Comey: Trump said ‘lift cloud’ of FBI inquiry

Former FBI director addressing Senate over presidential interference with Russia investigation

JAMES COMEY has said Donald Trump demanded a promise of loyalty and repeatedly pressured him to “lift the cloud” of the Russia investigation.

The former FBI director, who was fired by Mr Trump last month, will appear before the Senate intelligence committee today to address questions about whether the president tried to interfere with a federal investigation.

In his opening statement, released last night, Mr Comey said that the president asked him to announce publicly that Mr Trump was not under investigation.

He also asked him to back away from looking into Michael Flynn, who was fired as national security adviser for misleading the White House about the nature of meetings with Russian officials. During a one-on-one dinner in January, Mr Comey described an occasion which he says felt like an attempt by the president to exert a position of “patronage”.

“A few moments later, 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,” he said.

The awkwardness lifted when the bewildered FBI director agreed to show “honest loyalty”.

Mr Trump said he felt “completely and totally vindicated”, the president’s lawyer said in a statement last night. “The president is pleased that Mr Comey has finally publicly confirmed his private reports that the president was not under investigation in any Russian probe,” Marc Kasowitz said.

Although there is no evidence of any collusion between members of Mr Trump’s campaign team and Russian hackers trying to sway the election, the non-stop stream of revelations has sparked accusations of a cover-up.

Mr Comey’s words will be dissected for evidence that the president’s actions amounted to obstruction of justice. The testimony covers a string of meetings and phone calls. It paints a portrait of a president increasingly frustrated about the way federal investigations are interfering with governing. At one point the president telephoned to ask for help dismissing allegations in a dossier compiled by a former MI6 agent that he had cavorted with prostitutes at a Moscow hotel.

“He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia.

He asked what we could do to ‘lift the cloud’,” said Mr Comey. He also confirmed that he asked Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, to prevent any future direct contacts between himself and the president.

Paul Ryan, the Republican speaker of the House, said it was “obviously” inappropriate for a president to ask for loyalty from the FBI director.

Mr Ryan said FBI directors were supposed to be independent and “that’s something that’s very critical”.

Mark Warner, the senior Democrat on the intelligence committee, said earlier that he was gravely concerned about reports of interference. “If any of this is true, it would be an appalling and improper use of our intelligence professionals – an act that could erode the public’s confidence in our intelligence institutions,” he said.