From James Comey’s Opening Statement before the Senate Committee expected tomorrow morning at 10 AM )Eastern time)
Starting on Day One with Trump:
I felt compelled to document my first conversation with the president-elect in a memo. To ensure accuracy, I began to type it on a laptop in an FBI vehicle outside Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the meeting. Creating written records immediately after one-on-one conversations with Mr. Trump was my practice from that point forward. This had not been my practice in the past. I spoke alone with President Obama twice in person (and never on the phone) – once in 2015 to discuss law enforcement policy issues and a second time, briefly, for him to say goodbye in late 2016. In neither of those circumstances did I memorialize the discussions. I can recall nine one-on-one conversations with President Trump in four months – three in person and six on the phone.
That’s the Trump-Comey direct, one-on-one total baseline: nine interactions, three in person, six on the phone.
What’s in Comey’s Opening Statement (to be given under oath) tomorrow?
Meetings in Person
1.) January 6, 2017 (Trump not President yet. Pre-Inaugural briefing on Russia investigation)
2.) January 27, 2017: Dinner a deux in White House (only Trump & Comey present)
3.) February 14, 2017 Oval Office tête-à-tête (only Comey & Trump present)
O.K. Check, Check, and Check.
Houston, we have lift off.
How about the one-on-one phone conversations (of which there were six in total)?
Here goes.
4.) March 30 Phone Call: President called Comey at FBI (Trump started it)
5.) April 11 Phone Call: President called Comey (Trump started it)
And, finito macaroni.
Wait! What?
What happened to the other four calls missing in preliminary action?
What with the likes of razor sharp Tom Cotton (AR), earnest James Lankford (OK), and schmoozer John McCain (AZ) on the Republican side, and the angry buzzing Democrats like Martin Heinrich (NM), Angus King (ME independent) and Kamala Harris (CA) itching for a fight, you know there’s some ‘splaining to do there.
Unlike the human subject on the other end of the Trump-Comey communication chain (a man who is rather notorious for his innumeracy skills and numerical imprecision), Comey is, to all appearances, a mathematically literate and compos mentis kind of guy.
Just look at the lawyerly precision of the entire account given in the opening statement, its coherence and internal logic, the polished use of English sentence structure, etc.
Here we have a very smart, careful lawyer, on top of his game. Who is it exactly who has the best words?
Comey is younger, taller (by 6 inches or half a foot), fitter, better educated and more fluent in their shared native language than the old, ponderous, raging, septuagenarian Trump.45
So, this preliminary omission of the missing four calls is not likely a oversight, or a brain fart, or an accident.
We don’t know what they the conversations were about just yet, but whatever their content, they may well be key puzzle pieces to lock together (substantiate) the rest of Comey’s testimony.
From a legal perspective, this may also be an old fashioned example of keeping your powder dry until you see the whites of their eyes.
By the Numbers
Taking just the time Trump was actually President into account, the nine Comey direct interactions, one-on one, occurred between January 27 and April 11, a time span of just 75 days, or on average once every 8.33 days (once a week, for the chronically numerically challenged.).
Contrast this hands-on meddling practice pattern to the full and entire extent of Comey’s direct personal, one-on-one contacts as FBI Director with President,44 from September 4, 2013 – May 9, 2017 (or 1,344 days), if my numerical skills have not deserted me.
Comey tells us he had exactly two, one-on-one, direct personal interactions with Obama in 1,344 days of risk for improper contacts. So, a strikingly low (and legally expected) contact rate of once every 672 days (or for the numerically challenged, once every 1.8 years).
Here we have another Trump.45 championship performance, though of the perfidious variety. That is the difference between a sophisticated, legally nuanced chief executive and a boorish ranter who can’t be bothered to understand or observe the constitutional limitations imposed on the World’s Most Powerful Leader.
Trump engaged with Comey 80.7 times more frequently, day for day, than Obama did.
Wow!
Now there are proper (and complicated) legal definitions of obstruction of justice and interference with Federal investigative officers to be laid out and upheld, and no doubt a full public airing of those definitions and how they might apply to Trump.45’s actual conduct vis a vis Comey will unfold in the months and years to come. The exact parameters of unacceptable interference are yet to be defined with bright red boundary lines.
At the same time there is a back of the envelope, public commonsense logic for these matters, a civic small test, if you will.
Trump’s repeated approaches to Comey (independent of the actual meeting content which is excessively aromatic on its own) stinks to high heaven. Regular folks know what interference and obstruction of a legal investigation look and smell like. The aroma surrounding Trump.45’s conduct is plainly unmistakable
Cats from thirteen counties far and wide have made their way to the scene of rotting fish.
America gets it. Loyal TV fans will miss their favorite soaps tomorrow, as the main networks clear their regular daytime programming to air the hearings live on CBS, NBC, and ABC.
This is a big deal that places the Comey session on a shortlist of congressional hearings deemed worthy of live airings on broadcast television — a list that includes the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954, Watergate hearings in 1973, Iran-contra hearings in 1987, Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings in 1991 and President Bill Clinton impeachment hearings in 1998.
Thus we have the hottest ticket in town (about 4 hours worth), whatever Infrastructure Week Mega Event Trump.45 would like to use for a substitute.
Inevitable comparisons with the defining Watergate political scandal are easy to overhype, but one lesson is surely apposite already. It’s not the crime; it’s the cover-up that does you in. Nixon didn’t appreciate it in time, and Trump didn’t bother to learn it in the first place.
Can you say Limburger cheese, America?
And we still don’t know what the other four phone calls Comey had with Trump were all about.
Trump.45’s famous jokey threat to Comey less than a month ago (May 12) that he’d better watch out because their private meetings and phone calls might have been taped.
Thanks to keeping comprehensive, contemporaneous memos written immediately after the events, coupled with early discreet disclosure to other FBI officials of their contents in a management context, Comey has called Trump’s crude bluff, and then some.
Now that is a stud move for real. Every single conversation, bar none, from Day One in writing, produced within minutes of their taking place. Who’s smart enough to see that would be necessary for the public record? That actually seems like a tactical nuke in what might otherwise be a typical he-said, he-said type dispute.
In fact, it may well turn out that Trump,45, if he is indeed without actual comprehensive tapes of the nine magic encounters, is up a very wide, deep creek with no paddle for his stubby little fingers to guide him home. A jiu-jitsu move by an actual experienced pro lawyer versus the legally incompetent Trumpster on the growl.
Hang on to your hats, America.
Beyond the glorious entertainment and ratings value of this particular circus, the saddest thing of all to contemplate is that virtually all of this damage and peril in which Trump finds himself, is entirely self generated at the core.
If only he had kept his mouth shut. If only he had listened to sound legal advice given to him. If only he could resist his bullying pedigree tendencies.
If only….
Donald Trump would personally be much better off. Trump’s voters would be better off and feeling swell. And America as a whole would be spared the prospect of another prolonged political debacle brought down on us by an unchecked, arrogant know it all, drunk on power.
Alternative Facts (Nod to Kellyanne)
On the face of it, Comey’s early request to place his intended opening statement on the public media record a day early smacks of political intelligence, vigor, even genius, as an early unexpected thrust to disrupt the counter noise machine Trump, the RNC, and his remaining allies are ginning up to distract America’s audience attention from the stone cold facts. A pre-emptive display to partially set the terms of engagement by Comey.
Or, Comey may be clinically insane, and he is about to lie under oath before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Thursday June 8, while the underlying memos exist only in his diseased imagination, and our President Trump will emerge unscathed, unsullied, and fully vindicated in the true light of freedom and historical purity surrounding his boundless search for America’s power and glory.
In the best interests of American national security, maybeTrump.45 should order a standby ambulance, with two or three burly psychiatric attendants, a couple of bug nets, and a classic leather and canvas strap straight jacket be placed outside the Hearing Room, just in case.
America might appreciate the gesture. After all, Trump did say on Tuesday that he wished Comey good luck.
He may even have meant it.
When pigs fly.
Comey’s Complete Opening Statement, released Wednesday, as reported by NPR:
- Statement for the Record
- Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
- James B. Comey
- June 8, 2017
Chairman Burr, Ranking Member Warner, Members of the Committee.
Thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. I was asked to testify today to describe for you my interactions with President-Elect and President Trump on subjects that I understand are of interest to you. I have not included every detail from my conversations with the President, but, to the best of my recollection, I have tried to include information that may be relevant to the Committee.
January 6 Briefing
I first met then-President-Elect Trump on Friday, January 6 in a conference room at Trump Tower in New York. I was there with other Intelligence Community (IC) leaders to brief him and his new national security team on the findings of an IC assessment concerning Russian efforts to interfere in the election. At the conclusion of that briefing, I remained alone with the President-Elect to brief him on some personally sensitive aspects of the information assembled during the assessment.
The IC leadership thought it important, for a variety of reasons, to alert the incoming President to the existence of this material, even though it was salacious and unverified. Among those reasons were: (1) we knew the media was about to publicly report the material and we believed the IC should not keep knowledge of the material and its imminent release from the President-Elect; and (2) to the extent there was some effort to compromise an incoming President, we could blunt any such effort with a defensive briefing.
The Director of National Intelligence asked that I personally do this portion of the briefing because I was staying in my position and because the material implicated the FBI’s counter-intelligence responsibilities. We also agreed I would do it alone to minimize potential embarrassment to the President-Elect. Although we agreed it made sense for me to do the briefing, the FBI’s leadership and I were concerned that the briefing might create a situation where a new President came into office uncertain about whether the FBI was conducting a counter-intelligence investigation of his personal conduct.
It is important to understand that FBI counter-intelligence investigations are different than the more-commonly known criminal investigative work. The Bureau’s goal in a counter-intelligence investigation is to understand the technical and human methods that hostile foreign powers are using to influence the United States or to steal our secrets. The FBI uses that understanding to disrupt those efforts. Sometimes disruption takes the form of alerting a person who is targeted for recruitment or influence by the foreign power. Sometimes it involves hardening a computer system that is being attacked. Sometimes it involves “turning” the recruited person into a double-agent, or publicly calling out the behavior with sanctions or expulsions of embassy-based intelligence officers. On occasion, criminal prosecution is used to disrupt intelligence activities.
Because the nature of the hostile foreign nation is well known, counterintelligence investigations tend to be centered on individuals the FBI suspects to be witting or unwitting agents of that foreign power. When the FBI develops reason to believe an American has been targeted for recruitment by a foreign power or is covertly acting as an agent of the foreign power, the FBI will “open an investigation” on that American and use legal authorities to try to learn more about the nature of any relationship with the foreign power so it can be disrupted.
In that context, prior to the Jan. 6 meeting, I discussed with the FBI’s leadership team whether I should be prepared to assure President-elect Trump that we were not investigating him personally. That was true; we did not have an open counter-intelligence case on him. We agreed I should do so if circumstances warranted. During our one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower, based on President-elect Trump’s reaction to the briefing and without him directly asking the question, I offered that assurance.
I felt compelled to document my first conversation with the president-elect in a memo. To ensure accuracy, I began to type it on a laptop in an FBI vehicle outside Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the meeting. Creating written records immediately after one-on-one conversations with Mr. Trump was my practice from that point forward. This had not been my practice in the past. I spoke alone with President Obama twice in person (and never on the phone) – once in 2015 to discuss law enforcement policy issues and a second time, briefly, for him to say goodbye in late 2016. In neither of those circumstances did I memorialize the discussions. I can recall nine one-on-one conversations with President Trump in four months – three in person and six on the phone.
January 27 Dinner
The President and I had dinner on Friday, January 27 at 6:30 pm in the Green Room at the White House. He had called me at lunchtime that day and invited me to dinner that night, saying he was going to invite my whole family, but decided to have just me this time, with the whole family coming the next time. It was unclear from the conversation who else would be at the dinner, although I assumed there would be others
It turned out to be just the two of us, seated at a small oval table in the center of the Green Room. Two Navy stewards waited on us, only entering the room to serve food and drinks.
The President began by asking me whether I wanted to stay on as FBI Director, which I found strange because he had already told me twice in earlier conversations that he hoped I would stay, and I had assured him that I intended to. He said that lots of people wanted my job and, given the abuse I had taken during the previous year, he would understand if I wanted to walk away.
My instincts told me that the one-on-one setting, and the pretense that this was our first discussion about my position, meant the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship. That concerned me greatly, given the FBI’s traditionally independent status in the executive branch.
I replied that I loved my work and intended to stay and serve out my ten-year term as Director. And then, because the set-up made me uneasy, I added that I was not “reliable” in the way politicians use that word, but he could always count on me to tell him the truth. I added that I was not on anybody’s side politically and could not be counted on in the traditional political sense, a stance I said was in his best interest as the President.
A few moments later, the President said, “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. The conversation then moved on, but he returned to the subject near the end of our dinner.
At one point, I explained why it was so important that the FBI and the Department of Justice be independent of the White House. I said it was a paradox: Throughout history, some Presidents have decided that because “problems” come from Justice, they should try to hold the Department close. But blurring those boundaries ultimately makes the problems worse by undermining public trust in the institutions and their work.
Near the end of our dinner, the President returned to the subject of my job, saying he was very glad I wanted to stay, adding that he had heard great things about me from Jim Mattis, Jeff Sessions, and many others. He then said, “I need loyalty.” I replied, “You will always get honesty from me.” He paused and then said, “That’s what I want, honest loyalty.” I paused, and then said, “You will get that from me.” As I wrote in the memo I created immediately after the dinner, it is possible we understood the phrase “honest loyalty” differently, but I decided it wouldn’t be productive to push it further. The term – honest loyalty – had helped end a very awkward conversation and my explanations had made clear what he should expect.
During the dinner, the President returned to the salacious material I had briefed him about on January 6, and, as he had done previously, expressed his disgust for the allegations and strongly denied them. He said he was considering ordering me to investigate the alleged incident to prove it didn’t happen. I replied that he should give that careful thought because it might create a narrative that we were investigating him personally, which we weren’t, and because it was very difficult to prove a negative. He said he would think about it and asked me to think about it.
As was my practice for conversations with President Trump, I wrote a detailed memo about the dinner immediately afterwards and shared it with the senior leadership team of the FBI.
February 14 Oval Office Meeting
On February 14, I went to the Oval Office for a scheduled counter-terrorism briefing of the President. He sat behind the desk and a group of us sat in a semi-circle of about six chairs facing him on the other side of the desk. The Vice President, Deputy Director of the CIA, Director of the National Counter Terrorism Center, Secretary of Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and I were in the semi-circle of chairs. I was directly facing the President, sitting between the Deputy CIA Director and the Director of NCTC. There were quite a few others in the room, sitting behind us on couches and chairs.
The President signaled the end of the briefing by thanking the group and telling them all that he wanted to speak to me alone. I stayed in my chair. As the participants started to leave the Oval Office, the Attorney General lingered by my chair, but the President thanked him and said he wanted to speak only with me. The last person to leave was Jared Kushner, who also stood by my chair and exchanged pleasantries with me. The President then excused him, saying he wanted to speak with me.
When the door by the grandfather clock closed, and we were alone, the President began by saying, “I want to talk about Mike Flynn.” Flynn had resigned the previous day. The President began by saying Flynn hadn’t done anything wrong in speaking with the Russians, but he had to let him go because he had misled the Vice President. He added that he had other concerns about Flynn, which he did not then specify.
The President then made a long series of comments about the problem with leaks of classified information – a concern I shared and still share. After he had spoken for a few minutes about leaks, Reince Priebus leaned in through the door by the grandfather clock and I could see a group of people waiting behind him. The President waved at him to close the door, saying he would be done shortly. The door closed.
The President then returned to the topic of Mike Flynn, saying, “He is a good guy and has been through a lot.” He repeated that Flynn hadn’t done anything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but had misled the Vice President. He then 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.” I replied only that “he is a good guy.” (In fact, I had a positive experience dealing with Mike Flynn when he was a colleague as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the beginning of my term at FBI.) I did not say I would “let this go.”
The President returned briefly to the problem of leaks. I then got up and left out the door by the grandfather clock, making my way through the large group of people waiting there, including Mr. Priebus and the Vice President.
I immediately prepared an unclassified memo of the conversation about Flynn and discussed the matter with FBI senior leadership. I had understood the President to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December. I did not understand the President to be talking about the broader investigation into Russia or possible links to his campaign. I could be wrong, but I took him to be focusing on what had just happened with Flynn’s departure and the controversy around his account of his phone calls. Regardless, it was very concerning, given the FBI’s role as an independent investigative agency.
The FBI leadership team agreed with me that it was important not to infect the investigative team with the President’s request, which we did not intend to abide. We also concluded that, given that it was a one-on-one conversation, there was nothing available to corroborate my account. We concluded it made little sense to report it to Attorney General Sessions, who we expected would likely recuse himself from involvement in Russia-related investigations. (He did so two weeks later.) The Deputy Attorney General’s role was then filled in an acting capacity by a United States Attorney, who would also not be long in the role. After discussing the matter, we decided to keep it very closely held, resolving to figure out what to do with it down the road as our investigation progressed. The investigation moved ahead at full speed, with none of the investigative team members – or the Department of Justice lawyers supporting them – aware of the President’s request.
Shortly afterwards, I spoke with Attorney General Sessions in person to pass along the President’s concerns about leaks. I took the opportunity to implore the Attorney General to prevent any future direct communication between the President and me. I told the AG that what had just happened – him being asked to leave while the FBI Director, who reports to the AG, remained behind – was inappropriate and should never happen. He did not reply. For the reasons discussed above, I did not mention that the President broached the FBI’s potential investigation of General Flynn.
March 30 Phone Call
On the morning of March 30, the President called me at the FBI. He described the Russia investigation as “a cloud” that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country. 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. He asked what we could do to “lift the cloud.” I responded that we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be great benefit, if we didn’t find anything, to our having done the work well. He agreed, but then re-emphasized the problems this was causing him.
Then the President asked why there had been a congressional hearing about Russia the previous week – at which I had, as the Department of Justice directed, confirmed the investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. I explained the demands from the leadership of both parties in Congress for more information, and that Senator Grassley had even held up the confirmation of the Deputy Attorney General until we briefed him in detail on the investigation. I explained that we had briefed the leadership of Congress on exactly which individuals we were investigating and that we had told those Congressional leaders that we were not personally investigating President Trump. I reminded him I had previously told him that. He repeatedly told me, “We need to get that fact out.” (I did not tell the President that the FBI and the Department of Justice had been reluctant to make public statements that we did not have an open case on President Trump for a number of reasons, most importantly because it would create a duty to correct, should that change.)
This is the third time detailed by Comey where he did, in fact, tell Trump he was not personally under investigation. Trump noted this in his letter firing Comey: “While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau.” That line, in particular, raised many eyebrows over what would have been an unusual assurance from the FBI director.
The President went on to say that if there were some “satellite” associates of his who did something wrong, it would be good to find that out, but that he hadn’t done anything wrong and hoped I would find a way to get it out that we weren’t investigating him.
In an abrupt shift, he turned the conversation to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, saying he hadn’t brought up “the McCabe thing” because I had said McCabe was honorable, although McAuliffe was close to the Clintons and had given him (I think he meant Deputy Director McCabe’s wife) campaign money. Although I didn’t understand why the President was bringing this up, I repeated that Mr. McCabe was an honorable person.
He finished by stressing “the cloud” that was interfering with his ability to make deals for the country and said he hoped I could find a way to get out that he wasn’t being investigated. I told him I would see what we could do, and that we would do our investigative work well and as quickly as we could.
Immediately after that conversation, I called Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente (AG Sessions had by then recused himself on all Russia related matters), to report the substance of the call from the President, and said I would await his guidance. I did not hear back from him before the President called me again two weeks later.
April 11 Phone Call
On the morning of April 11, the President called me and asked what I had done about his request that I “get out” that he is not personally under investigation. I replied that I had passed his request to the Acting Deputy Attorney General, but I had not heard back. He replied that “the cloud” was getting in the way of his ability to do his job. He said that perhaps he would have his people reach out to the Acting Deputy Attorney General. I said that was the way his request should be handled. I said the White House Counsel should contact the leadership of DOJ to make the request, which was the traditional channel.
He said he would do that and added, “Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know.” I did not reply or ask him what he meant by “that thing.” I said only that the way to handle it was to have the White House Counsel call the Acting Deputy Attorney General. He said that was what he would do and the call ended.
That was the last time I spoke with President Trump.
I like to read the Atlantic, always a source of thought provoking views and analysis. Here is an slightly different picture from earlier today from Matt Ford. If I am reading it correctly he says Comey has accounted for either four or six of his nine Trumpian one-on-one contacts in the opening statements. I make the count five, as outlined above.
One way or the other, one of us is exhibiting some numerical shakiness, assuming we are both reading the same statement, although pretty close in Trumpland (plus or minus 1). Regardless, both of us have noticed there are 3-5 Trump-Comey one-on-one contacts left unexplained for now.
I think they are the Secret Sauce in this recipe. Maybe we’ll all find out in the morning. Great ratings, guaranteed. Especially if Trump decides to engage in a historical first live from the White House Presidential anti-Comey Twit Storm in real time.
MATT FORD 2:52 PM ET POLITICS
Updated at 3:50 p.m. ET
“I need loyalty. I expect loyalty.” Those are the words James Comey will testify President Trump said to him at a January dinner when the former FBI director appears before the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday.
In his prepared opening remarks, Comey describes multiple conversations he had at Trump’s initiative about the Russia investigation and whether its effect on his presidency could be mitigated. He recalls his unease with Trump’s habitual breaches of the traditional line separating the White House from federal law-enforcement agencies. And he depicts a president eager to create “some sort of patronage relationship” over him in an apparent effort to undermine the FBI’s independence and interfere with an ongoing investigation.
“I can recall nine one-on-one conversations with President Trump in four months—three in person and six on the phone,” Comey said. That’s compared with the two private conversations he had with President Obama in the preceding three years.
The former director also describes multiple occasions on which he assured Trump that he wasn’t personally under investigation, an assertion Trump himself made in the letter firing Comey last month. He begins his story with the first time he met Trump, during a January 6 meeting at Trump Tower. The meeting’s purpose was to brief him about the intelligence community’s findings about Russian interference in the election.
Before he traveled to New York, Comey says he consulted with Justice Department officials about whether he could tell Trump he wasn’t under investigation. “That was true; we did not have an open counter-intelligence case on him,” Comey said. “We agreed I should do so if circumstances warranted. During our one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower, based on President-Elect Trump’s reaction to the briefing and without him directly asking the question, I offered that assurance.”
But the bulk of the prepared testimony revolves around Trump’s one-on-one efforts to extract fealty from Comey and to influence federal inquiries into Russian electoral interference and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. The most damning portion comes when Comey recounts a January 27 dinner at the White House to which Trump invited him. Comey agreed, saying he was under the impression he wouldn’t be the only one present. He was.
“A few moments later, the President said, ‘I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.’”
According to Comey, Trump opened by asking him whether he intended to stay on in his position. (Comey was three years into a 10-year tenure at the time.) “My instincts told me that the one-on-one setting, and the pretense that this was our first discussion about my position, meant the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship,” Comey said. “That concerned me greatly, given the FBI’s traditionally independent status in the executive branch.”
When Comey tried to tell Trump he was not “reliable” in the political sense, but politically neutral, he says the tone of the conversation changed.
A few moments later, the President said, “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. The conversation then moved on, but he returned to the subject near the end of our dinner.
Then, in a moment Comey describes with palpable awkwardness, he says the president pressed him on the matter again, at which point Comey says he offered Trump his “honesty,” then his “honest loyalty,” in an attempt to escape from the encounter. His narrative picks up at a February 14 White House meeting in which Trump asked him to stay behind alone. The subject, Comey says, was Michael Flynn.
The President then returned to the topic of Mike Flynn, saying, “He is a good guy and has been through a lot.” He repeated that Flynn hadn’t done anything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but had misled the Vice President. He then 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.” I replied only that “he is a good guy.” (In fact, I had a positive experience dealing with Mike Flynn when he was a colleague as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the beginning of my term at FBI.) I did not say I would “let this go.”
From there, Comey says, he quickly drafted an unclassified memo about the encounter.
He also explained in his prepared remarks why he didn’t notify anyone beyond his immediate circle of aides and lieutenants within the FBI’s upper ranks. The question was one of many that Republican lawmakers planned to ask at his hearing this week.
“The FBI leadership team agreed with me that it was important not to infect the investigative team with the President’s request, which we did not intend to abide,” he explained. “We also concluded that, given that it was a one-on-one conversation, there was nothing available to corroborate my account. We concluded it made little sense to report it to Attorney General [Jeff] Sessions, who we expected would likely recuse himself from involvement in Russia-related investigations.” He noted that Sessions eventually did so two weeks later.
There are still some questions left unanswered. While Comey mentions nine one-on-one conversations with Trump at the beginning of his statement, he only describes four of them. He does not indicate whether he had any uneasy conversations with anyone on the White House staff or other members of the federal government beyond the president. (The Washington Post reported Tuesday, for example, that Trump asked Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and NSA Director Mike Rogers to intervene in Comey’s investigation. Both took questions on the report from Senate lawmakers at a hearing Wednesday morning.) Republican senators will also likely quiz him on whether he drafted any memos following conversations with Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, or anyone in the Justice Department during the Obama administration.
Comey narrates two more encounters at Trump’s initiative: a March 30 phone call placed by Trump in which the president asked Comey what they could do to “lift the cloud” of the Russia investigation, and an April 11 phone call following up on his previous request. Comey says he asked the president to have the White House counsel’s office call the Justice Department instead.
“That was the last time I spoke with President Trump,” Comey concludes. Trump fired him without warning 28 days later.