Fired FBI Director James Comey says President Donald Trump expected him to pledge his loyalty and urged him to drop the investigation into former national security advisor Michael Flynn.
Comey’s nearly three-hour appearance Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee marked his first public comments about the nine conversations he said he had with the president in the months before he was fired.
WATCH: Comey on president’s request for loyalty
Trump ousted Comey last month, saying he was thinking of “this Russia thing” when he decided to dismiss the chief of the country’s top criminal investigative agency while he was leading its Russia probe.
Comey said it is the “high confident judgment” of the U.S. intelligence community that Russia interfered in the 2016 campaign. “It’s not a close call.”
His firing
Comey told lawmakers he was confused by various explanations that Trump and his aides gave for his ouster and said they “chose to defame me” for his performance as the FBI chief by claiming, wrongly in his view, that the agency was in disarray. “Those were lies, plain and simple,” Comey said of the White House contention that he had lost the confidence of the FBI.
Ultimately, Comey said of Trump, “I take him at his word,” that he was fired because of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s ongoing Russia investigation.
WATCH: Comey on his dismissal as FBI director
In his opening written statement, Comey recounted how at a White House dinner in January shortly after Trump assumed power, the president told him, “‘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. We simply looked at each other in silence.”
The committee’s top Democrat, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, called Trump’s comments, as recounted by Comey, “very disturbing.”
Flynn investigation
In another passage, Comey testified that Trump asked him on February 14 to “let go” of the investigation into Michael Flynn, who had been fired as Trump’s national security adviser the previous day for lying to Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with Russia’s ambassador to Washington. “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.” Comey quoted Trump as saying, “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”
Comey acknowledged under questioning that Trump did not order him to stop the investigation of Flynn’s connections with Russia, but said, “I took it as direction. This is what he wanted to me to do,” even though Comey said he did not end the probe.
WATCH: Comey on request to drop Flynn investigation
Comey said he was “so stunned” by Trump’s request to “let go” of the investigation of Flynn that he did not think at the time to tell Trump, “Mr. President, that’s wrong.”
He said FBI colleagues were as “shocked and troubled as I was” by Trump’s comments urging an end to the probe of Flynn.
Comey said that in a March 30 phone call, Trump “described the Russia investigation as ‘a cloud’ that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country. … He asked what we could do to ‘lift the cloud.’ I responded that we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be great benefit, if we didn’t find anything, to having done the work well. He agreed, but then re-emphasized the problem this was causing him.”
After Comey’s opening statement was released Wednesday, Trump’s lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, offered the president’s interpretation of Comey’s testimony, “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. The president feels completely and totally vindicated. He is eager to continue to move forward with his agenda.”
White House reaction
The White House said Kasowitz would make a statement about Comey’s testimony after he finishes. Comey said he told Trump three times that he was not personally under investigation.
Some opposition Democrats say Trump’s requests to Comey to drop the Flynn probe amounts to obstruction of justice, an impeachable offense similar to that leading to the 1974 resignation of former President Richard Nixon. Comey said he found Trump’s comments to him about the FBI’s investigation “very disturbing,” but that it was not up to him to decide whether they amounted to obstruction of justice.
In his Wednesday statement, Kasowitz did not address Comey’s claim Trump urged him to curtail the Flynn investigation.
Within days of Comey’s firing, Trump’s Justice Department named a special counsel, Robert Mueller, another former Federal Bureau of Investigation director, to lead the investigation into all aspects of Russia’s meddling in the election.
Trump said at the time he thought Mueller’s appointment “hurts our country terribly, because it shows we’re a divided, mixed-up, not-unified country.”
Trump has been dismissive of the Russia probes, calling them “a witch hunt” and saying they are an excuse by Democrats to explain candidate Hillary Clinton’s loss in the November election. He has denied any collusion with Russian officials.
At various times, Trump has called Comey “a nut job,” “a showboat,” and “a grandstander.”
Comey’s Capitol Hill testimony is one of the most prominent congressional hearings in years in Washington.
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