Trump demanded pledge of loyalty from Comey during dinner. FBI Director refused

President Trump had allegedly demanded loyalty from James Comey during a private dinner at the White House back in January, associates of the now fired FBI director claim.

Comey had told associates that he was summoned to the White House for a one-on-one dinner with Trump seven days after the inauguration, the New York Times reports.

It was during the dinner that Trump reportedly asked Comey twice to pledge loyalty to him as the new Commander in Chief. Sources claim Comey declined to do so but said he told the President he would always be honest with him.

Trump pressed Comey on whether that would be ‘honest loyalty’, to which the FBI director said: ‘You will have that.’ Sources close to Comey said he now believes this dinner conversation may have sealed his fate.

This version of events is vastly different to the dinner conversation Trump himself described in an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt on Thursday.

While it is not clear if they are talking about the same dinner, the pair are believed to have only dined together privately once.

Trump indicated that he had dinner with Comey at the former FBI director’s request – and said Comey was angling to keep his job.

I had a dinner with him. He wanted to have dinner because he wanted to stay on. We had a very nice dinner at the White House,’ Trump said.

‘He asked for the dinner?’ Holt followed up.

‘A dinner was arranged, I think he asked for the dinner,’ the president hedged. ‘And he wanted to stay on as the FBI head.

‘And I said I’ll consider and we’ll see what happens. But we had a very nice dinner. And at that time he told me ‘you are not under investigation’,’ Trump said.

Trump said he had asked Comey – once over dinner and twice by phone – if the FBI were investigating him as part of its probe into alleged collusion between members of his campaign and the Russian government prior to the election.

The President showed no concern that the request might be viewed as interference in the active FBI probe.

Comey has not confirmed Trump’s account.

During that same interview, Trump declared he had planned to fire Comey all along, regardless of whether top Justice Department officials recommended the stunning step.

Trump told NBC News anchor Lester Holt he had directly asked Comey three times if he was himself under investigation

The White House had initially cited a Justice Department memo criticizing Comey’s handling of last year’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails as the impetus for Trump’s decision.

But Trump acknowledged for the first time on Thursday that the Russia investigation – which he dismissed as a ‘made-up story’ – was also on his mind as he ousted the man overseeing the probe.

The shifting accounts of the decision to fire Comey, whom Trump derided as a ‘showboat’ and ‘grandstander,’ added to a mounting sense of uncertainty and chaos in the West Wing, as aides scrambled to get their stories straight and appease an angry president.

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