James Comey described how US President Trump demanded loyalty from the former FBI chief and requested an adviser be let off the hook. Trump said he feels "vindicated" by Comey's statements ahead of his Senate testimony.
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After spending the day promoting infrastructure projects in Ohio, US President Donald Trump responded on Wednesday evening to the release of Comey's prepared Senate testimony, saying that he felt "completely and totally vindicated" by the former FBI director's account.
"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," Trump's private attorney Marc Karowitz said in a statement on behalf of the president.
In his prepared remarks ahead of testimony to the US Senate set for Thursday, Comey described how Trump repeatedly called him and asked him to declare to the public that the president was not under investigation for alleged ties to Russia. "'We need to get that fact out,'" Comey recalled Trump as having told him. Trump also referred to the suspected ties among officials in his administration as well as campaign and transition teams with Russia as a "cloud" and asked Comey what could be done to "lift the cloud."
However, Trump's response did not address Comey's account that the president sought to "create some sort of patronage relationship" based on personal loyalty.
As the United States' domestic intelligence and security service, the FBI is part of the Department of Justice but operates largely independently.
Comey detailed several meeting and phone calls with Trump in the seven-page document. At a one-on-one dinner in January, shortly after the new president took office, Trump allegedly asked if the then-FBI director intended to serve his full term.
"He said that lots of people wanted my job and, given the abuse I had taken during the previous year, he would understand if I wanted to walk away," Comey says in the statement.
After Comey said he was not taking sides politically, Trump told him "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty," according to the notes.
"I didn't move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed," Comey says. "We simply looked at each other in silence."
From endorsing enhanced interrogation to investigating Russia's alleged election-tampering, the ex-FBI director has contributed to the divisive political landscape in the US. DW examines the man behind the headlines.
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A divisive figure
The seventh in a lineage of FBI directors with law degrees, James Comey has shaped politics in the US as the head of the law enforcement agency. But who is the man behind the headlines? From prosecuting an American celebrity to refusing to sanction the NSA's mass surveillance program, DW explores the contentious life of James Comey.
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Taking down a celebrity
Serving as Manhattan's chief federal prosecutor, Comey rose to notoriety in 2002, when he led the prosecution of US celebrity Martha Stewart for securities fraud and obstruction of justice. Stewart, widely known in the US for her cooking and lifestyle shows, served a 5-month jail sentence following the highly-publicized case.
Image: picture-alliance/epa/J. Lane
Enhanced interrogation
In late 2003, Comey was confirmed as the US deputy attorney general, making him the second-highest-ranking official in the Justice Department. Serving under former President George W. Bush, Comey endorsed a memorandum approving the use of 13 enhanced interrogation techniques during the War on Terror, including waterboarding. He later said he lobbied to have the policy toned down.
Image: Getty Images/J. Moore
Mass surveillance
Comey has warned of the consequences of domestic mass surveillance, saying in March: "There is no such thing as absolute privacy in America." While serving as acting attorney general during the hospitalization of John Ashcroft in 2004, he refused to endorse the legality of the NSA's domestic surveillance program, even when pressured by the Bush administration.
Image: picture alliance/zb/A. Engelhardt
Obama's choice
In 2013, then-President Barack Obama nominated Comey to serve as the seventh director of the FBI. He received the nomination despite being a registered member of the Republican party. Later that year, he received congressional approval to takeover the office. In his installation speech, he said the bureau's work is founded on integrity. "Without integrity, all is lost," he said.
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More Holocaust education
In 2015, Comey penned an op-ed on why he required new FBI special agents and intelligence analysts to visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington. He said the reason was to have them understand the consequences of abusing power and to be confronted by the atrocities humans are capable of. "I believe that the Holocaust is the most significant event in human history," he said.
In July 2016, Comey announced that the FBI had found no evidence of criminal intention in Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server as state secretary. But days before the presidential election, he issued a letter to lawmakers informing them of new emails deemed "pertinent to the investigation." He later said no evidence was uncovered. Clinton has since blamed Comey for losing the election.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Images/M. Altaffer
'You're fired'
On May 9, Trump sent Comey an unusual letter firing the FBI director, cutting short his 10-year mandate to lead the bureau. Given the ongoing FBI-led investigation into election-meddling by Russia, critics have warned that the move may amount to obstruction of justice for undermining the probe. Trump later appeared to threaten Comey over the existence of "tapes" of their conversations.
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Trump-Russia nexus
Comey reportedly kept memos of interactions between him and President Donald Trump, which appear to implicate the head of state in attempts to obstruct a federal probe into Russia's alleged involvement in influencing the 2016 election. The day after US media reported on the existence of the memos, the Justice Department named a special counsel to lead the probe amid fears of White House influence.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/A. Shcherbak
Damning testimony?
In June 2017, shortly after being fired, Comey testified in Congress that he believed Trump fired him over the Russia probe. "I was fired in some way to change, or the endeavor was to change, the way the Russia investigation was being conducted," he told lawmakers. He has since released a book, in which he described Trump as a "mafia boss" who is "untethered to the truth."
Image: Reuters/K. Lamarque
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Comey claims Trump asked him to drop Flynn probe
Although the conversation soon moved on, Trump reportedly returned to the subject later, repeating that he needed "loyalty."
"I replied 'You will always get honesty from me.' He paused and then said, 'That's what I want, honest loyalty.' I paused and then said, 'You will get that from me,'" said Comey.
The document also confirms earlier reports on the FBI probe into ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn and his ties to Russia. After an Oval Office briefing, Trump allegedly told Comey "I hope you can let this go," adding that Flynn did nothing wrong with his calls to the Russians and was a "good guy."
Reports: Trump asked Comey to end Flynn probe
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"I had understood the president to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with his false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December," Comey said in his prepared statement.
Trump eventually fired Comey as head of the FBI last month, with the administration justifying the move with Comey's alleged lapses on handling Hillary Clinton's emails. Trump himself later provided a different account to the US media.
"When I decided to just do it, I said to myself - I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story," Trump told NBC. However, Trump also denied having pressured Comey to drop the Flynn probe.
