One day before James Comey is due to give evidence to the Senate intelligence committee, the committee has released a written statement from the ex-FBI director, who Donald Trump fired last month. Here’s what we’ve learned from the statement.
Trump and Comey’s first meeting, 6 January
Leaders of the intelligence community decided to tell Trump at the beginning of January about the dossier of unverified material collected by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele about his alleged links to Russia. They decided to do this because they knew the media was about to publish the material and did not think the intelligence community should keep it and its imminent release from Trump, who was at that point the president-elect. Telling Trump would also “blunt” any “effort to compromise an incoming president”, Comey says.
They decided Comey should tell Trump about this privately to minimise Trump’s potential embarrassment.
The FBI at this stage at least did not have an open counter-intelligence investigation into Trump “personally”, and Comey told the president-elect this unprompted. Comey is somewhat vague about why he chose to tell Trump this, saying only that “the FBI’s leadership and I” wanted to avoid a situation where the incoming president was unsure whether or not the bureau was investigating him.
Comey began to keep typed “memos” of his conversations with Trump from this point. He takes pains to say he never felt the need to do this with Barack Obama.
Trump and Comey have dinner, 27 January
At a private dinner at the White House attended only by Trump and Comey, the president asked Comey whether he wanted to stay on as FBI director. Comey found this “strange”, he says, because Trump had asked him this twice before and Comey had answered yes. Comey interprets the dinner and the question as an effort on Trump’s part to “create some sort of patronage relationship”. This, he says, “concerned me greatly” given the independence the FBI is meant to maintain from the executive branch.
Comey told Trump he was not “‘reliable’ in the way politicians use the word” but would always tell the president the truth, confirming a New York Times account of this conversation published in May. Trump replied: “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.” When he returned to the topic later, Comey said: “You will always get honesty from me.” In an exchange that Comey admits may have been interpreted differently by each man, Trump told him: “That’s what I want, honest loyalty.” “That’s what you will get from me,” said Comey.
Trump angrily denied the Steele dossier was accurate and said he was considering ordering Comey to investigate it. The FBI chief warned that that might “create a narrative that we were investigating him personally, which we weren’t”, and that it might be difficult to prove a negative. It is unclear whether Comey explicitly repeated his reassurance from 6 January that Trump was not under investigation here, or whether that was only implied.
Trump and Comey meet in Oval Office, 14 February
After the end of a group briefing, Trump told others to leave and asked to speak to Comey alone, before beginning a defence of Michael Flynn, who had resigned the previous day after misleading Mike Pence about his meetings with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Trump told Comey that Flynn had done nothing wrong “in speaking with the Russians”, although he said he had other unspecified concerns about Flynn.
He said Flynn was a “good guy” and then, in what may come to be seen as the most significant statement yet by the president amid the constant swirl of Russia-related accusations, he told Comey: “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 says he replied only that Flynn was a good guy. “I did not say I would ‘let this go’,” Comey maintains. He says he did not intend to “abide” by this request. Comey’s account corresponds with a New York Times report of the conversation published in May.
Comey saw this as a request to drop an investigation into Flynn’s “false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December” – rather than a more sweeping request to shut down “the broader investigation into Russia or possible links to his campaign”. He adds: “Regardless, it was very concerning,” again because the FBI should be independent from the executive.
Comey and the “FBI leadership team” decided not to tell anybody about this request. The reasons he gives for this raise questions of their own. He and other FBI chiefs decided not to tell the investigators working on the Russia inquiry about this request because they did not want to “infect” them, he says. And, raising the possibility that he had by this time lost trust in Trump’s attorney general Jeff Sessions, his boss, Comey says they decided not to tell Sessions because they suspected he would soon recuse himself from the inquiry (as in fact he did).
Comey asked Sessions to prevent Trump from speaking to him alone in future, although he did not mention Trump’s Flynn request. Sessions did not reply.
Trump calls Comey on the phone, 30 March
Trump told Comey the “cloud” of the Russia investigation was impairing his ability to act, and asked Comey to help “lift the cloud”.
Trump again denied the Steele dossier was accurate – specifying (in Comey’s words) that he “had not been involved with hookers in Russia”.
Trump asked why the House intelligence committee had held a hearing into the Russia affair the week before.
Comey again reassured Trump he was not personally under investigation. If this was indeed the third time Comey had told Trump this, that matches what Trump said in a letter announcing Comey’s dismissal in May. Trump said they needed to “get that fact out”. Comey said he would see what he could do, although in his statement he tells the Senate committee something he did not tell Trump at the time: that the FBI and Department of Justice did not want to do this because “it would create a duty to correct, should that change”. This is the first time he has mentioned that reason.
Trump calls Comey, 11 April
Trump called to press Comey again about publicising the fact he was not personally under investigation. Comey referred him to the deputy attorney general. Trump said he would, adding: “Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know.” Comey says he did not ask what “that thing” referred to.
(TheGuardian US)
