Trump ‘as sumed he was bugged in Russia... but didn’t use hookers’

Ousted FBI boss to tell Senate that President asked him to ‘lift cloud’ over Kremlin links

DONALD Trump assured exFBI chief James Comey he ‘had not been involved with hookers in Russia’ and always assumed he was being bugged in the country, a Senate hearing is to be told today.

Mr Comey added that in a phone call in March, the US president told him the investigation into his campaign links with the Kremlin was a ‘cloud’ that was damaging his ability to govern.

He asked the FBI director what they could do to ‘lift the cloud’, Mr Comey said in his hotly-anticipated statement to the Senate intelligence committee today.

The statement also says that Mr Trump told him at a dinner that ‘I expect loyalty’ and asked him to drop an inquiry into fired National SecuMI6 rity Adviser Mike Flynn. However, Mr Comey said he did reassure Mr Trump three times that he was not personally under investigation.

The president has claimed he received that reassurance but sceptics have previously insisted an FBI chief would never comment on an investigation in this way. Mr Trump is also said to have asked it to become public knowledge that he was not personally under investigation.

Mr Comey’s seven-page statement, which was released last night, confirms recent media reports about his deep misgivings over the president’s apparent attempt to interfere in an investigation connected to him.

He also contradicted the insistence of some senior Trump aides that the president was never briefed on salacious allegations compiled by a former British spy about how Russia had highly compromising sexual and financial material on him.

The dossier, compiled by former agent Christopher Steele, claimed the Russians had video evidence of Mr Trump cavorting with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room in 2013.

Mr Comey, who was sacked by Mr Trump last month, said he and US intelligence chiefs visited the future president in January.

He personally briefed him on the dossier ‘even though it was salacious and unverified’ because they believed the media was about to reveal it anyway. They also wanted to ‘blunt’ any attempt to compromise him.

According to Mr Comey, the president rang him in March and ‘said he had nothing to with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia’.

Mr Comey says he became so uneasy about his private conversations with the president that he eventually asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions to ensure they were never alone together.

Mr Comey said it became clear that Mr Trump wanted to ‘create some sort of patronage relationship’ by steering the conversation so that the FBI boss had to ask to stay on in the job.

His fears were confirmed, he said, when he told Mr Trump that ‘I was not on anybody’s side politically’ but could be relied on to ‘tell him the truth’ . Mr Trump reportedly replied: ‘I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.’

At another private meeting, in the Oval Office in February, Mr Comey says the president asked him to end the FBI’s investigation over his sacked National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who had lied about his links with Russian officials.

Opponents say Mr Trump could be impeached for obstruction of justice if this can be proved.

Mr Trump yesterday picked a new FBI director, former assistant attorney general Christopher Wray.

‘I need loyalty, I expect loyalty’