He plans to say that though he did assure Trump that he was not personally under investigation, he was taken aback by specific requests, including one from February in which he said the president encouraged him to bring to an end a probe into his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, then under scrutiny for his Russian Federation contacts.
According to Comey, Trump said it would be good to weed out "satellite" associates of his that did wrong, "but that he hadn't done anything wrong and hope I would find a way to get it out that we weren't investigating him". I reminded him I had previously told him that.
And, of course, we now know that when Comey didn't "lift the cloud" or "let go" of the Flynn matter, the president fired him. He is a good guy.
Comey went on to note there was some ambiguity as to what "this" referred to in "let this go", but the comments are hard, if not impossible, to defend: this appears to have been a sitting president encouraging the then-FBI director to go easy on someone under a federal investigation. "I replied only that 'he is a good guy.' (In fact, I had a positive experience dealing with Mike Flynn when he was a colleague as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the beginning of my term at Federal Bureau of Investigation.) I did not say I would 'let this go'".
Comey is also expected to tell Congress that Trump explicitly requested his loyalty later that evening, saying, "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty". Whatever Mr Comey might say during planned congressional testimony this week isn't important to his rationale on impeachment, the congressman said in a statement released before his official announcement. I said that was the way his request should be handled. Days after Comey's firing, the Justice Department appointed a special counsel, former FBI Director Robert Mueller, to oversee the federal investigation. "And so far, I don't see a lot of fight", said Barry Bennett, a former Trump campaign aide.
In one of the most potentially damning moments recounted in the memos, Comey describes a private dinner with Trump at the White House on January 27 in which the president asked the director if he wanted to keep his job.
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To say pick up the slack is kind of a ridiculous term because he's a great player, an MVP, one of the best players in the world. LeBron will not defeat Golden State by himself, he needs his teammates, and it has to start with Game 3.
"Creating written records immediately after one-on-one conversations with Mr. Trump was my practice from that point forward", Comey adds.
Comey said Trump also made reference to being "loyal" and that the two had "that thing, you know" though he did not know what it referred to. Comey said in the statement "I didn't move, speak or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed".
US President Donald Trump announces his decision to withdraw the US from the Paris Climate Accords in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC, on June 1, 2017.
Comey's testimony details a meeting in February during which Trump asked him to stop looking into possible contacts between the Kremlin and Flynn. He did not tell Sessions what the president said about Michael Flynn.
So there you have it. Comey confirms - not with anonymous leaks, but with on-the-record testimony - that he thrice told Trump that Trump was not under investigation for collusion with Russian Federation. He says he assured Trump three different times, the first instance coming in a January 6 meeting a Trump Tower. He claims, surprisingly, that he never took notes of meetings with President Barack Obama but took immediate and detailed notes of each of his conversations with Trump.
Comey describes nine one-on-one conversations with Trump in four months.
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