In Senate testimony, Comey blasts White House ‘lies,’ efforts to ‘defame me’; says he took inquiry over Flynn as “direction” to drop investigation
Former FBI Director James Comey testified for more than two hours Thursday before the Senate Intelligence committee about the circumstances that led to his firing by President Donald Trump and the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in last year’s presidential election.
In his opening remarks, Comey described the immediate aftermath of his firing, explaining his belief that the White House engaged in a campaign to damage his and the bureau’s reputation.
“Although the law requires no reason at all to fire an FBI director, the administration then chose to defame me and more importantly the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader,” said Comey.
“Those were lies plain and simple,” he continued. “And I am so sorry that the FBI workforce had to hear them and I am so sorry that the American people were told them. I worked every day at the FBI to help make that great organization better.”
Comey also described a series of uncomfortable interactions with Trump, in which he says the president requested his loyalty and pressed him to drop the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was fired after the White House said he had misrepresented the nature of his contact with the Russian ambassador to the United States. Comey also said he told the president that he was not the subject of an FBI investigation.
Comey declined to say whether his closed-door, one-on-one meeting with Trump in the Oval Office, at which he says Trump asked him to “see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” amounted to obstruction of justice. “I don’t know, it’s Bob Mueller’s job to sort that out,” he said, referring to the special counsel who was chosen to oversee the investigation into potential ties between the Kremlin and Trump’s presidential campaign. Comey informed the committee he has handed over all memos on his conversations with Trump to the special counsel.
But Comey did make clear that he took the alleged request as a “direction,” not a suggestion. “General Flynn at that point in time was in legal jeopardy,” Comey testified. “There was an open criminal investigation in connection with the Russian contacts.”
Comey declined to answer questions about other targets of any investigation who may have been members of Trump’s campaign in the open session — a classified hearing followed in the afternoon — although he did acknowledge that at the time of his dismissal there was no open investigation directing targeting Trump personally.
Comey told the committee he decided to take notes of his meetings with Trump because of “the nature of the person” with whom he was dealing.
“I was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting, so I thought it really important to document,” Comey told the committee.
He also told the committee that after witnessing the changing administration explanations of the reason for his firing he decided to leak non-classified details of his memos over the Flynn interaction to the press through a friend in the hopes that a special counsel would be appointed.
Comey also reiterated his claim make in his written statement Wednesday that at a private dinner Trump pressed him for personal loyalty, even subtly suggesting his job hinged on it.
On a number of occasions, Comey reiterated the findings of the U.S. intelligence community earlier in the year — that Russia attempted to influence the outcome of the election.
“There should be no fuzz on this whatsoever. The Russians interfered in our election during the 2016 cycle,” Comey said. “They did with purpose. They did with sophistication. They did it with overwhelming technical efforts, and it was an active-measures campaign driven from the top of that government.
“It’s not a close call. That happened. That’s about as ‘unfake’ as you can possibly get. And it is very, very serious, which is why it’s so refreshing to see a bipartisan focus on that. Because this is about America, not any particular party.”
