FIRED FBI CHIEF HITS TRUMP ‘LIES,’ OBSTRUCTION
James B. Comey, the recently fired director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), said in an extraordinary Senate hearing on Thursday that he believed President Trump had tried to derail an investigation into his national security adviser, and accused the president of lying and defaming him and the FBI.
Comey offered a blunt, plainspoken assessment of a president whose conversations unnerved him from the day they met, weeks before Trump took office.
In testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, he provided an unflattering backstory to his abrupt dismissal and raised the question of whether Trump had tried to obstruct justice.
Comey said he had given all of his memos about his interactions with the president to the Justice Department special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who he believed would look into the possibility of obstruction. It was the first public sugges- tion that prosecutors would investigate the president.
Firing Comey ignited an unexpected political fire for the president, and Comey acknowledged helping fan the flames. He said he had encouraged a friend to give The New York Times details from one of his memos, a move he hoped would lead to the appointment of a special counsel. It did.
Campaign ties to Russia
Before firing Comey, Trump was dogged by the FBI inquiry into his campaign’s ties to Russia. But he was never personally under investigation.
Now, Trump faces the prospect of an obstruction of investigation, inquiries by emboldened congressional officials and questions from both parties about whether he tried inappropriately to end the FBI inquiry into Michael T. Flynn, his former national security adviser.
“It’s my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia in- vestigation,” Comey said. “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.”
Trump’s personal lawyer, Marc E. Kasowitz, flatly denied any obstruction. “The president never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that Comey stop investigating anyone,” he said.
Comey said Trump had lied when he justified the firing by saying Comey had lost the confidence of an FBI in disarray. “Those were lies, plain and simple,” Comey said.
He said the president had defamed him, an apparent reference to Trump’s calling him a “nut job” in a private meeting with Russian diplomats.
When Republicans asked why he had not told the president he was out of line for asking Comey to “see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Comey said perhaps he should have.
But he said he had no doubt about Trump’s intentions. “I took it as a direction,” he said. If the president had his way, Comey said, “we would have dropped an open criminal investigation.”
‘No ambiguity’
Reacting to this statement, the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr. wrote on Twitter: “Knowing my father for 39 years when he ‘orders or tells’ you to do something there is no ambiguity, you will know exactly what he means.”
Mueller is investigating Flynn along with the broad question of whether the Trump campaign helped Russian operatives meddle in the presidential election.
Russia has denied interference in last year’s presidential campaign. The White House has denied any collusion with Moscow.
During one White House dinner, Comey recalled that the president asked him for “loyalty” and to lay off Flynn, imploring Comey to “let this go.”
Though Comey told Trump three times that he was not under investigation, he said others at the FBI had argued against offering that assurance. Because the FBI was investigating possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia, one official argued, Trump’s activity would necessarily be scrutinized, he said.
Comey said he had distrusted Trump from the first time they met, at Trump Tower before Inauguration Day, and took detailed notes about his conversations with the president. “I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting,” he said, “and so I thought it really important to document.”
Then, in February, when Trump cleared the Oval Office to talk about Flynn, Comey described an ominous feeling. “My impression was, something big is about to happen,” he said. “I need to remember every single word that is spoken.”