congress to add Obama abuse of "executive branch investigative powers" to its Russia investigation. For Trump spokespeople, it's a handy punt: Now they don't have to defend or explain Trump's tweets, and just refer questioners to Congress. 
 
 But the risk is that there'll be a day of reckoning — perhaps after documents are subpoenaed and testimony demanded — when a Republican Congress embarrasses the White House by saying the president was flat wrong when he accused his predecessor of a crime. 
 
 Towergate is a fascinating test of Trump's great gamble that he can do the job of president in a totally new way: largely improvisational, driven by whims, moods and obsessions; thinly staffed, like his campaign, and with poorly enforced process, not taking advantage of the massive safety net available to him; heavily reliant on family; and unconstrained by manners, rituals or precedent. 
 
 FBI Director Comey reportedly turned on Trump and asked the Justice Department to reject the tapping claim. And Sen. Marco Rubio expressed skepticism on Sunday shows. 
 
 But some well-known Republicans are willing to wage the debate on Trump's terms. One establishment grandee asked in an email: Did Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch "approve this??? That is the big Q" — skipping over whether "this" is real. 
 
 A Democratic theory is that if Trump believes problematic transcripts of recorded calls with Russians may dribble or gush out, why not discredit them in advance as a political dirty trick? Then when they emerge, you can say "Aha!" rather than being on the defensive. 
 
 But a Republican close to the White House said that's overthinking it: That "view is quite plausible. But I do not believe they are playing chess. I think they are playing Trivial Pursuit." ||||| Former FBI Director James Comey's Senate testimony Thursday will indeed have a big political impact in Washington. It will foster more partisan bitterness and more bad feelings about our political process and news media. But none of his testimony rises to the level of anything legally powerful enough to end the Trump presidency literally or figuratively. 
 
 The bottom line is that Comey spent a few hours Thursday telling the Senate committee that he felt uncomfortable and even stunned by President Trump's behavior. And he peppered that narrative with numerous damaging statements about the president's behavior and character, including basically calling him a liar: 
 
 I was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting, I thought it really important to document. That combo I had never experienced before, it led me to believe got to write it down and write it down in a very detailed way. 
 
 But Comey also refused to describe President Trump's behavior as obstruction of justice and admitted that he did not even write a resignation letter or report the matter as a possible criminal act through the proper channels at the time. "That's (Special Counsel) Bob Mueller's job to sort that out," Comey said. 
 
 Comey came off as something of a savvy Washington survivor who knew how to keep his head above water in D.C. but without the guts or inclination to put a stop to the myriad ways his superiors from both parties kept trying to interfere with his job. 
 
 He described another such encounter with then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch who he said told him to refer to the Hillary Clinton email investigation as a "matter" and not an investigation. Comey said that was why he decided to make his public conclusions about that investigation on his own, but did not push back at Lynch directly. 
 
 Comey insists he just kept doing his job, and that's credible. But he still sounds like a very political animal in the "swamp" of Washington, D.C. So what else is new? 
 
 On the positive side, at least there was something for those of us who take no real comfort in any of our leaders committing actual crimes. We got that when Comey clarified to Senator Jim Risch of Idaho that a major story by the New York Times on February 14th reporting that there had been many meetings between the Trump campaign and Russian agents was simply not true. 
 
 Overall, "it was not true," Comey said. "The challenge -- and I'm not picking on reporters -- about writing stories about classified information is that people talking about it often don't really know what is going on. And those of us who actually know what's going on aren't talking about it. And we don't call the press to say, hey, you got that thing wrong about this sensitive topic. We just have to leave it there. 
 
 But getting back to the hard conclusions from this hearing, it produced little more than bad feelings and more character assassination. Remember that a sitting president can only be tried in the U.S. Senate. For that to happen, articles of impeachment must first be drafted in the House of Representatives. 
 
 With a Republican majority in the House, a former FBI Director refusing to describe his interactions with President Trump as a clear example of obstruction of justice isn't going to cut it. It seems inconceivable that any House committee would draft articles of impeachment over Comey's accounts, let alone get those articles passed by a committee or the full House. 
 
 Of course the definitive end of this matter will not come at least until Special Counsel Mueller wraps up his overall investigation of any possible Trump campaign collusion with the Russians. But judging from the sigh of relief rally on Wall Street, which saw the Dow hitting an all-time high as the Comey questioning wrapped up, many of the most concerned players in this game are seeing a real light at the end of the tunnel. 
 
 And they should, because a potential weapon in the overall effort to oust or mortally wound President Trump hasn't played out. It was an exciting hearing to be sure. But the Comey wild card is effectively off the table. 
 
 Commentary by Jake Novak, CNBC.com senior columnist. Follow him on Twitter @jakejakeny. 
 
 For more insight from CNBC contributors, follow @CNBCopinion on Twitter. ||||| Donald Trump received three separate assurances from then-FBI Director James Comey that the president was not personally under investigation — but he may now be under investigation because he couldn’t let his obsession go. 
 
 The greatest threat to Trump and his presidency, say administration officials and outside advisers, comes from his own conduct and obsessive behavior after he took office. While congressional and FBI investigations may prove Trump or his team broke laws before he took office, his advisers say they’re more worried that the things he’s done since the inauguration may have left him exposed to obstruction of justice or other charges. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 Trump, for months, has bristled almost daily about the ongoing probes. He has sometimes, without prompting, injected. “I’m not under investigation” into conversations with associates and allies. He has watched hours of TV coverage every day — sometimes even storing morning news shows on his TiVo to watch in the evening — and complained nonstop. 
 
 “You may be the first president in history to go down because you can’t stop inappropriately talking about an investigation that, if you just were quiet, would clear you,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said last weekend. 
 
 Just as he has done publicly on Twitter, Trump has told friends and associates that the investigation is a “witch hunt” and that others are out to get him. “It’s basically all he talks about on the phone,” said one adviser who has spoken with Trump and his top aides. 
 
 Aides have tried to change the subject, with little luck. Advisers have tried to buck up the president by telling him to be patient, agreeing that it is a “witch hunt” and urging him to just let it play out — and reassuring him, “Eventually, you will be cleared,” in the words of one. 
 
 But none of that has changed Trump’s response. 
 
 “The frustration he feels is he fully well knows there was no collusion with Russia. And yet, he’s been on the hot seat about it for six months,” said Barry Bennett, a top campaign aide who continues to have ties to the White House. “He’s been told, 'You’re not under investigation,' and yet he still wakes up every day to read he’s under investigation. It’s really hard to be accused of being a traitor and take your lawyer’s advice to shut up and not talk about it.” 
 
 Two people close to Trump note that his is an obsessive personality — whether about businessmen who wronged him over the years, his years-long and fruitless quest to prove President Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States, to reporters who have written negative stories about him. One transition official said Trump lashed out at reporters over old stories within a day of winning the election in November. 
 
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 Aides say they fear his incendiary tweets and public comments have spurred “countless” leaks of damaging information, in the words of one. Chief strategist Steve Bannon has told others that he believes the FBI is now out to get the Trump administration. 
 
 They have urged Trump to stop meddling — but he won't. Under oath, Comey testified that Trump asked him to consider letting go of an investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was forced to resign in February. Trump ordered top aides to leave the room, according to testimony from Comey and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, before he made the request. 
 
 That was after Trump asked Comey for “loyalty” and repeatedly sought assurances that he wasn’t under investigation. He later asked national security officials to make statements they didn’t believe to be truthful, according to The Washington Post. 
 
 Then, again frustrated with the investigation, he fired Comey several months later, according to several aides and advisers — and told contradictory stories about his decision. “And in fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story.' It’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won,” Trump told NBC’s Lester Holt. 
 
 “I faced great pressure because of Russia, that’s taken off,” Trump told Russia's ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, in the Oval Office, an incident first reported by The New York Times. That, according to several people who spoke to Trump, was the real reason he fired Comey. 
 
 Two days later, angry that the firing might damage him, and after fuming about Comey nonstop, Trump threatened the former FBI director with “tapes” on a Friday morning, a threat that Comey later said spurred him to release memos of his meetings with Trump. One Comey associate at the time said the tweet “amazed” him. 
 
 “I woke up in the middle of the night Monday thinking that there might be corroboration for our conversation,” Comey said under oath. “And my judgment was that I needed to get that out in the public square.” 
 
 Trump now has begun fuming about special counsel Robert Mueller, particularly after Mueller hired several prosecutors and investigators with ties to Democrats. Trump has told associates he might fire Mueller, though they don’t believe he will. On Wednesday, The Washington Post reported that Trump was under investigation for obstruction — and that Mueller wanted to interview the national security officials who reportedly had been asked to make false statements. 
 
 Trump woke up Thursday morning and appeared to question Mueller’s integrity on Twitter. “You are witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history - led by some very bad and conflicted people!” he wrote. White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters she believed the president was responding to the Post story. 
 
 “He is totally in a box now,” one friend said. “And it might make him want to fire Mueller more.” 
 
 “If he didn’t send about 15 tweets that he’s done, he’d be in much better shape than he is right now,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University. “I kept thinking he would change from these self-destructive tendencies, but he may be the first president in history who brings himself down because he just can’t help himself.” ||||| WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former FBI Director James Comey said on Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump asked him to drop an investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn as part of a probe into Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election. 
 
 In written testimony released the day before he appears before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey said Trump told him at a meeting in the White House in February: “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.” 
 
 The testimony puts more pressure on Trump, a Republican, whose presidency has been overshadowed by allegations that Moscow helped him win last year’s election. 
 
 Some legal experts said Comey’s testimony could strengthen any impeachment case built on obstruction of justice, but U.S. markets shrugged off the news from the testimony for lack of any major disclosures. 
 
 To build a criminal obstruction of justice case, federal law requires prosecutors to show that a person acted with “corrupt” intent. It does not matter whether the person succeeds in impeding an investigation. 
 
 While a sitting president is very unlikely to face criminal prosecution, obstruction of justice could form the basis for impeachment. 
 
 Comey said he had told Trump on three occasions he was not being investigated, confirming an earlier account from the president. 
 
 Trump, who spent part of Wednesday in Ohio talking about the need to fix the nation’s crumbling infrastructure, ignored reporters’ shouted questions about Comey. On returning to the Oval Office, Trump went into a meeting with top advisers, including chief of staff Reince Priebus. 
 
 Later, his outside counsel released a statement saying Trump felt “completely and totally vindicated” by Comey’s account. 
 
 “The president is pleased that Mr. Comey has finally publicly confirmed his private reports that the president was not under investigation in any Russian probe,” Marc Kasowitz, Trump’s attorney, said in a statement. 
 
 ‘AWKWARD SILENCE’ 
 
 Several congressional committees, as well as the FBI and a special counsel, are investigating whether Russia tried to tilt last November’s election in Trump’s favour, using means such as hacking into the emails of senior Democrats. Trump and the Kremlin have separately denied any collusion. 
 
 Trump abruptly fired Comey, who was leading the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s probe, on May 9. 
 
 Comey painted a vivid picture for senators of awkward encounters with Trump in seven pages of testimony. 
 
 Comey described a private dinner in the Green Room of the White House on Jan. 26, where Trump asked him whether he wanted to stay on as FBI director, telling him: “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.” 
 
 “I didn’t move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence,” Comey said in his testimony, explaining he became concerned that Trump was trying to create “some sort of patronage relationship.” 
 
 On Feb. 14, after an Oval Office briefing on counterterrorism, Trump asked Comey to stay behind, dismissing Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who lingered, and waving off Priebus, who peeked through the door. 
 
 “When the door by the grandfather clock closed, and we were alone, the president began by saying, ‘I want to talk about Mike Flynn,’” Comey said in his testimony. 
 
 Trump had fired Flynn the previous day in a controversy over contacts between the retired general and the Russian ambassador to the United States. The FBI has been investigating Flynn as it looks into allegations of links between Russia and the Trump campaign. 
 
 Comey quoted Trump as telling him: “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.” 
 
 FILE PHOTO - FBI Director James Comey waits to testify to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on "Russia's intelligence activities" on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. January 10, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo 
 
 On March 30, Trump phoned Comey and asked what “we could do to lift the cloud” of the FBI’s Russia investigation. 
 
 “He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia,” said Comey, who had briefed Trump on “salacious material” that had arisen in a counter-intelligence investigation. 
 
 Michael Cohen, a lawyer for Trump, said in a statement that the uncorroborated dossier of compromising material that Russian operatives allegedly collected on Trump has been “debunked.” 
 
 “Comey’s statement released today needs to be carefully scrutinized as his testimony claims the president was concerned about the dossier,” said Cohen. 
 
 Cohen, along with Flynn, has been subpoenaed by the House Intelligence Committee, which is also conducting a Russia probe. 
 
 LEGAL FALLOUT? 
 
 Some legal experts said Comey’s written statement could be used to show that Trump engaged in obstruction of justice. 
 
 “It shows the president was doing everything he could to shut down the Flynn investigation,” said Andrew Wright, a professor of criminal law at Savannah Law School. 
 
 Bruce Green, a professor of law at Fordham University School of Law, said it would be difficult, however, to show that Trump intended to obstruct justice. Trump could say he was merely vouching for Flynn’s character and voicing concerns about how the probe was interfering with his ability to function effectively as president, Green said. 
 
 Democrats jumped on the testimony, expressing concern that Trump had inappropriately meddled with the probe. 
 
 “It’s certainly very possible that this is evidence, in combination with other actions by the president, that could amount to obstruction. It’s certainly an effort to interfere in the investigation,” the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Adam Schiff, told CNN. 
 
 Slideshow (6 Images) 
 
 Republican House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, asked about Trump’s request for loyalty from Comey, said it was “very, very critical” that FBI directors remain “independent.” 
 
 But Republican Senator Richard Burr, who heads the Senate intelligence panel, said he did not take issue with Trump’s request. 
 
 “I don’t think it’s wrong to ask for loyalty from anybody in an administration,” Burr said.
– President Trump may feel he's vindicated after James Comey's testimony, but opinion outside the White House is not so clear cut. Here's a sample of editorials on the subject: Washington Post: Comey "painted a picture of a president grossly abusing his executive authority," write the editors. "However Mr. Trump and his allies may spin the testimony, these are serious and disturbing allegations." It also called out Republicans who sought to minimize the "transgressions." That only makes "those senators look small." Wall Street Journal: Comey "is trying to have it both ways," complains the editorial page. "He worked to leave the impression that Mr. Trump had committed a crime or at least an abuse of power, even as he abdicated his own obligations as a senior law-enforcement officer to report and deter such misconduct." That is, if he believed Trump was obstructing justice with his requests, why didn't he do something then? It feels like his motive now is "more revenge than truth-telling." New York Times: Comey "deftly recast his confrontation with the president as a clash between the legal principles at the foundation of American democracy, and a venal, self-interested politician who does not recognize, let alone uphold, them." Specifically, the editorial board faults Trump for being seemingly unconcerned about Russian meddling in the election. Washington Examiner: It focuses on Comey confirming that Trump wasn't personally under investigation. Previously, "the media speculated on an investigation into Trump and laughed off his claim that Comey told him he was no target. But Trump has now been shown to be right. Comey has not shown any good reason for withholding the truth. Trump had good reason to be angry." Chicago Tribune: Let this play out. "Comey's testimony damaged the president's credibility. But complex investigations take twists and turns and don't conclude quickly. In time the country will learn enough to render judgment. Were Trump's actions permissible, inept, or nefarious?"