Comey’s memos detail contacts that troubled him
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump called the FBI director, James Comey, weeks after taking office and asked when federal authorities were going to put out word that Trump was not personally under investigation, according to two people briefed on the call.
Comey told the president that if he wanted to know details about the bureau’s investigations, he should not contact him directly but instead follow the proper procedures and have the White House counsel send any inquires to the Justice Department, according to those people.
After explaining to Trump how communications with the FBI should work, Comey believed he had effectively drawn the line after a series of encounters he had with the president and other White House officials that he felt jeopardized the FBI’s independence. At the time, Comey was overseeing the investigation into links between Trump’s associates and Russia.
Those interactions included a dinner in which associates of Comey’s say that Trump asked him to pledge his loyalty, and a meeting in the Oval Office in which Trump told Comey he hoped the FBI director would shut down an investigation into Trump’s former national-security adviser, Michael Flynn. Trump has denied making such a request.
The day after the Flynn conversation, Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, asked Comey to help push back on reports in the news media that Trump’s associates had been in contact with Russian intelligence officials during the campaign.
Comey described all of his encounters with the president and the White House — including the phone call from Trump — in detailed memos he wrote at the time and gave to his aides. Congressional investigators have requested copies of the memos, which, according to two people who have read them, provide snapshots of a fraught relationship between a president trying to win over and influence an FBI director, and someone who had built his reputation on asserting his independence, sometimes in a dramatic way.
Comey has spoken privately of his concerns that the contacts from Trump and his aides were inappropriate, and how he felt compelled to resist them.
Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, said in a statement Thursday that “the sworn testimony” of both Comey and Andrew McCabe, the FBI’s acting director, “make clear that there was never any attempt to interfere in this investigation. As the president previously stated, he respects the ongoing investigations and will continue working to fulfill his promises to the American people.”
It is not clear whether in all their interactions Comey answered Trump’s question or if he ever told him whether he was under investigation. In the letter Trump sent to Comey last week informing him that he had been fired, Trump told Comey, “I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation.”