FBI chief urged to drop probe

DYNAMITE: TRUMP ‘EXPECTS LOYALTY’ FROM EX-SECURITY BOSS

Pub offers free drinks every time president tweets about Comey.

Washington

Fired FBI chief James Comey has confirmed that Donald Trump urged him to drop a probe into former national security advisor Michael Flynn in a preview of hotly awaited testimony yesterday that could rock the foundations of the presidency.

Comey’s bombshell claim on Wednesday fuelled fresh allegations that Trump illegally tried to obstruct an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

In a written statement ahead of his testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey detailed how Trump repeatedly raised the Russia case with him earlier this year, asking him to go easy on Flynn, who is accused of improper links to Moscow.

Trump complained the investigation was a “cloud” over his administration that needed to be lifted, Comey said.

And at a private White House dinner on January 27, just days after the Republican 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.

Comey did not say whether he thought the president’s actions amounted to obstruction, a serious crime that could lead to impeachment.

But he called Trump’s approaches “very concerning, given the FBI’s role as an independent investigative agency.”

He also described trying to insulate himself and the Federal Bureau of Investigation from political pressure in the weeks before Trump fired him on May 9, as the president complained about the Russian probe and labelled it “fake news.”

Comey’s seven-page statement added volatile fuel to Washington’s political tensions ahead of yesterday’s testimony. Democrats said they would press the issue of obstruction while Republicans hedged their comments.

Cable news stations set countdown clocks to the hearing and a number of bars in Washington will open early and tune their TVs to live broadcasts of the hearing.

A pub near the Capitol offered free drinks every time Trump tweets about Comey.

Analysts said Comey, an intensely by-the-book, nonpolitical law enforcer whose handling of a separate investigation into Democrat Hillary Clinton last year nevertheless may have cost her the presidential election, was studiously avoiding accusing the president of a crime.

But Comey was not the only one to suggest pressure from Trump.

The Washington Post reported that the president also approached Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and National Security Agency chief Mike Rogers about the Flynn probe.

Both Coats and Rogers, testifying on Wednesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, said they never felt “pressure” to intervene in the investigation. –