Ex-FBI director Comey's memos offer account of private conversations with Trump

WASHINGTON — United States President Donald Trump praised former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director James Comey for his honourable conduct during the 2016 campaign, sought out his loyalty, denied any involvement with prostitutes, and asked if the FBI director could let go of an investigation into his former national security adviser, according to contemporaneous memos Mr Comey made to document those conversations.

These aspects of Mr Comey's conversations with Mr Trump before he was fired by the President in May 2017 are detailed in partially redacted memos the Justice Department turned over on Thursday (April 19) to three House of Representatives committees. The memos track broadly with accounts of those conversations Mr Comey has given in public testimony to Congress and his new bestselling book.

Mr Comey has said he wrote the memos for the FBI's files to document his conversations with Mr Trump because he said he found them troubling. Mr Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Mr Trump asked him in February 2017 to shut down the federal investigation into Mr Michael Flynn, who served briefly as Mr Trump's national security adviser before being ousted.

Mr Trump "said, 'I hope you can see your way to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go',", Mr Comey wrote to document a Feb 14, 2017 conversation. "I replied by saying, 'I agree he is a good guy,' but said no more."

In a memo dated March 30, Mr Comey describes Mr Trump complaining to him about how the cloud cast by the Russia investigation was impairing his ability to run the country and that he was eager for the FBI director to make clear publicly that the President isn't under investigation.

Mr Trump also said that he was going to sue Mr Christopher Steele, the British former spy who compiled an unverified dossier alleging links between Russia and Mr Trump and his associates, according to Mr Comey's memos.

The memos include notes on a meeting at the Trump Tower in New York in January 2017 just before Mr Trump's inauguration in which Mr Comey spoke alone with the then President-elect about the dossier that detailed an alleged 2013 encounter involving Mr Trump and prostitutes in Moscow.

The memos also describe a dinner Mr Comey and Mr Trump had at the White House about a week after the inauguration, where Mr Comey said Mr Trump told him he expected loyalty from him.

In one memo, Comey recounts a Feb 8, 2017, meeting with then White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, about two weeks after acting Attorney-General Sally Yates had warned the White House that Mr Flynn had lied about his December 2016 conversation with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

Mr Comey wrote in the memo that Mr Priebus asked "if this was a private conversation". "Priebus then asked: 'Do you have a FISA order on Mike Flynn?'" referring to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, according to the memo.

At the White House dinner in January, Mr Comey said Mr Trump told him that Mr Flynn "has serious judgment issues". Mr Comey said Mr Trump's comment came after he learnt there was a delay in returning a congratulatory phone call from a foreign leader.

According to a memo in mid-February, Mr Priebus requested that Mr Comey and other senior FBI officials "publicly knock down media reports about communications between Donald Trump's associates and Russians known to US intelligence during the 2016 presidential campaign". They declined to do so.

BOOK FACTOR

The Justice Department agreed to give Congress the Comey memos after House Judiciary chairman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia threatened to issue a subpoena for them.

The push by Republicans to obtain the memos came after the release this week of Mr Comey's memoir, "A Higher Loyalty", and interviews in which he portrays the President as a liar and immoral. Some Republicans complain that Mr Comey has been talking about the memos in his book promotion tour even as the Justice Department withheld them from lawmakers.

Some aides to House Intelligence and Senate Judiciary members already had been permitted to read the Comey memos in secure settings.

Mr Comey has said he wrote the memos for the FBI's files to capture his conversations with Mr Trump. He testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee that Mr Trump asked him in February 2017 to shut down the federal investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Mr Trump fired Mr Comey in May 2017 while Mr Comey was leading the FBI investigation into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election and possible collusion between Mr Trump's campaign and the Russians.

The firing led to the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller to continue the investigation.

Russia denies any meddling in the election. Mr Trump says there was no collusion and that the investigation is a witch hunt.

Representative Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that Mr Comey's "contemporaneous memos provide strong corroborating evidence of everything he said about President Trump — that the President wanted his personal loyalty, that he wanted to end the Russia investigation, and that he wanted Michael Flynn to walk."

Republicans are seeking to spur debate over whether Mr Comey may have violated Justice Department rules by sharing memos with a law school professor, given that department officials had maintained that they had not yet determined whether they contained sensitive or classified material that prevented disclosing them to Congress.

Rep Goodlatte, joined by Intelligence chairman Devin Nunes of California and Oversight and Government Reform chairman Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, wrote a letter last Friday to Deputy Attorney-General Rod Rosenstein arguing there was no legal basis to withhold the documents.

Rep Nunes, Rep Gowdy and Rep Goodlatte released a statement on Thursday night saying the memos showed that Mr Comey was inconsistent and overlooked bias inside the FBI.

"As we have consistently said, rather than making a criminal case for obstruction or interference with an ongoing investigation, these memos would be Defence Exhibit A should such a charge be made," they said. AGENCIES