President Donald Trump & Former FBI Director James Comey [Reuters]
Tensions are high in Washington DC as former FBI Director James Comey prepares to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee regarding what he deemed a series of “inappropriate” and “very concerning” one-on-one conversations with President Donald Trump.
Late yesterday, Comey, having obtained permission from the committee chair, North Carolina Senator Richard Burr, released a seven-page “statement for the record” that outlined his planned remarks.
In the documents, Comey recounts, in notably explicit detail, nine exchanges – three in person and six over the phone – wherein he and the president discussed a wide range of topics and sensitive information.
In one such conversation, during a private dinner on January 27, Comey asserts Trump stated, “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.” In response, the former FBI director allegedly “didn’t move, speak, or change [his] facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. [The pair] simply looked at each other in silence.”
The context of the exchange further unnerved Comey, as he went on to note: “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.”
Later in the papers, Comey recalls another private encounter, this time taking place after an Oval Office counter-terrorism briefing on February 14. After dismissing the vice president, a number of national security officials, the attorney general, and son-in-law Jared Kushner, Trump allegedly pressed his then-FBI director to drop an investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and his false statements regarding communications with a Russian ambassador.
However, the president and his supporters focused on portions of the prepared testimony that appeared to affirm Trump’s previous claim that Comey had informed him on three separate occasions that he was not personally implicated in the Russian counterintelligence investigation.
Ignoring the other headlines raised, Trump claimed victory, and issued a statement through his longtime personal attorney, Marc Kasowitz: “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 move forward with his agenda.”
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill were less optimistic. Senator John McCain of Arizona, one of the president’s most prominent critics from within the Republican party, stated Comey’s prepared remarks were “disturbing.” Democrats responded similarly, but some, like Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi of California, went so far to assert the president’s alleged conduct constitutes “a grave abuse of executive power” and possibly “obstruction of justice” – an impeachable offense.
James Comey will formally testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee at 2pm GMT.