Trump Names Christopher Wray, Chris Christie’s Lawyer, as New FBI Director
“I hope you can let this go,” Comey quotes president as saying
Fired FBI Director James Comey will testify Thursday that President Trump put pressure on him to shut down the bureau’s investigation into former national security advisor Michael Flynn, according to a copy of his opening remarks released on Wednesday.
“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,’” Comey will say in his opening statement, posted on the Senate intelligence committee’s website a day ahead of the hearing. “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.’”
Comey goes on say that he “understood” the president asked him to drop the investigation into Flynn.
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“I immediately prepared an unclassified memo of the conversation about Flynn and discussed the matter with FBI senior leadership,” he writes. “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,” Comey goes on to write.
Comey explains that the FBI leadership team agreed “that it was important not to infect the investigative team with the President’s request, which we did not intend to abide.”
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Comey and his team also decided to keep Attorney General Sessions in the dark because they they “expected” he would likely recuse himself from involvement in Russia-related investigations.
The written statement, which Comey is expected to deliver Thursday morning, also includes information about the now infamous Russian dossier, written by an MI6 intelligence officer last year, which claims Russia had compromising material on the president.
“The IC [Intelligence Community] 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,” Comey writes about the British spy’s dossier, which was first reported by BuzzFeed. “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.”
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Comey explains that the material was so sensitive, he decided to do the briefing alone, as to avoid embarrassing the president as much as possible.
“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.”
In his remarks, Comey essentially confirms reports that the president had in fact demanded his loyalty.
“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,” Comey writes.
“A few moments later, the President said, “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty,” Comey goes on to say.
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Comey also addresses Trump’s claim that, when asked by the president, he assured him personally he was not under investigation.
After Comey’s March 20 disclosure of the existence of the investigation, Comey asserts that the president made several requests that Comey publicly dismiss the narrative that Trump himself was under personal investigation.
“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,” Comey writes.
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During his final interaction with Trump on April 11, the president pressed Comey to follow up on that request.
“[T]he President called me and asked what I had done about his request that I ‘get out’ that he is not personally under investigation,” Comey writes. “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.”
Comey goes on to say: “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.”
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“That was the last time I spoke with President Trump,” Comey concludes.
Read Comey’s full statement here.
James Comey Timeline: Events That Led to FBI Director's Firing (Photos)
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