It only gets worse from there for Trump in Comey’s opening statement.
Comey says that he was surprised to learn that a dinner invitation extended to him by Trump on Jan. 27 was for just the two of them (“It turned out to be just the two of us, seated at a small oval table in the center of the Green Room,” Comey writes. “Two Navy stewards waited on us, only entering the room to serve food and drinks.”) and that the goal of the meeting was “an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship.”
Twice in that meeting Trump, recounted Comey, made a direct request for loyalty from the FBI director. “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty,” Trump told Comey. Later, he returned to the subject. Here’s Comey’s recollection:
“He then said, ‘I need 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.'”
Comey also confirmed in his written testimony that Trump directly asked him to “let go” of the investigation into deposed national security adviser Michael Flynn. Quoting Trump, Comey writes of the Feb. 14 meeting in the Oval Office: “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.”
I mean. Holy crap.
Then there is this, from Comey’s after-action report of that meeting: “I had understood the President to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December.”
While Comey noted that he did not believe Trump was asking for the entire Russia investigation to disappear, that the sitting FBI director did believe the sitting president was asking to have a federal investigation of any sort dropped is, well, stunning…
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Read the full testimony here: James Comey just went nuclear on Donald Trump – CNNPolitics.com
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