Ex-FBI chief Comey testifies to Trump’s ‘lies’
OUSTED FBI Chief James Comey accused the White House of lies and defamation yesterday, as he began an explosive testimony against Donald Trump that threatens the future of his young presidency.
After solemnly raising his right hand and vowing to tell the whole truth, a visibly aggrieved Comey kicked-off his testimony with a bid to set the record straight about the state of the bureau he led until he was sacked last month.
“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 organisation was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the work force had lost confidence in its leader.”
“Those were lies plain and simple,” Comey said, firing a shot of tension through hearing room 216 of the Senate’s Hart building, which stood silent except for the shutter clicks of a phalanx of photographers. Detailing private talks with a sitting president – which under normal circumstances would never see the light of day – Comey described pressure from the commander-in-chief that he found “very disturbing” and “very concerning”.
For much of the rest of the day, Comey was to give details about a probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, an investigation that has ensnared close aides of the president.
“We are here because a foreign adversary attacked us right here at home. Plain and simple,” said Senator Mark Warner, the ranking Senate Intelligence Committee, in opening remarks. “Not by guns or missiles, but by foreign operatives seeking to hijack our most important democratic process – our presidential election.”
In written testimony released on the eve of Comey’s apparence, he detailedTrump’s pressure for him to show loyalty and drop a probe into former national security advisor Michael Flynn’s Russia links.
Democrats are intent on determining whether Trump’s actions amounted to obstruction of justice, while Republicans have zeroed in on Comey’s admission he assured the president on more than one occasion he was not personally a target of the FBI’s investigation.
In his written statement, Comey described his mounting discomfort in the weeks leading up to his dismissal as Trump pulled him aside in one-on-one encounters and in phone calls to press him on the probe into Trump campaign associates and possible collusion with a Russian effort to tilt the 2016 vote in the Republican’s favour.
At a private White House dinner on January 27, just days after the billionaire took office, Comey said Trump appeared to want to “create some sort of patronage relationship” with him.
“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,” Comey said.
In an Oval Office tete-a-tete the following month Comey saidTrump pressed him to drop the FBI probe into Flynn, who had been fired for lying to the vice president about his unreported conversations with the Russian ambassador.