James Comey plans to testify Thursday that in the months before he
was fired as FBI director, President Trump sought his “loyalty” while
also pressing him to “lift the cloud” of the Russia investigation and
lay off Michael Flynn, according to written testimony released ahead of
his Senate committee appearance.
The prepared remarks for his opening statement,
released by the Senate Intelligence Committee, also make clear that
Comey repeatedly assured Trump he was not personally under
investigation.
Comey's statement detailed several meetings he had with Trump dating back to January.
He extensively described a Jan. 27 dinner where he said Trump told him: “I need loyalty. I expect loyalty.”
Comey plans to say as well that Trump sought help ending any probe of
former national security adviser Flynn, reiterating previously
published reports about such claims.
Comey's testimony will mark his first Capitol Hill
appearance since his firing a month ago. Lawmakers are eager to hear his
side, amid a raft of reports suggesting Trump had pressured Comey over
investigations of Russian meddling in the election and coordination with
his associates.
Trump has denied pressuring Comey as well as any collusion with Russia.
If Comey's opening statement is any gauge, Thursday's testimony will be explosive.
The seven-page document, however, began with a piece
of good news for the president -- confirming his past claims that Comey
assured Trump "we were not investigating him personally."
Comey first
gave the assurance during their first meeting at Trump Tower on Jan. 6,
during a discussion about a salacious and widely contested anti-Trump
dossier, and reiterated the statement in subsequent conversations.
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna Romney
McDaniel highlighted those passages, tweeting Wednesday, “Comey’s
testimony reconfirmed what @POTUS has been saying all along: The President was never under investigation.”
Comey went on to say he and the president later dined
on Jan. 27 at the White House. This is when the conversation allegedly
turned to "loyalty."
He said Trump asked whether he wanted to stay on at
the FBI, but after he made clear he was not on anyone's side
politically, Trump pressed him on loyalty.
"I didn't move, speak, or change my facial expression
in any way during the awkward silence that followed," Comey said in the
statement.
Comey admitted that when Trump later said he wanted
“honest loyalty,” Comey assured, “You will get that from me.” He later
wrote in a personal memo he may have interpreted that term differently
from Trump.
The testimony went on to describe a Feb. 14 Oval
Office meeting, which concerns a key moment that later leaked into press
reports and has fueled Congress’ interest in hearing from Comey
post-firing.
Comey said that when he and Trump were alone, Trump
asked to speak about Flynn, who had just resigned as national security
adviser over misleading Vice President Pence over his contacts with the
Russian ambassador. According to Comey, Trump said Flynn is a “good guy”
and, “I hope you can let this go.”
Comey said he later prepared a memo about the
conversation, noting that he understood Trump to be referring only to
Flynn and not the broader Russia investigation:
“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.”
However, Comey said Trump called him on March 30 and
complained that the Russia probe was a “cloud” over his administration.
Comey claimed Trump asked what could be done to “lift the cloud.”
Trump fired him a month later, with officials citing in part Comey’s controversial handling of the Hillary Clinton email case.
Late Wednesday, multiple Congressional sources from
both sides of the aisle told Fox News that Comey's statement contained a
level of detail, granularity and "puffery" of the sort that had
"aggravated" them in previous encounters with the then-FBI director.
"Several of the sources have said that Comey’s
statement was laced with “theatrics” in an effort to make certain events
“appear more dramatic than they were.”
"It’s too cute,” said one source who has had multiple
dealings with Comey behind closed doors. “I have never been so angry at
a witness as I was at him.”
No comments: