Trump fired me to hamper probe into Russians, says ex-FBI chief
FORMER FBI director James Comey claims that President Donald Trump fired him to interfere with his investigation of Russia’s role in the 2016 election and its ties to the Trump campaign.
“It’s my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation,” Mr Comey told the Senate intelligence committee in explosive testimony that threatened to undermine Mr Trump’s presidency.
“I was fired in some way to change, or the endeavour was to change, the way the Russia investigation was being conducted,” Mr Comey testified under oath.
“That is a very big deal, and not just because it involves me.”
Mr Comey also accused the Trump administration of spreading “lies, plain and simple” about him and the FBI in the aftermath of his abrupt firing last month, declaring that the administration “defamed him and more importantly the FBI” by claiming the bureau was in disorder under his leadership.
And in testimony that exposed deep distrust between the President and the veteran lawman, Mr Comey described intense discomfort about their one-on-one conversations, saying he decided he immediately needed to document the discussions in memos.
“I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, so I thought it really important to document,” Mr Comey said.
“I knew there might come a day when I might need a record of what happened, not only to defend myself but to protect the FBI.”
The revelations came as Mr Comey delivered his much anticipated first public telling of his relationship with President Trump, speaking at a packed Senate intelligence committee hearing that brought Washington and parts of the country to a standstill as eyes were glued to televisions showing the testimony.
The former director immediately dove into the heart of the fraught political controversy around his firing and whether Mr Trump interfered in the bureau’s Russia investigation, as he elaborated on written testimony delivered on Wednesday. In that testimony he had already disclosed that President Trump demanded his “loyalty” and directly pushed him to “lift the cloud” of investigation by declaring publicly the President was not the target of the FBI probe into his campaign’s Russia ties.
Mr Comey said that he declined to do so in large part be- cause of the “duty to correct” that would be created if that situation changed.
Mr Comey also said in his written testimony that President Trump, in a strange private encounter near the grandfather clock in the Oval Office, pushed him to end his investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia asked Mr Comey the key question: “Do you believe this arises to obstruction of justice?”
“I don’t know. That’s Bob Mueller’s job to sort that out,” Mr Comey responded, referring to the newly-appointed special counsel who has taken over the Justice Department’s Russia investigation.
In a startling disclosure, Mr Comey revealed that after his firing he had actually tried to spur the special counsel’s appointment by giving one of his memos about President Trump to a friend of his to leak to the Press.
“My judgment was I need to get that out into the public square,” Mr Comey said.
The President has not yet publicly denied the specifics of Mr Comey’s accounts but has broadly challenged his credibility, tweeting last month Mr Comey “better hope there are no ‘tapes’” of the conversations.
“Lordy, I hope there are tapes,” Mr Comey remarked at one point on Thursday, suggesting such evidence would back up his account over any claims from the President.
Under questioning yesterday, Mr Comey strongly asserted the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia did indeed meddle in the 2016 election.
“There should be no fuzz on this. The Russians interfered,” Mr Comey stated firmly.