Comey memos show Trump’s distress
UNITED STATES: In a series of startlingly candid conversations, US President Donald Trump told former FBI director James Comey that he had serious concerns about the judgment of a top adviser, asked about the possibility of jailing journalists, and described a boast by Vladimir Putin about Russian prostitutes, according to Comey’s notes of the talks, obtained by The Associated Press.
The 15 pages of documents contain new details about seven encounters in the months before Comey’s May 2017 firing. He found them so unnerving that he chose to document them in writing.
The documents had been eagerly anticipated since their existence was first revealed last year, especially since Comey’s interactions with Trump are part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether the president sought to obstruct justice. They have been provided to Mueller.
The memos cover the first three months of the Trump administration, a period of upheaval marked by staff turnover, a cascade of damaging headlines and revelations of an FBI investigation into potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. They reflect Trump’s uneasiness about that investigation, though not always in ways that Comey seemed to anticipate.
In a February 2017 conversation, for instance, Trump told Comey how Putin told him, ‘‘We have some of the most beautiful hookers in the world’’, even as he adamantly, and repeatedly, distanced himself from a salacious allegation concerning him and prostitutes in Moscow.
In another memo, Comey recounts how Trump at a private White House dinner complained that Michael Flynn, his embattled national security adviser, had ‘‘serious judgment issues’’. The president blamed Flynn for failing to alert him promptly to a congratulatory phone call from a world leader.
At that point, the FBI had already interviewed Flynn about his contacts with the Russian ambassador to the US, and the Justice Department had already warned White House officials that they were concerned Flynn was vulnerable to blackmail.
Flynn was fired on February 13, 2017, after White House officials said he had misled them about his Russian contacts. In a separate memo, Comey says Trump cleared the Oval Office of other officials, encouraged him to let go of the investigation into Flynn, and called him a good guy. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, and is now cooperating with Mueller’s investigation.
The memos also reveal that just days before Flynn’s firing, then White House chief of staff Reince Priebus asked Comey if Flynn’s communications were being monitored under a secret surveillance warrant. Comey’s response is redacted on the unclassified memos. The memos show Trump’s distress at a dossier of allegations examining potential ties between him and his aides and the Kremlin. Comey writes how Trump repeatedly denied to him having been involved in an encounter with Russian prostitutes in a Moscow hotel.
The documents also include Trump’s musings about pursing leakers and imprisoning journalists.
Trump yesterday claimed vindication after the release of the memos, tweeting that they ‘‘show clearly that there was NO COLLUSION and NO OBSTRUCTION’’. He also accused Comey of having leaked classified information.