Discussion»Statements»Rosie's Corner» Comey was under oath and answered questions. Trump lawyers just made statements and took no questions. Cowards like their boss?
WASHINGTON — From his first days in office, President Trump repeatedly put pressure on his F.B.I. director, James B. Comey. He demanded loyalty. He asked that an investigation into an adviser be dropped. And he implored Mr. Comey to publicly clear his name.
As Mr. Comey described Wednesday in written testimony prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mr. Trump’s entreaties continued for months, in unexpected phone calls and awkward meetings. As Mr. Comey’s discomfort grew, so did the president’s persistence and his frustration with Mr. Comey’s unwillingness to help.
Mr. Trump fired Mr. Comey last month, and his account offered an extraordinary back story, one that unfolded with cinematic detail, terse dialogue and tense moments across a White House dinner table.
Mr. Comey is scheduled to deliver the testimony on Thursday at a Senate hearing that is shaping up to be the most dramatic moment so far in the tangle of congressional and F.B.I. investigations into Mr. Trump’s associates and possible collusion with Russian operatives during the 2016 election. Reading Between the Lines of Comey’s Prepared Testimony
New York Times reporters analyze prepared remarks by James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, that were published Wednesday by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly denied any such collaboration, and Mr. Comey confirmed that he told the president three times that he was not personally under investigation. Mr. Trump had encouraged Mr. Comey to say so publicly, but Mr. Comey refused — in part because he did not want to have to recant if that changed. Continue reading the main story The Trump White House The historic moments, head-spinning developments and inside-the-White House intrigue.
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“He asked what we could do to ‘lift the cloud,’” Mr. Comey wrote after a March 30 phone call with Mr. Trump. “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 our having done the work well. He agreed, but then re-emphasized the problems this was causing him.”
Many of the details in his testimony have been reported in recent weeks by The New York Times and other news organizations. But in addition to filling out Mr. Comey’s account, his remarks added to the chorus of questions about Mr. Trump’s efforts to torpedo the investigation — questions that senior national security officials refused to answer in a separate congressional hearing on Wednesday.
By asking that his remarks be released a day early, Mr. Comey also overshadowed the president’s announcement that he would nominate Christopher A. Wray to be the next F.B.I. director. And Mr. Comey surprised the White House, which had been preparing to defend against him, but not until Thursday. Audio Listen to ‘The Daily’ We talk through James Comey’s prepared remarks for the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing today and what President Trump might have meant when he said, “We had that thing, you know.” ART19
“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,” Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Marc E. Kasowitz, said in a statement. “The president feels completely and totally vindicated. He is eager to continue to move forward with his agenda.”
Mr. Comey’s testimony chronicled a relationship that was strained from the beginning. At a meeting at Trump Tower on Jan. 6, two weeks before Inauguration Day, Mr. Comey briefed Mr. Trump on the contents of a dossier of salacious, unsubstantiated allegations that a former British spy believed the Russian government had collected on Mr. Trump. In that meeting, Mr. Comey assured Mr. Trump that F.B.I. agents were not investigating him personally, Mr. Comey said.
“I felt compelled to document my first conversation with the President-Elect in a memo,” Mr. Comey said. “To ensure accuracy, I began to type it on a laptop in an F.B.I. vehicle outside Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the meeting.”
That became Mr. Comey’s standard practice after his conversations with Mr. Trump. “This had not been my practice in the past,” Mr. Comey said, a sign of his unease with their conversations and of how unusual the situation was. Mr. Comey met alone just twice with President Barack Obama in more than three years as F.B.I. director. Graphic How Seven Trump Associates Have Been Linked to Russia
Several are under scrutiny by the F.B.I. and Congress. OPEN Graphic
Soon after Mr. Trump took office, he summoned Mr. Comey to the White House. Over dinner on Jan. 27, Mr. Trump asked whether Mr. Comey wanted to keep his job, an unexpected question because F.B.I. directors have 10-year terms, Mr. Trump had already asked him to stay and Mr. Comey had notified his work force that he would.
“My instincts told me that the one-on-one setting, and the pretense that this was our first discussion about my position, meant the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship,” Mr. Comey wrote. “That concerned me greatly.”
Moments later, Mr. Comey wrote, 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,” Mr. Comey wrote. “We simply looked at each other in silence.”
While the F.B.I. is a component of the Justice Department, a part of the president’s cabinet, the bureau is generally regarded as independent, particularly on matters of law enforcement. Conversations between the F.B.I. and the White House are seen as so perilous that Justice Department rules strictly limit who can have them. Mr. Comey, in particular, regards himself as fiercely independent — a position he has staked out over the years to both his benefit and his detriment. Document: Read James Comey’s Prepared Remarks for Testimony
“I need loyalty,” Mr. Trump repeated.
“You will always get honesty from me,” Mr. Comey says he replied.
“That’s what I want,” Mr. Trump said. “Honest loyalty.”
Mr. Comey said he paused and said the president would have it. “I decided it wouldn’t be productive to push it further,” Mr. Comey wrote. “The term — honest loyalty — had helped end a very awkward conversation and my explanations had made clear what he should expect.”
After an Oval Office meeting on terrorism a few weeks later, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Comey to stay behind to talk. Mr. Trump said he wanted to talk about Michael T. Flynn, who had resigned as national security adviser a day earlier and was under investigation over his foreign ties.
“He is a good guy and has been through a lot,” Mr. Trump said, according to Mr. Comey’s testimony. He added: “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”
Thank you for your thoughtful and comprehensive reply Shar. I seriously doubt that any Trump worshipper will challenge anything you wrote. They will simply ignore it which is what they do when confronted by FACTS. Everyone should read this. Only those who don't need to read it will. The others prefer to stay the he** away from something like this. So they do! :)
This post was edited by RosieG at June 10, 2017 7:12 AM MDT
WM BARR . =ABSOLUTE TRASH 