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Seven questions for ex-FBI chief James Comey at Congress

James Comey prepares to testify before a Senate committee.Image copyright Getty Images

When former FBI Director James Comey testifies on Thursday before a Senate committee for the first time since being fired by President Donald Trump in May, it quite possibly will be the biggest piece of political theatre the nation's capital has seen in a generation.

The city is going to grind to a halt to observe the spectacle. Local bars are opening early to host viewing parties. Democrats and Republicans will be united in rapt attention as the former director has his first opportunity to publicly give his account of his interactions with the president and the circumstances of his dismissal.

Oh, and don't forget - after Mr Comey's public testimony, he'll be answering more sensitive questions from senators in a private hearing. If there are any shocking revelations that come out, their chances of not leaking to the media are just about zero.

Here's a look at the most pressing questions Mr Comey will face during his appearance - and what we can expect from his answers.


Did the president pressure you to back off of the Michael Flynn investigation?

In a morning of big questions, this will be the biggest. Back in mid-May, the New York Times reported - based on a contemporaneous memo Mr Comey had written - that the president had asked the then-FBI director to go easy on Mr Trump's former aide.

"I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go," the Times reported that Mr Trump told the director after privately taking him aside in the Oval Office. "He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go."

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Media captionWhat you need to know about Comey's testimony

Mr Flynn, whom the president fired from his job as national security adviser in February, had served as a close foreign policy advisor and surrogate to Mr Trump during the presidential campaign and was even on the short list to be his vice-presidential running mate.

If Mr Comey testifies under oath that he felt pressured to adjust his investigation at the request of the president - and he does in fact have memos to back up these claims - it would bolster the arguments made by Democrats and other Trump critics that the president attempted to obstruct an ongoing investigation.

That's the sort of charge that someday could be a centrepiece of an effort to impeach the president.

Then again, Mr Comey did testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in early May that "in my experience" the FBI had never been pressured to stop an ongoing investigation by the attorney general or senior Justice Department officials (although he was not explicitly asked about the president).

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Media captionHow Michael Flynn became entangled in Russia probe

That response hints at the possibility that Mr Comey could downplay any allegations of presidential pressure and turn what was thought to be a looming bombshell into a political dud.

It may be an unlikely outcome, however. According to an ABC News report, while Mr Comey does not plan to accuse the president of obstruction of justice, he will not paint the president's actions in a favourable light.


If you did feel pressured, why didn't you go public earlier?

Assuming the answer to the previous question is in the affirmative - which, according to an article by the Wall Street Journal, it will be - the next question is obvious. Why did the FBI director, a man with a reputation for independence and probity, who stood up to his own administration when he was deputy attorney general back in 2004, hold his tongue for so long?

If Mr Trump was leaning on the FBI director during an ongoing investigation, that surely wasn't the only instance of presidential meddling. Didn't Mr Comey have a responsibility to come forward with these allegations and not simply file some memos and tell a few associates?

Waiting to drop this particular bombshell until after he was fired and publicly ridiculed by the president has opened Mr Comey up to accusations of sour grapes.

Mr Comey, according to reports from his associates, may have decided not to go public because he thought he could be more effective working on the inside and that anyone who replaced him would be more beholden to the president.

We'll see if that's the line he goes with on the big stage.


Did the president ask you to pledge loyalty to him?

Speaking of being beholden to the president, another eye-popping revelation from the New York Times last month was that Mr Trump invited Mr Comey to a one-on-one dinner just days after he was inaugurated and, during that meeting, asked the FBI director for his loyalty.

Donald Trump and James Comey shake hands.Image copyright Getty Images Image caption James Comey was reportedly uneasy about his interactions with President Trump

According to the Times, which relied on two sources with knowledge of the meeting, Mr Comey offered his honesty and, when prompted by the president, his "honest loyalty".

The White House denies this version of the events, although it does confirm that the two had dinner. In an interview the president said that Mr Comey - who was three years into a 10-year term - asked the president to keep him on as director.

Mr Comey will surely be asked to give his version of that fateful evening and explain any discrepancies between his version and the president's.

Given that Mr Trump has yet to name Mr Comey's replacement, the notion of a presidential loyalty requirement for the top US law enforcement official will be of considerable interest to the senators who eventually have to vote to confirm the president's nominee.


Did you tell the president he was not under investigation?

In the letter Mr Trump sent Mr Comey informing him that he was being fired, the president said he appreciated being told by the director "on three separate occasions" that he was not under FBI investigation.

One of those times, according to the president, was the now-famous dinner.

According to ABC News, Mr Comey will deny that he gave the president any such assurances - setting up yet another direct conflict between the president and director's stories and raising the prospect that Mr Trump is, in fact, within the crosshairs of the ongoing federal probe.

The Washington Post's Robert Costa reports that the president could tweet his reactions to the director's statements on Thursday, so it may not be long before the public hears his take on the matter.


Did you request the unmasking of any Trump officials?

The last time Mr Comey appeared before a Senate committee, on 3 May - just a week before his firing - the then-director was questioned about who may have revealed the identity - or "unmasked" - Trump aides who were inadvertently swept up in US government surveillance of foreign officials.

Under US law, the names of Americans whose communications were intercepted or who came up in conversations between foreign nationals are redacted from intelligence reports unless a national security official requests the information.

Republicans will likely press Mr Comey for further information about unmasking requests and the status of any federal investigations into how the unmasked names of Trump officials - most prominently former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn - leaked to the media.

Even if the questions are tangential to the big story of the day, if Mr Comey stumbles in handling them it could give his critics fodder for making accusations that the director went easy on anti-Trump leakers or was even complicit in the revelations.

The best way for Trump supporters to undermine Mr Comey's testimony as a whole is to somehow paint him as a partisan operative or otherwise not the model of rectitude he makes himself out to be.


Why did you go public with the results of your Clinton investigation in July?

According to Mr Comey's previous testimony, he decided to publicly announce the results of the Clinton investigation after Bill Clinton met with then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch at Phoenix Airport in June. He was concerned that their private conversation called the impartiality of any Justice Department findings into question.

During that press conference, Mr Comey said the former secretary of state had been "extremely careless" in her handling of sensitive material - a description that would dog the Democratic candidate until the very end of her presidential campaign.

According to a Washington Post report, however, Mr Comey may have made the announcement without co-ordinating with the Justice Department - a break with FBI tradition - in part because he feared that a Russian intelligence document indicating collusion between the Clinton campaign and the Obama Justice Department could be leaked to the public.

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Comey explains why he went public reopening Clinton email probe

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Media captionComey explains why he went public reopening Clinton email probe

Mr Comey reportedly was concerned the revelation of the document, even though it was almost certainly fraudulent, would undermine the FBI investigation and the credibility of the Justice Department as a whole.

In fact, the FBI director may be questioned extensively on his actions during the 2016 presidential campaign once again, given that the Justice Department has cited Mr Comey's handling of the Clinton investigation as grounds for his dismissal.

If most of Mr Comey's testimony will make the president and his associates sweat, this may be where the former director feels a bit of the heat as well.


Is there any evidence of collusion between Trump associates and Russia?

This is the biggest of questions hanging over Washington these days, but it's also the least likely to get an answer from Mr Comey.

The former director will almost certainly demur, citing the ongoing independent counsel inquiry headed by his former boss, Robert Mueller.

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"I respect the move, but the entire thing has been a witch hunt."

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Media caption"I respect the move, but the entire thing has been a witch hunt."

How he dances around the question is worth watching, however. When former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper was asked a similar question in March, he said he hadn't seen any evidence of collusion - a response that has been cited by the Trump White House from the president on down as evidence that the Russia investigation is a "witch hunt".

Mr Clapper has since clarified that he wasn't privy to details of the FBI investigation and had no access to findings after he left office at the end of January, but that hasn't stopped Trump administration officials from continuing to point to Mr Clapper's original statement as exoneration.

Whatever Mr Comey says on the matter will be parsed down to the pauses and twitches on his face for any indication of where the Russia investigation currently stands.   

Comey to testify Trump told him: 'I expect loyalty'

Trump and ComeyImage copyright Reuters

Ex-FBI chief James Comey will tell Congress on Thursday President Donald Trump wanted a "patronage relationship" and asked for his "loyalty".

According to his opening statement, Mr Comey will also testify the president asked him to drop an inquiry into fired National Security Adviser Mike Flynn.

He says Mr Trump called the Russian probe "a cloud" over him.

Mr Comey also says he had told Mr Trump three times he was not under scrutiny, confirming the president's account.

Reacting to the prepared testimony on Wednesday evening, Mr Trump's private legal counsel on the Russia inquiry, Marc Kasowitz, said the president was "pleased" Mr Comey had confirmed he was not in investigators' crosshairs.

"The president feels completely and totally vindicated," said the attorney.

Two national security officials, NSA Director Mike Rogers and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, earlier testified to senators that they never felt pressured by the White House to do anything illegal.

But in Thursday's Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Mr Comey will detail how Mr Trump made him uncomfortable during a series of encounters leading up to the FBI director's firing on 9 May.

It is one of several congressional panels that, along with the Justice Department, is investigating US intelligence assessments that Russian hackers meddled in last November's presidential election in an effort to help Mr Trump beat Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

The inquiries are also investigating whether any Trump campaign officials colluded with the alleged Kremlin plot, which Moscow has repeatedly denied.

According to seven pages of prepared testimony, Mr Comey will say his first meeting with the president occurred on 6 January in a conference room at Trump Tower, where Mr Comey briefed him alone on "salacious and unverified" allegations about him.

A dossier compiled by a former British intelligence official had claimed the Russian security services possessed compromising material on Mr Trump, including that he had been recorded consorting with prostitutes at a Moscow hotel.

Mr Comey's statement says the president "expressed his disgust for the allegations and strongly denied them" during a subsequent meeting.

That denial came in a one-to-one dinner on 27 January at the White House, Mr Comey will say, adding that he had a "very awkward conversation" with the president that evening.


Who do you believe? Anthony Zurcher, BBC News

It's like a sneak preview of a blockbuster movie - this opening statement should be preceded with a "Spoiler Alert!" warning.

Mr Comey is going to largely confirm all the reports that were circulating in the media about what took place during his private meetings with the president - the talk of loyalty, the pressure on the FBI to ease off its Flynn investigation, the multiple requests for public confirmation that the FBI was not targeting Mr Trump himself.

While Mr Comey casts the president in a less-than-flattering light, he does shy away from directly accusing the president of obstruction of justice. Much will be made of how the two men may have interpreted the phrase "honest loyalty" differently. In addition, Mr Comey viewed the president's Flynn request as only relating to his conversations with the Russian ambassador and not the investigation as a whole.

That may not matter much, however.

Large portions of the former director's account is in direct contradiction to Mr Trump's version of their meetings. It sets up a "he-said, he-said" situation - but Mr Comey has memos and conversations with other FBI officials to buttress his case.

What's more, if recent polls are any indication, the American public trusts him more than the president. Mr Comey's performance under questioning - particularly if Mr Trump responds angrily via Twitter - could further sour the public mood.

Four takeaways from Comey's testimony


Mr Trump asked the FBI director during the discussion in the Green Room whether he wanted to stay in his job, Mr Comey will testify.

He will say he found this "strange" because Mr Trump had already told him twice in earlier conversations that he hoped he would not step down.

The former FBI director will testify the question "concerned me greatly" because he felt the dinner was an effort to "create some sort of patronage relationship".

The former FBI director will say: "A few moments later, the president said, 'I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.'

"I didn't move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence."

In testimony, the former FBI director will detail his next encounter with Mr Trump, during a meeting attended by intelligence chiefs at the White House on 14 February.

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Trump's love-hate relationship with Comey over a tumultuous year

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Media captionTrump's love-hate relationship with Comey over a tumultuous year

The president asked Mr Comey to stay at the end of the Oval Office meeting and told him: "I want to talk about Mike Flynn."

Mr Trump accepted Mr Flynn's resignation as national security adviser just 24 days into the job after he misled the White House about his conversations with the Russian ambassador.

Mr Comey will say Mr Trump told him: "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy."

The former FBI director will testify that he offered no such assurance.

Mr Comey will also say the president phoned him on 30 March and said the Russia investigation was "a cloud that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country".

The former FBI director will testify that Mr Trump "said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia".

Mr Comey will say he assured Mr Trump during their discussions on 6 January, 27 January and 30 March that the president himself was not under investigation.

He will testify that Mr Trump told him during the 30 March phone call: "We need to get that fact out."

The former FBI director will say Mr Trump phoned him again on 11 April to press him on this matter. It was the last time they spoke.

Mr Comey will say he told the president the White House should contact the Department of Justice.

The former FBI director notes that he spoke with President Barack Obama only twice during the more than three years that their time in office overlapped.

But he can recall nine one-on-one conversations with Mr Trump in four months, three in person and six on the phone   (CNN)Fired FBI Director James Comey aimed a dagger blow at Donald Trump Wednesday, saying the President had demanded his loyalty, pressed him to drop a probe into ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn and repeatedly pressured him to publicly declare that he was not under investigation.

Comey magnified the political crisis engulfing the White House by releasing his opening statement ahead of a blockbuster appearance on Capitol Hill on Thursday. The dramatic document sketched a stunningly detailed account of Comey's intimate meetings with the President, included direct quotes from Trump and revealed the former FBI chief's discomfort with the President's behavior.
The testimony appeared to bolster the case of Trump critics who believe that the President may have obstructed justice and abused his power in his dealings with Comey, who he later fired.
Comey said that Trump asked him to drop FBI investigations into Flynn centering on his calls with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the transition, which eventually led to his dismissal as national security adviser after it emerged he had lied about the conversations to Vice President Mike Pence.
He wrote that Trump said: "'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 replied only that 'he is a good guy.'" Comey wrote, describing a private meeting with Trump in the Oval Office on February 14, then added: "I did not say I would 'let this go.'"
The exchange took place after a meeting between Trump and senior intelligence and homeland security officials, after which the President asked to speak to the FBI Director alone.
Comey said in his testimony that he understood the President to be requesting that he drop the investigation into Flynn, who had resigned the day before. But he says he did not understand Trump to be referring to the wider Russia investigation.
"Regardless, it was very concerning, given the FBI's role as an independent investigative agency."
Trump critics contended that this encounter appears to be tantamount to an inappropriate pressure on the FBI by the President, an allegation that if proven could have dire consequences for Trump's presidency itself.
Comey's account of this encounter conflicts with Trump's own statements. At a press conference on May 18, the President was asked whether he had asked the FBI Director to pull the plug on the Flynn component of the Russia investigation.
"No, No, next question," Trump said.
"There is a criminal investigation going on of one of the President's top associations ... he gets fired, he is under under investigation and the President brings in the FBI Director and says 'please stop your investigation,'" said CNN's senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin.
"If that isn't obstruction of justice, I don't know what is," Toobin said.
But Trump's defenders were quick to seize on the document as well, arguing that it supported Trump's claims that the former FBI chief had told him three times that he was not personally being investigated in the Russia probe.
Comey wrote in his testimony that he twice told Trump he was not being investigated once before the inauguration and once when he was President and also said that he had told congressional leaders that the FBI was not "personally investigating President Trump."
Trump's camp argued that fact vindicated the President and sought to use it to sweep away the Russia questions that have been clouding his White House ever since the inauguration.
"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," said Marc Kasowitz, Trump's personal attorney.
"The President feels completely and totally vindicated. He is eager to continue to move forward with his agenda."
Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen told CNN, "Comey's statement released today needs to be carefully scrutinized as his testimony claims the president was concerned about the dossier."
The Republican Party also singled out the same helpful passages of Comey's testimony.
"President Trump was right," said Republican National Committee Chairwoman McDaniel.
"Director Comey's statement reconfirmed what the president has been saying all along -- he was never under investigation," McDaniel said in a statement that did not mention the other aspects of Comey's testimony.
The testimony was posted without notice on the website of the Senate Intelligence Committee, instantly electrifying Washington, which has been on edge for days ahead of Comey's planned testimony.
The dramatic intervention was classic Comey: the towering FBI chief, branded a "showboat" by Trump, has a reputation for theatrical public coups, and his move will only intensify the anticipation for his appearance on Thursday.
Comey described a March 30 phone call in which he said Trump stressed "the cloud" of the Russia investigations was "interfering with his ability to make deals for the country and said he hoped I could find a way to get out that he wasn't being investigated."
But Comey determined that to offer such an assurance would be unwise, not least because it would have to be corrected should the situation change.
The former FBI chief also wrote a revealing description of Trump's efforts to win his loyalty during their first dinner in January.
Trump, Comey wrote, told him, "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty" during their first dinner in January. Comey said in the statement, "I didn't move, speak or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed." Comey replied, "you will always get honesty from me." He said the President responded, "that's what I want. Honest loyalty."
Comey said that before Trump brought up the issue of loyalty he had told the President he was not "reliable" in the ways politicians use the word but that he could count on him to tell the truth.
"I added that I was not on anybody's side politically and could not be counted on in the traditional political sense, a stance I said was in his best interest as the President," Comey wrote.
The former FBI director said that he had nine separate conversations with Trump, three of which were in person and six were on the telephone. By comparison, he said he spoke twice with President Barack Obama, and never on the telephone. He said that after meeting Trump he immediately begin to write notes about his conversations with Trump, a practice he didn't adopt before.
Comey offered intimate details of his encounter with Trump in an apparent attempt to create added authenticity to his account.
He said they dined alone on January 27 in the Green Room of the White House at a small oval table and were waited upon by two navy stewards.
He wrote that his instincts told him that the one-on-one setting and the tone of the conversation meant that Trump was seeking to get him to ask to remain in his job, in an attempt to "create some sort of patronage relationship."
"That concerned me greatly, given the FBI's traditionally independent status in the executive branch," Comey wrote. He added that he wrote a memo about the meeting and shared it with the senior leadership of the FBI.
Reaction to Comey's dramatic testimony was swift, reflecting the political tsunami that is raging over the Russia issue and that has often seemed about to swamp Trump's administration.
Republican Sen. John McCain told CNN's Manu Raju that he found the testimony "disturbing."
Rep Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said that Comey's testimony "confirms a host of troubling allegations concerning the President's conduct."
But Matt Schlapp, Chairman of the American Conservative Union played down the impact of Comey's testimony.
"This is one man's account of a conversation, it is a set of notes, it's exactly what we expect from James Comey. ... He is a grand-stander, he likes to be the honest man, he is going to play that role on Thursday," Schlapp said, reflecting the emerging GOP attack against the former FBI director as someone who cannot resist the spotlight.
Schlapp told CNN that only the judgment of the Special Counsel Robert Mueller will establish the facts of whether there was any collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia's effort to hack the election.
He also said it was "absolutely human nature to want to know you are a subject and Donald Trump was told from the very beginning of this that he was not                                                                                                    

Reading Between the Lines of
Comey’s Prepared Testimony

Mr. Comey’s testimony was released Wednesday at the request of representatives for Mr. Comey, according to people familiar with the sequence of events. He is set to testify at 10 a.m. on Thursday.

Read The Times’s coverage of that meeting.

The explosive details of the summary that was given to Mr. Trump — unsubstantiated accounts of frolics with prostitutes, real estate deals that were intended as bribes and coordination with Russian intelligence of the hacking of Democrats — were reported first by CNN five days after the meeting.

Despite Mr. Comey’s statement that the material’s publication was imminent, several news outlets had known about the dossier for some time and had not reported on it because they could not corroborate the allegations. CNN used the fact of this meeting to justify reporting on the dossier. (Soon after the CNN report, BuzzFeed published the actual document.)

Charlie Savage, Washington reporter

In his letter firing Mr. Comey, Mr. Trump said Mr. Comey had assured him “on three separate occasions” that he was not under investigation. This is Mr. Comey’s first public confirmation of the president’s assertion.

Though Mr. Comey said he did not write memos about his interactions with President Barack Obama, these habits of taking notes and writing reports are ingrained in the F.B.I.’s culture.

This is odd because, by the time of the meeting, Mr. Comey had already announced to his staff that he had been asked to remain on the job.

Matt Apuzzo, Washington reporter

Comey is framing his conversations with Mr. Trump in a deeply suspicious light.

Charlie Savage, Washington reporter

The Times first reported on this encounter in May.

The door by the grandfather clock in the Oval Office leads to the office of the president’s secretary. Details like these appear intended to give the account credibility.clock.jpg

Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

Mr. Flynn, the president’s former national security adviser, is facing a tangle of potential legal troubles arising from his business dealings with foreign entities and his interactions with both executive branch and congressional investigators. Here is what you need to know about some of the possible legal problems for Mr. Flynn.

Charlie Savage, Washington reporter

Comey confirms here what has been well reported but had been officially undisclosed: that Mr. Flynn was being investigated over possibly lying about his calls with the Russian ambassador.

Matt Apuzzo, Washington reporter

This conversation about Mr. Flynn, which was first reported by The Times last month, has in some subsequent political commentary been framed as Mr. Trump asking Mr. Comey to shut down the entire Russia investigation. But Mr. Comey’s account makes clear that Mr. Trump was making a narrower request.

Charlie Savage, Washington reporter

Mr. Trump is referring to the dossier that Mr. Comey told him about on Jan. 6 in New York. The dossier has uncorroborated claims about the existence of sex videos of Mr. Trump and prostitutes in a Moscow hotel in 2013.

Adam Goldman, Washington reporter

If Mr. Comey told the public that the president was not under investigation, the F.B.I. director might feel obligated to set the record straight if that scenario changed. That is typically why the F.B.I. does not announce when people are under investigation. Arguably, this “duty” is what led Mr. Comey to send his controversial letter to Congress in October notifying lawmakers that the F.B.I. had come into possession of an additional trove of Hillary Clinton’s emails and was examining them; in July, he had famously given a news conference announcing that the email investigation was over.

Adam Goldman and Charlie Savage

What did Mr. Boente do with the information that Mr. Comey provided? That remains unclear.

Adam Goldman, Washington reporter

Mr. Trump fired Mr. Comey as F.B.I. director a month later, on May 9. Mr. Comey learned about his dismissal from news reports while he was addressing bureau employees in Los Angeles.

Statement for the Record
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

James B. Comey June 8, 2017

Chairman Burr, Ranking Member Warner, Members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. I was asked to testify today to describe for you my interactions with President-Elect and President Trump on subjects that I understand are of interest to you. I have not included every detail from my conversations with the President, but, to the best of my recollection, I have tried to include information that may be relevant to the Committee.

Mr. Comey’s testimony was released Wednesday at the request of representatives for Mr. Comey, according to people familiar with the sequence of events. He is set to testify at 10 a.m. on Thursday.

January 6 Briefing

I first met then-President-Elect Trump on Friday, January 6 in a conference room at Trump Tower in New York. I was there with other Intelligence Community (IC) leaders to brief him and his new national security team on the findings of an IC assessment concerning Russian efforts to interfere in the election. At the conclusion of that briefing, I remained alone with the President- Elect to brief him on some personally sensitive aspects of the information assembled during the assessment.

Read The Times’s coverage of that meeting.

The IC leadership thought it important, for a variety of reasons, to alert the incoming President to the existence of this material, even though it was salacious and unverified.

The explosive details of the summary that was given to Mr. Trump — unsubstantiated accounts of frolics with prostitutes, real estate deals that were intended as bribes and coordination with Russian intelligence of the hacking of Democrats — were reported first by CNN five days after the meeting.

Among those reasons were: (1) we knew the media was about to publicly report the material and we believed the IC should not keep knowledge of the material and its imminent release from the President-Elect; and (2) to the extent there was some effort to compromise an incoming President, we could blunt any such effort with a defensive briefing.

Despite Mr. Comey’s statement that the material’s publication was imminent, several news outlets had known about the dossier for some time and had not reported on it because they could not corroborate the allegations. CNN used the fact of this meeting to justify reporting on the dossier. (Soon after the CNN report, BuzzFeed published the actual document.)

Charlie Savage, Washington reporter

The Director of National Intelligence asked that I personally do this portion of the briefing because I was staying in my position and because the material implicated the FBI’s counter-intelligence responsibilities. We also agreed I would do it alone to minimize potential embarrassment to the President-Elect. Although we agreed it made sense for me to do the briefing, the FBI’s leadership and I were concerned that the briefing might create a situation where a new President came into office uncertain about whether the FBI was conducting a counter-intelligence investigation of his personal conduct.

It is important to understand that FBI counter-intelligence investigations are different than the more-commonly known criminal investigative work. The Bureau’s goal in a counter-intelligence investigation is to understand the technical and human methods that hostile foreign powers are using to influence the United States or to steal our secrets. The FBI uses that understanding to disrupt those efforts.

Sometimes disruption takes the form of alerting a person who is targeted for recruitment or influence by the foreign power. Sometimes it involves hardening a computer system that is being attacked. Sometimes it involves “turning” the recruited person into a double-agent, or publicly calling out the behavior with sanctions or expulsions of embassy-based intelligence officers. On occasion, criminal prosecution is used to disrupt intelligence activities.

Because the nature of the hostile foreign nation is well known, counter-intelligence investigations tend to be centered on individuals the FBI suspects to be witting or unwitting agents of that foreign power. When the FBI develops reason to believe an American has been targeted for recruitment by a foreign power or is covertly acting as an agent of the foreign power, the FBI will “open an investigation” on that American and use legal authorities to try to learn more about the nature of any relationship with the foreign power so it can be disrupted.

In that context, prior to the January 6 meeting, I discussed with the FBI’s leadership team whether I should be prepared to assure President-Elect Trump that we were not investigating him personally. That was true; we did not have an open counter-intelligence case on him. We agreed I should do so if circumstances warranted. During our one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower, based on President- Elect Trump’s reaction to the briefing and without him directly asking the question, I offered that assurance.

In his letter firing Mr. Comey, Mr. Trump said Mr. Comey had assured him “on three separate occasions” that he was not under investigation. This is Mr. Comey’s first public confirmation of the president’s assertion.

I felt compelled to document my first conversation with the President-Elect in a memo. To ensure accuracy, I began to type it on a laptop in an FBI vehicle outside Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the meeting. Creating written records immediately after one-on-one conversations with Mr. Trump was my practice from that point forward. This had not been my practice in the past.

Though Mr. Comey said he did not write memos about his interactions with President Barack Obama, these habits of taking notes and writing reports are ingrained in the F.B.I.’s culture.

I spoke alone with President Obama twice in person (and never on the phone) – once in 2015 to discuss law enforcement policy issues and a second time, briefly, for him to say goodbye in late 2016. In neither of those circumstances did I memorialize the discussions. I can recall nine one-on-one conversations with President Trump in four months – three in person and six on the phone.

January 27 Dinner

The President and I had dinner on Friday, January 27 at 6:30 pm in the Green Room at the White House. He had called me at lunchtime that day and invited me to dinner that night, saying he was going to invite my whole family, but decided to have just me this time, with the whole family coming the next time. It was unclear from the conversation who else would be at the dinner, although I assumed there would be others.

It turned out to be just the two of us, seated at a small oval table in the center of the Green Room. Two Navy stewards waited on us, only entering the room to serve food and drinks.

The President began by asking me whether I wanted to stay on as FBI Director, which I found strange because he had already told me twice in earlier conversations that he hoped I would stay, and I had assured him that I intended to. 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.

This is odd because, by the time of the meeting, Mr. Comey had already announced to his staff that he had been asked to remain on the job.

Matt Apuzzo, Washington reporter

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. That concerned me greatly, given the FBI’s traditionally independent status in the executive branch.

Comey is framing his conversations with Mr. Trump in a deeply suspicious light.

Charlie Savage, Washington reporter

I replied that I loved my work and intended to stay and serve out my ten- year term as Director. And then, because the set-up made me uneasy, I added that I was not “reliable” in the way politicians use that word, but he could always count on me to tell him the truth. I added that I was not on anybody’s side politically and could not be counted on in the traditional political sense, a stance I said was in his best interest as the President.

A few moments later, the President said, “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.” I didn’t move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence. The conversation then moved on, but he returned to the subject near the end of our dinner.

At one point, I explained why it was so important that the FBI and the Department of Justice be independent of the White House. I said it was a paradox: Throughout history, some Presidents have decided that because “problems” come from Justice, they should try to hold the Department close. But blurring those boundaries ultimately makes the problems worse by undermining public trust in the institutions and their work.

Near the end of our dinner, the President returned to the subject of my job, saying he was very glad I wanted to stay, adding that he had heard great things about me from Jim Mattis, Jeff Sessions, and many others. 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.”

The Times first reported on this encounter in May.

As I wrote in the memo I created immediately after the dinner, it is possible we understood the phrase “honest loyalty” differently, but I decided it wouldn’t be productive to push it further. The term – honest loyalty – had helped end a very awkward conversation and my explanations had made clear what he should expect.

During the dinner, the President returned to the salacious material I had briefed him about on January 6, and, as he had done previously, expressed his disgust for the allegations and strongly denied them. He said he was considering ordering me to investigate the alleged incident to prove it didn’t happen. I replied that he should give that careful thought because it might create a narrative that we were investigating him personally, which we weren’t, and because it was very difficult to prove a negative. He said he would think about it and asked me to think about it.

As was my practice for conversations with President Trump, I wrote a detailed memo about the dinner immediately afterwards and shared it with the senior leadership team of the FBI.

February 14 Oval Office Meeting

On February 14, I went to the Oval Office for a scheduled counter- terrorism briefing of the President. He sat behind the desk and a group of us sat in a semi-circle of about six chairs facing him on the other side of the desk. The Vice President, Deputy Director of the CIA, Director of the National Counter-Terrorism Center, Secretary of Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and I were in the semi-circle of chairs. I was directly facing the President, sitting between the Deputy CIA Director and the Director of NCTC. There were quite a few others in the room, sitting behind us on couches and chairs.

The President signaled the end of the briefing by thanking the group and telling them all that he wanted to speak to me alone. I stayed in my chair. As the participants started to leave the Oval Office, the Attorney General lingered by my chair, but the President thanked him and said he wanted to speak only with me. The last person to leave was Jared Kushner, who also stood by my chair and exchanged pleasantries with me. The President then excused him, saying he wanted to speak with me.

When the door by the grandfather clock closed, and we were alone, the President began by saying, “I want to talk about Mike Flynn.” Flynn had resigned the previous day. The President began by saying Flynn hadn’t done anything wrong in speaking with the Russians, but he had to let him go because he had misled the Vice President. He added that he had other concerns about Flynn, which he did not then specify.

The door by the grandfather clock in the Oval Office leads to the office of the president’s secretary. Details like these appear intended to give the account credibility. clock.jpg

Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

The President then made a long series of comments about the problem with leaks of classified information – a concern I shared and still share. After he had spoken for a few minutes about leaks, Reince Priebus leaned in through the door by the grandfather clock and I could see a group of people waiting behind him. The President waved at him to close the door, saying he would be done shortly. The door closed.

The President then returned to the topic of Mike Flynn, saying, “He is a good guy and has been through a lot.” He repeated that Flynn hadn’t done anything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but had misled the Vice President. He then said, “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 replied only that “he is a good guy.” (In fact, I had a positive experience dealing with Mike Flynn when he was a colleague as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the beginning of my term at FBI.) I did not say I would “let this go.”

Mr. Flynn, the president’s former national security adviser, is facing a tangle of potential legal troubles arising from his business dealings with foreign entities and his interactions with both executive branch and congressional investigators. Here is what you need to know about some of the possible legal problems for Mr. Flynn.

Charlie Savage, Washington reporter

The President returned briefly to the problem of leaks. I then got up and left out the door by the grandfather clock, making my way through the large group of people waiting there, including Mr. Priebus and the Vice President.

I immediately prepared an unclassified memo of the conversation about Flynn and discussed the matter with FBI senior leadership. 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.

Comey confirms here what has been well reported but had been officially undisclosed: that Mr. Flynn was being investigated over possibly lying about his calls with the Russian ambassador.

Matt Apuzzo, Washington reporter

I did not understand the President to be talking about the broader investigation into Russia or possible links to his campaign. I could be wrong, but I took him to be focusing on what had just happened with Flynn’s departure and the controversy around his account of his phone calls. Regardless, it was very concerning, given the FBI’s role as an independent investigative agency.

This conversation about Mr. Flynn, which was first reported by The Times last month, has in some subsequent political commentary been framed as Mr. Trump asking Mr. Comey to shut down the entire Russia investigation. But Mr. Comey’s account makes clear that Mr. Trump was making a narrower request.

Charlie Savage, Washington reporter

The FBI leadership team agreed with me that it was important not to infect the investigative team with the President’s request, which we did not intend to abide. We also concluded that, given that it was a one-on-one conversation, there was nothing available to corroborate my account. We concluded it made little sense to report it to Attorney General Sessions, who we expected would likely recuse himself from involvement in Russia-related investigations. (He did so two weeks later.) The Deputy Attorney General’s role was then filled in an acting capacity by a United States Attorney, who would also not be long in the role.

After discussing the matter, we decided to keep it very closely held, resolving to figure out what to do with it down the road as our investigation progressed. The investigation moved ahead at full speed, with none of the investigative team members – or the Department of Justice lawyers supporting them – aware of the President’s request.

Shortly afterwards, I spoke with Attorney General Sessions in person to pass along the President’s concerns about leaks. I took the opportunity to implore the Attorney General to prevent any future direct communication between the President and me. I told the AG that what had just happened – him being asked to leave while the FBI Director, who reports to the AG, remained behind – was inappropriate and should never happen. He did not reply. For the reasons discussed above, I did not mention that the President broached the FBI’s potential investigation of General Flynn.

March 30 Phone Call

On the morning of March 30, the President called me at the FBI. He described the Russia investigation as “a cloud” that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country. He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia. He asked what we could do to “lift the cloud.” I responded that we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be great benefit, if we didn’t find anything, to our having done the work well. He agreed, but then re-emphasized the problems this was causing him.

Mr. Trump is referring to the dossier that Mr. Comey told him about on Jan. 6 in New York. The dossier has uncorroborated claims about the existence of sex videos of Mr. Trump and prostitutes in a Moscow hotel in 2013.

Adam Goldman, Washington reporter

Then the President asked why there had been a congressional hearing about Russia the previous week – at which I had, as the Department of Justice directed, confirmed the investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. I explained the demands from the leadership of both parties in Congress for more information, and that Senator Grassley had even held up the confirmation of the Deputy Attorney General until we briefed him in detail on the investigation. I explained that we had briefed the leadership of Congress on exactly which individuals we were investigating and that we had told those Congressional leaders that we were not personally investigating President Trump. I reminded him I had previously told him that. He repeatedly told me, “We need to get that fact out.” (I did not tell the President that the FBI and the Department of Justice had been reluctant to make public statements that we did not have an open case on President Trump for a number of reasons, most importantly because it would create a duty to correct, should that change.)

If Mr. Comey told the public that the president was not under investigation, the F.B.I. director might feel obligated to set the record straight if that scenario changed. That is typically why the F.B.I. does not announce when people are under investigation. Arguably, this “duty” is what led Mr. Comey to send his controversial letter to Congress in October notifying lawmakers that the F.B.I. had come into possession of an additional trove of Hillary Clinton’s emails and was examining them; in July, he had famously given a news conference announcing that the email investigation was over.

Adam Goldman and Charlie Savage

The President went on to say that if there were some “satellite” associates of his who did something wrong, it would be good to find that out, but that he hadn’t done anything wrong and hoped I would find a way to get it out that we weren’t investigating him.

In an abrupt shift, he turned the conversation to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, saying he hadn’t brought up “the McCabe thing” because I had said McCabe was honorable, although McAuliffe was close to the Clintons and had given him (I think he meant Deputy Director McCabe’s wife) campaign money. Although I didn’t understand why the President was bringing this up, I repeated that Mr. McCabe was an honorable person.

He finished by stressing “the cloud” that was interfering with his ability to make deals for the country and said he hoped I could find a way to get out that he wasn’t being investigated. I told him I would see what we could do, and that we would do our investigative work well and as quickly as we could.

Immediately after that conversation, I called Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente (AG Sessions had by then recused himself on all Russia- related matters), to report the substance of the call from the President, and said I would await his guidance. I did not hear back from him before the President called me again two weeks later.

What did Mr. Boente do with the information that Mr. Comey provided? That remains unclear.

Adam Goldman, Washington reporter

April 11 Phone Call

On the morning of April 11, the President called me and asked what I had done about his request that I “get out” that he is not personally under investigation. I replied that I had passed his request to the Acting Deputy Attorney General, but I had not heard back. He replied that “the cloud” was getting in the way of his ability to do his job. He said that perhaps he would have his people reach out to the Acting Deputy Attorney General. I said that was the way his request should be handled. I said the White House Counsel should contact the leadership of DOJ to make the request, which was the traditional channel.

He said he would do that and added, “Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know.” I did not reply or ask him what he meant by “that thing.” I said only that the way to handle it was to have the White House Counsel call the Acting Deputy Attorney General. He said that was what he would do and the call ended.

That was the last time I spoke with President Trump.

Mr. Trump fired Mr. Comey as F.B.I. director a month later, on May 9. Mr. Comey learned about his dismissal from news reports while he was addressing bureau employees in Los Angeles.

Correction: June 7, 2017

"러시아 스캔들 트럼프, 대북 선제공격으로 활로 찾으려 할수도"

美연구원 "국내 위기 초점돌리기용 대외정책 선례들"
"거꾸로 정치적 무력감으로 칩거하며 대외정책 방치할 수도"

(서울=연합뉴스) 윤동영 기자 = 도널드 트럼프 미국 대통령이 러시아 스캔들로 궁지에 몰린 나머지, 초점 돌리기 용으로 북한의 핵시설에 대한 선제공격 명령을 내리게 된다면?

트럼프, 의회 증언 앞둔 제임스 코미게 "행운을 빈다" [EPA=연합뉴스〕
트럼프, 의회 증언 앞둔 제임스 코미게 "행운을 빈다" [EPA=연합뉴스〕 도널드 트럼프 미 대통령이 6일 백악관에서 공화당 지도부와 만난 자리에서 러시아 스캔들과 관련, 8일 의회에서 증언할 예정인 제임스 코미 전 연방수사국장에게 해주고 싶은 말이 있느냐는 질문에 "행운을 빈다"고만 말했다.

미국외교협회(CFR) 예방행동센터의 미카 젠코 선임연구원은 6일(현지시간) 포린 폴리시에 기고한 '트럼프의 러시아 스캔들이 이미 그의 외교정책을 삼키고 있다'는 제목의 글에서 "백악관을 겨냥한 러시아 스캔들 수사의 포위망이 좁혀지면 그에 따른 압박 때문에 백악관의 외교 과제들도 영향을 받는 게 불가피해진다"며 극단적인 상황을 가정한 것이긴 하지만 이런 물음을 던졌다.

트럼프 대통령이 날로 확산되는 스캔들과 지속적인 지지도 하락, 게다가 어쩌면 탄핵 위기에 직면하게 되면 대북 선제공격에 따른 인명 피해나 한반도 전쟁 발발 등 어떤 비용을 치르고 어떤 결과가 나오더라도 그런 유혹에 빠질 수가 있다는 것이다.

젠코 연구원은 대북 선제공격은 장거리 미사일 발사장과 기타 핵무기 관련 시설들을 대상으로 이뤄지겠지만, 해리 해리스 미 태평양사령부 사령관 등이 인정하듯, 북한의 김정은은 즉각 남한에 대해 보복 공격을 가하고 이는 한미 간 상호방위조약을 발동시켜 한미합동 비밀작전계획이 가동될 것이라고 예상했다. 결국, 수백만 명의 인명 피해를 초래하는 전쟁을 부르는 결정이 된다.

국내 정치 위기에 몰린 정부 수반들이 실제로 자신의 위기 모면용으로 대외 전쟁을 벌이는 경향이 있는가에 대한 학술적 연구 결론들은 엇갈린다. 하지만 아버지 부시 전 대통령의 1989년 파나마 침공, 빌 클린턴 전 대통령의 1998년 알카에다와 이라크 공격 등은 전형적인 실례로 여겨지고 있다고 젠코 연구원은 설명했다.

그는 "분명한 것은 의심이 많고 세상을 흑백의 이분법으로 보는 성향의 대통령들이 그런 경향을 가질 가능성이 크다는 점"이라며 트럼프 대통령이야말로 "이런 성향을 완벽히 구현한" 경우라고 말했다.

트럼프 대통령이 러시아 스캔들로 더욱 궁지에 몰렸을 때, 북한 정권의 붕괴보다는 '핵무장한 북한'이 차라리 낫다고 판단하는 중국이 대북 강압 강도를 높이라는 트럼프 행정부의 요구를 거부하고, 북한의 장거리 핵미사일 발사 시험의 성공 확률이 10~20% 정도 된다는 정보 판단이 내려지면 "트럼프는 선제공격을 승인하게 될 것이라고 나는 믿는다"고 젠코 연구원은 단언했다.

그는 트럼프 대통령과 자주 비교되는 리처드 닉슨 대통령 시절 이뤄진 칠레 아옌데 정권에 대한 전복 공작, 1973년 욤키푸르 전쟁 때 이스라엘에 대한 무기와 군수품 공수, 레오니트 브레즈네프 소련 공산당 서기장과 2차례 걸친 정상회담과 전략무기제한협정 체결 등은 "의심의 여지 없이, 공공연히 또는 미묘하게" 탄핵 압박의 영향을 받은 것들이라고 상기시켰다.

그는 트럼프의 러시아 스캔들도 결말이 나기까지 2~3년이 걸릴 것으로 보면서, "중요한 외교정책들이 고안돼 집행되거나 고안됐어도 집행되지 못하고, 예상치 못한 위기들이 발생하는 데 따라 트럼프 대통령이 대응하거나 대응하지 못하는" 일들이 많이 일어날 것이라고 지적했다.

트럼프 대통령이 국내 정치 위기 때문에 외교정책에 집중할 수 없게 되면 외교정책 관료들은 트럼프 대통령이 임명한 정무직의 지시를 따르지 않으면서 자신들의 권력과 영향력을 키우려 할 것이다. 집권당인 공화당도 의회에서 허약한 백악관이 추진하는 외교정책들을 위한 예산 지원을 소홀히 할 수 있고, 외국의 동맹이나 협력국들 역시 트럼프 대통령의 임기 완수를 의심해 그의 외교 목표에 대한 협력을 꺼릴 수 있기 때문이다.

궁지에 몰린 트럼프 대통령이 대외 모험을 택하기보다는 칩거 상태에서 대외정책에 관심을 끊을 가능성도 있다.

닉슨은 사임 얼마 전부터는 수도 워싱턴의 백악관보다는 '서부 백악관'으로 불린 캘리포니아 산 클레멘테의 개인 별장에서 점점 더 많은 시간을 보냈으며, 이에 따라 국무장관 겸 백악관 국가안보보좌관인 키신저가 사실상 외교정책을 좌지우지하면서 닉슨에겐 결정 사항을 통보하기만 했다고 젠코 연구원은 상기시켰다.

트럼프 대통령은 이미 제임스 매티스 국방장관에게 군사관련 "전권'을 위임한 상태여서 매티스 장관이 시행에 들어간 군사정책을 플로리다 개인 휴양시설 마라라고 등에 칩거하는 트럼프 대통령에게 통보하는 일도 "상상할 수 없는 일은 아니다"는 것이다.

트럼프 대통령이 국내 정치적 곤경에서 벗어나기 위해 북한을 대상으로 대외 모험을 택하든, 실의 속에 무관심이나 방치를 택하든 북한 핵 문제의 평화적 해결이라는 목표엔 도움이 되지 않을 것으로 보인다. 북한 입장에서도 전쟁과 무관심 둘 다 환영할 수 없는 일들이다.

ydy@yna.co.kr