--- title: Comey Testimony: John McCain Clarifies His Odd Questions description: After confounding James Comey and people watching the former FBI director's testimony, John McCain clarified his questions canonical: https://time.com/4811629/john-mccain-james-comey-testimony-questions-arizona-diamondbacks/ author: Jennifer Calfas article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-06-08T19:25:06.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T05:20:38.791Z article:section: Politics og:title: John McCain Tries to Clarify His Odd James Comey Questions og:description: "Maybe going forward I shouldn't stay up late watching the Diamondbacks night games." og:url: https://time.com/4811629/john-mccain-james-comey-testimony-questions-arizona-diamondbacks/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt55b62c49df8fd852/6988d0eacd1bba5419705927/senator-john-mccain-james-comey-fbi-senate-hearing1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2100 og:image:height: 1181 og:image:alt: senator-john-mccain-james-comey-fbi-senate-hearing og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: John McCain Tries to Clarify His Odd James Comey Questions twitter:description: "Maybe going forward I shouldn't stay up late watching the Diamondbacks night games." twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt55b62c49df8fd852/6988d0eacd1bba5419705927/senator-john-mccain-james-comey-fbi-senate-hearing1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # John McCain Tries to Clarify His Odd James Comey Questions > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Jennifer Calfas](https://time.com/author/jennifer-calfas/) ## Jennifer Calfas Jun 8, 2017 7:25 PM UTC  Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., asks a question during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, June 7, 2017\. The nation's intelligence chiefs, facing questions from Congress one day before former FBI Director James Comey provides his first public account of the events leading up to his firing, declined to describe conversations with President Donald Trump but said they had not been directed to do anything they considered illegal or felt pressured to do so. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., asks a question during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, June 7, 2017\. The nation's intelligence chiefs, facing questions from Congress one day before former FBI Director James Comey provides his first public account of the events leading up to his firing, declined to describe conversations with President Donald Trump but said they had not been directed to do anything they considered illegal or felt pressured to do so. Susan Walsh—AP by [Jennifer Calfas](https://time.com/author/jennifer-calfas/) ## Jennifer Calfas Jun 8, 2017 7:25 PM UTC [Sen. John McCain](http://fortune.com/2017/05/29/john-mccain-isis-vladimir-putin/) acknowledged his confounding questions at the highly anticipated [testimony of former FBI Director James Comey](http://time.com/4811176/comey-testimony-donald-trump-questions/) on Thursday, clarifying he intended to ask for Comey’s judgement on whether [President Donald Trump](http://time.com/4811331/donald-trump-jeff-sessions-confidence/) obstructed justice. McCain’s opportunity to ask questions [was met with confusion](http://time.com/4811311/john-mccain-james-comey-testimony/) by his congressional colleagues, Comey and viewers as he appeared to try to draw connections between the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and its now-concluded investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while Secretary of State. (At one point, McCain mistakenly called the former FBI director “President Comey.”) In a statement after the hearing, McCain clarified he had intended to ask whether Comey believed Trump’s interactions with him could be considered obstruction of justice. He said he referred to the Clinton investigation to use an example of how Comey stepped “beyond his role as an investigator” when, on July 5, 2016, he recommended that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring charges against Clinton. > [](https://twitter.com/SenJohnMcCain/status/872888708323823620) “I wanted Mr. Comey to apply the same approach to the key question surrounding his interactions with President Trump — whether or not the President’s conduct constitutes obstruction of justice,” McCain said. He said he plans to submit his question in writing to Comey “for the record.” But McCain also used the opportunity to make a self-deprecating joke, poking fun at himself for what he said was the impact of a late night of watching baseball. “I get the sense from Twitter that my line of questioning today went over people’s heads,” McCain said after the hearing. “Maybe going forward I shouldn’t stay up late watching the Diamondbacks night games.” The Arizona Diamondbacks beat the San Diego Padres Wednesday night, 7-4. > [](https://twitter.com/Dbacks/status/872889256850501632) But while Comey did not have the opportunity to answer McCain’s intended question, [he did say he was “sure”](http://time.com/4810883/comey-testimony-donald-trump-obstruction-of-justice/) the special counsel overseeing the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election will examine whether or not Trump obstructed justice. “I don’t think it’s for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct,” Comey said. “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 to understand what the intention was there and whether that’s an offense.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4811629/john-mccain-james-comey-testimony-questions-arizona-diamondbacks/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4811629/john-mccain-james-comey-testimony-questions-arizona-diamondbacks/"},"headline":"John McCain Tries to Clarify His Odd James Comey Questions","datePublished":"2017-06-08T19:25:06.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T05:20:38.791Z","description":"\"Maybe going forward I shouldn't stay up late watching the Diamondbacks night games\"","url":"https://time.com/4811629/john-mccain-james-comey-testimony-questions-arizona-diamondbacks/","keywords":["Congress","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt55b62c49df8fd852/6988d0eacd1bba5419705927/senator-john-mccain-james-comey-fbi-senate-hearing1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jennifer Calfas","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/jennifer-calfas/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt55b62c49df8fd852/6988d0eacd1bba5419705927/senator-john-mccain-james-comey-fbi-senate-hearing1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"senator-john-mccain-james-comey-fbi-senate-hearing","caption":"senator-john-mccain-james-comey-fbi-senate-hearing","creditText":"Susan Walsh—AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/congress/","name":"Congress"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4811629/john-mccain-james-comey-testimony-questions-arizona-diamondbacks/","name":"John McCain Tries to Clarify His Odd James Comey Questions"}}]}] ```