Comey says he was fired because of Russia probe
Former FBI director says ‘that is a very big deal’ during Senate hearing
WASHINGTON — Former FBI Director James Comey asserted Thursday that President Donald Trump fired him to interfere with his investigation of Russia’s ties to the Trump campaign, leveling an unrelenting attack on the credibility of theleader of the United States.
The fired FBI chief bluntly accused the White House of spreading “lies, plain and simple.”
Mr. Comey also revealed that he’d orchestrated the public release of information about his private conversations with the president in an effortto further the investigation.
Mr. Comey’s testimony, at a hugely anticipated congressional hearing that captured the country’s attention, provided a gripping account of his interactions with Mr. Trump and underscored the distrust that had soured their relationship before his stunning firing last month.
The White House took comfort Thursday that Mr. Comey did not directly accuse Mr. Trump of trying to obstruct the bureau’s investigation into Russian interference in 2016 election.
Many in the GOP were eager to stand with Mr. Trump, dismissing his behavior as rookie mistakes of a wealthy businessman learning on the job.
Republicans saw in Mr. Comey’s testimony a version of events that relieved the president of any wrongdoing, while Democrats drew bright lines of evidence mounting against Mr. Trump’s questionable actions at the White House.
Democrats said they're especially eager to examine the roles played in Mr. Comey's firing by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy
Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and they spotlighted Mr. Comey’s expectation that Mr. Mueller will examine whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice. And members of both parties said they want copies of memos and other documents Mr. Comey said he has turned over to special counsel Robert Mueller, detailing his interactions with the president.
Over nearly three hours of testimony in a packed hearing room, Mr. Comey recounted the events that he said showed the president sought to redirect the Russia probe away from his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and get the FBI to publicly distance the president himself from the probe.
Mr. Flynn was mentioned 68 times Thursday. The mounting public testimony puts Mr. Flynn at the center of two major investigative fronts — whether there was collusion between Trump associates and Russia, and whether Mr. Trump's alleged efforts on Mr. Flynn's behalf amount to obstruction of justice.
In occasionally explosive statements, Mr. Comey portrayed Mr. Trump as a chief executive dismissive of the FBI’s independence and made clear that he interpreted Mr. Trump’s request to end an investigation into his former national security adviser as an order coming from the president.
He declined to offer an opinion on whether the circumstances of his firing, and Mr. Trump’s overall behavior toward him, met the threshold of obstruction of justice.
Mr. Trump’s private attorney, Marc Kasowitz, seized on Mr. Comey’s admission that he had told Mr. Trump on multiple occasions that he was not personally under investigation and maintained the testimony made clear that Mr. Trump “never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone.”
Mr. Kasowitz also jumped on Mr. Comey’s revelation that he had released details of his private conversations with the president, casting the former FBI director as one of the “leakers” set on undermining the Trump administration.
As for Mr. Comey, “It’s my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation,” the former FBI director said toward the end of more than two hours of testimony before the Senate intelligence committee. “I was fired in some way to change, or the endeavor was to change, the way the Russia investigation was being conducted.
“That is a very big deal, and not just because it involves me.”
At one point he was seen as daring Mr. Trump to release any recordings of their conversations, a prospect the president once alluded to in a tweet.
Thursday’s hearing was Mr. Comey’s first public appearance since his sudden May 9 firing.
In his opening statement, Mr. Comey somberly accused the Trump administration of spreading “lies, plain and simple” in the aftermath of his abrupt ouster, declaring that the administration “chose to defame me and, more importantly, the FBI” by claiming the bureau was in disorder.
He then 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 released a day earlier.
In that testimony, Mr. Comey said Mr. Trump demanded his “loyalty” and directly pushed him to “lift the cloud” of investigation by declaring publicly the president was not a target of the FBI probe into his campaign’s Russia ties.
He said when Mr. Trump told him he hoped he would terminate an investigation into Mr. Flynn, the ousted national security adviser, he interpreted that as a directive.
Mr. Comey revealed that after his firing he actually tried to spur the special counsel’s appointment by giving a damning memo he had written about a meeting with Mr. Trump to a friend to release to the media.
“My judgment was I need to get that out into the public square,” Mr. Comey said.
Mr. Comey said several one-on-one encounters with Mr. Trump made him feel such intense discomfort that he felt compelled to document them 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 president remained conspicuously silent on Twitter during the hearing despite expectations he might respond.
Pennsylvania Democrats had plenty to say, though.
U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., said outside the Capitol that Mr. Comey’s testimony gives rise to the need for legislation prohibiting private meetings between presidents and FBI directors “without appropriate personnel in the room and a very narrow discussion agenda that can’t veer off.”
U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, DForest Hills, said the testimony verified what the press has been reporting for weeks, and it reinforced concerns about connections between Mr. Trump and the Russian government.
U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, RPa., homed in on revelations about Mr. Comey’s own actions rather than the questions the former FBI director’s testimony raised about the president.
“He gave an implausible explanation for leaking his memo to the media, rather than sharing the memos with the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee,” Mr. Toomey said in a short written statement.
Mr. Comey added an element of intrigue to the hearings when he said he knew of a “variety of reasons” why Mr. Sessions’ involvement in the Russia investigation would be problematic but that he couldn’t discuss those reasons “in an open setting.” Mr. Comey also made clear that political entanglement in law enforcement has cut across party lines.
During a discussion of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, Mr. Comey disclosed that then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch, an Obama administration appointee, instructed him to refer to the issue as a “matter,” not an “investigation.”