James Comey Congressional Hearing Before Congress (Full Testimony) | The New York Times

a statement today that he won't be as forthcoming as he was in opening statement oh you know I think he's going to try to give all the facts that he feels he can without jeopardizing Robert Mueller's the special counsels investigation but he is aware of those lines since he has walked them for many years and I think he will walk the line today but with an eye towards he wouldn't have agreed to publicly testify if he wasn't willing to to give as much information as he could about the circumstances thanks very much you mycology to worry director Comey I appreciate your willingness to appear before the committee today and more importantly I thank you for your dedicated service and leadership to the Federal Bureau of Investigation your appearance today speaks to the trust we have built over the years and I'm looking forward to a very open and candid discussion today I'd like to remind my colleagues that we will reconvene in closed session at 1:00 p.m. today and I ask that you reserve for that venue any questions that might get into classified information the director has been very gracious with his time but the vice chairman and I have worked out a very specific timeline for his commitment to be on the hill so we will do everything we can to meet that agreement the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence exists to certify for the other 85 members of the United States Senate and the American people that the intelligence community is operating lawfully and has the necessary authorities and tools to accomplish its mission and keep America safe part of our mission beyond the oversight we continue to provide to the intelligence community and its activities is to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 US elections the committee's work continues this hearing represents part of that effort Jim allegations have been swirling in the press for the last several weeks and today's your opportunity to set the record straight yesterday I read with interest your statement for the record and I think it provides some helpful details surrounding your interactions with the president it clearly lays out your understanding of those discussions actions you took following each conversation and your state of mind I very much appreciate your candor I think it's helpful as we work through to determine the ultimate truth behind possible Russian interference in the 2016 elections your statement also provides texture and context to your interactions with the president from your vantage point and outlines a strained relationship the American people need to hear your side of the story just as they need to hear the president descriptions of events these interactions also highlight the importance of the committee's on going investigation our experienced staff is interviewing all relevant parties and some of the most sensitive intelligence in our country's possession we will establish the facts separate from rapid speculation and lay them out for the American people to make their own judgment only then will we as a nation be able to move forward and to put this episode to rest there's several outstanding issues not addressed in your statement that I hope you'll clear up for the American people today did the President's request for loyalty your impression that that the one-on-one dinner of January 27th was and I quote at least in part an effort to create some sort of patronage relationship or is March 30th phone call asking what you could do to lift the cloud of Russia investigation in any way alter your approach or the FBI's investigation into general Flynn or the broader investigation into Russia and possible links to the campaign in your opinion did potential Russian efforts to establish length with the individuals in the Trump orbit rise to the level we could define as collusion or was it a counterintelligence concern there's been a significant public speculation about your decision-making related to the Clinton email investigation why did you decide publicly to publicly announce FBI's recommendations that the Department of Justice not pursue criminal charges you have described it as a choice between a bad decision and a worse decision the American people need to understand the facts behind your action this committee is uniquely suited to investigate Russia's interference and then 2016 elections we also have a unified bipartisan approach - what is a highly charged partisan issue Russian activities during 2016 election may have been aimed at one party's candidate but as my colleague senator Rubio says frequently in 2018 and 2020 it could be aimed at anyone at home or abroad my colleague senator Warner and I have worked in it work to stay in lockstep on this investigation we've had our differences on approach at times but I've constantly stressed that we need to be a team and I think Senator Warner agrees with me we must keep these questions above politics and partisanship it's too important to be tainted by anyone trying to score political points with that again I welcome you director and I turn to vice chairman for any comments you might have well thank you mr. chairman and let me start by again absolutely thanking all the members of the committee for the seriousness in which they've taken on this task mr. Comey thank you for agreeing to come testify as part of this committees investigation into Russia I realized that this hearing has been obviously the focus of a lot of Washington in the last few days but the truth is many Americans who may be tuning in today probably haven't focused on every twist and turn of the investigation so I'd like to briefly describe at least from this senator standpoint what we already know and what we're still investigating to be clear this investigation is not about relitigated the election it's not about who won or lost and it sure as heck it's not about democrats versus republicans we're here because of foreign adversary attacked us right here at home plain and simple not by guns or missiles but by foreign operatives seeking to hijack our most important democratic process our presidential election Russian spies engaged in a series of online cyber raids and abroad campaign of disinformation all ultimately aimed at sowing chaos to undermine public faith in our process in our leadership and ultimately in ourselves and that's not just this senator's opinion it is the unanimous determination of the entire US intelligence community so we must find out the full story what the Russians did and candidly as some other colleagues have mentioned why they were so successful and more importantly we must determine the necessary steps to take to protect our democracy and ensure they can't do it again Charlie mentioned elections in 2018 and 2020 in my home state of Virginia we have elections this year in 2017 simply put we cannot let anything or anyone prevent us from getting to the bottom of this now mr. Comey let me say at the outset we haven't always agreed on every issue in fact I've occasionally questioned some of the actions you've taken but I've never had any reason to question your integrity your expertise or your intelligence you've been a straight shooter with this committee and have been willing to speak truth to power even at the risk of your own career which makes the way in which you are fired by the president ultimately shocking recall we began this entire process with the president and his staff first denying that the Russians were ever involved and then falsely claiming that no one from his team was ever in touch with any Russians we know that's just not the truth numerous Trump associates had undisclosed contacts with Russians before and after the election including the president's attorney general his former national security adviser and his current senior advisor mr. Kushner that doesn't even begin to count the host of additional campaign associates and advisors who've also been caught up in this massive web we saw mr. Trump's campaign manager mr. mana for forced to step down over ties to Russian back entities the national security adviser general Flynn had to resign over his lies about engagements with the Russians and we saw the candidate him Spratt himself express an odd and unexplained affection for the Russian dictator while calling for the hacking of his opponent there's a lot to investigate enough in fact then director Comey publicly acknowledged that he was leading an investigation into those links between mr. Trump's campaign and the Russian government as the director of the FBI mr. Comey was ultimately responsible for conducting that investigation which might explain why you're sitting now as a private citizen what we didn't know was at the same time that this investigation was proceeding the president himself appears to have been engaged in an effort to influence or at least co-opt the director of the FBI the testimony that mr. Comey is submitted for today's hearing is very disturbing for example on January 27th after summoning director Comey to dinner the president appears to a threatened director's job while telling him quote I need loyalty I expect loyalty at a later meeting on February 14th the president asked the Attorney General to leave the Oval Office so he could privately ask director Comey again quote to see way clear to letting Flynn go that is a statement that director Comey interpreted as he as a request that he dropped the investigation connected the general Flynn's false statements think about it the president United States asking the FBI director to drop an ongoing investigation and after that the president called the FBI director on two additional occasions March 30th and April 11th and asked him again quote to lift the cloud on the Russian investigation now director Comey denied each of these improper requests the loyalty pledge the admonition to drop the Flint investigation the request to lift the cloud under Russian investigation of course after his refusal x' director Comey was fired the initial explanation for the firing didn't pass any smell test somehow it's replica me was fired he didn't treat Hillary Clinton appropriately of course that explanation lasted about a day because the President himself then made very clear that he was thinking about Russia when he decided to fire director Comey shockingly report suggests that the president admitted as much in an oval office meeting with the Russians the day after director Comey was fired disparaging our country's top law enforcement official as a quote-unquote nutjob the president allegedly suggested that his firing relieved great pressure on his feelings about Russia this is not happening in isolation at the same time the president was engaged in these efforts with director Comey he was also at least allegedly asking senior leaders of the intelligence community to downplay the Russian investigation or to intervene with the drafter yesterday we had DNI director Coates and NSA director Admiral Rogers who were offered a number of opportunities to flatly deny those press reports they expressed their opinions but they did not take that opportunity to deny those reports they did not take advantage of that opportunity my belief that's not how the press the United States should behave regardless of the outcome of our investigation into the Russia links director Comey's firing and his testimony raised separate and troubling questions that we must get to the bottom of again as I said at the outset I've seen firsthand how seriously every member of this committee is taking his work I'm proud of the committee's efforts so far let me be clear this is not a witch hunt this is not fake news it is an effort to protect our country from a new threat that quite honestly will not go away anytime soon so mr. Comey your testimony here today will help us move towards that goal I look forward to that testimony Thank You mr. Chari Thank You vice chairman director has discussed when you agreed to appear before the committee it would be under oath I'd ask you to please stand raise your right hand do you solemnly swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God please be seated director Comey you're now under oath and I would just note to members you will be recognized by seniority for a period up to seven minutes and again it is the intent to move to a closed session no later than 1:00 p.m. with that director Comey you were recognized you have the floor for as long as you might need Thank You mr. chairman ranking member Warner members of the committee thank you for inviting me here to testify today I've submitted my statement for the record and I'm not going to repeat it here this morning I thought I would just offer some very brief introductory remarks and then I would welcome your questions when I was appointed FBI director in 2013 I understood that I served at the pleasure of the president even though I was appointed to a 10-year term which Congress created in order to underscore the importance of the FBI being outside of politics and independent I understood that I could be fired by a president for any reason or for no reason at all and on May the 9th when I learned that I had been fired for that reason I immediately came home as a private citizen but then the explanations the shifting explanations confused me and increasingly concerned me they confused me because the president that I had had multiple conversations about my job both before and after he took office and he had repeatedly told me I was doing a great job and he hoped I would stay and I had repeatedly assured him that I did intend to stay and serve out the remaining six years of my term he told me repeatedly that he had talked to lots of people about me including our current Attorney General and had learned that I was doing a great job and that I was extremely well-liked by the FBI workforce so it confused me when I saw on television the president's saying that he actually fired me because of the Russia investigation and learned again from the media that he was telling privately other parties that my firing had relieved great pressure on the Russia investigation I was also confused by the initial explanation that was offered publicly that I was fired because of the decisions I had made during the election year that didn't make sense to me for a whole bunch of reasons including the time and all the water that had gone under the bridge since those hard decisions that had to be made that didn't make any sense to me and although the law required no reason at all to fire an FBI director the administration then chose to defame me and more importantly the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray that it was poorly led that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader those were lies plain and simple and I am so sorry that the FBI workforce had to hear them and I'm so sorry that the American people were told them I worked every day at the FBI to help make that great organization better and I say help because I did nothing alone at the FBI there are no indispensable people at the FBI the organization's great strength is that its values and abilities run deep and wide the FBI will be fine without me the FBI's mission will be relentlessly pursued by its people and that mission is to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United States I will deeply miss being part of that mission but this organization and its mission will go on long beyond me and long beyond any particular administration I have a message before I closed for the my former colleagues of the FBI but at first I want the American people to know this truth the FBI is honest the FBI is strong and the FBI is and always will be independent and now to my former colleagues if I may I am so sorry that I didn't get the chance to say goodbye to you properly it was the honor of my life to serve beside you to be part of the FBI family and I will miss it for the rest of my life thank you for standing watch thank you for doing so much good for this country do that good as long as ever you can and senators I look forward to your questions director thank you for that testimony both oral and the written testimony that you provided to the committee yesterday and made public to the American people chair would recognize himself first for 12 minutes vice chair for 12 minutes based upon the agreement we have director did the special councils office review and/or edit your written testimony No do you have any doubt that Russia attempted to interfere in the 2016 elections none do you have any doubt that the Russian government was behind the intrusions in the DNC and the d-triple-c systems and the subsequent leaks of that information no no doubt you have any doubt that the Russian government was behind the cyber intrusion in the state voter files no do you have any doubt that officials of the Russian government were fully aware of these activities no doubt are you confident that no votes cast in the 2016 presidential election were altered I'm confident by the time when I left his director I'd seen no indication of that whatsoever director Comey did the president at any time ask you to stop the FBI investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 US elections not to my understanding now did any individual working for this administration including the Justice Department ask you to stop the Russian investigation no director when the president requested that you and I quote let Flynn go general Flynn had an unreported contact with the Russians which is a offense and if press accounts are right there might have been discrepancies between facts and his FBI testimony in your estimation was general Flynn at that time in serious legal jeopardy and in addition to that do you sense that the president was trying to obstruct justice or just seek a poor way --four Mike Flynn to save face given he had already been fired the general Flynn at that point in time was in legal jeopardy there was an open FBI criminal investigation of his statements in connection with the Russian contacts and the contacts themselves and so that was my assessment at the time I don't think it's for me to say whether the conversation I have with the president was an effort to obstruct I took it as a very disturbing thing very concerning but that's a conclusion I'm sure the Special Counsel will work towards to try and understand what the intention was there and whether that's an offense director is it possible that as part of this FBI investigation the FBI could find evidence of criminality that is not tied to the 2016 elections possible collusion or coordination with Russians sure so there could be something that just fits a criminal aspect to this that doesn't have anything to do with the 2016 election cycle correct in any complex investigation when you start turning over rocks sometimes you find things that are unrelated to the primary investigation that are criminal in nature director director Comey you have been criticized publicly for the decision to present your findings on the email investigation directly to the American people have you learned anything since that time that would have changed what you said or how you chose to inform the American people honestly no I mean it caused a whole lot of personal pain for me but as I look back given what I knew at the time and even what I've learned since I think it was the best way to try and protect the justice institution including the FBI in the public domain is this question of the steel dossier a document that has been around now for over a year I'm not sure when the FBI first took possession of it but the media had it before you had it and we had it at the time of your departure from the FBI was the FBI able to confirm any criminal allegations contained in the steel document mr. chairman I don't think that's a question I can answer in an open setting because it goes into the details of the investigation director the term we hear most often is collusion when people are describing possible links between Americans and Russian government entities related to the interference in our election would you say that it's normal for foreign governments to reach out to members of an incoming administration yes at what point does the normal contact cross the line into an attempt to recruit agents or influence or spies difficult to say in the abstract it depends upon the context whether there's an effort to keep it covert what the nature of the requests made of the American by the foreign government are it's a it's a judgment call based on a whole lot of facts at what point would that recruitment become a counterintelligence threat to our country again difficult to answer in the abstract but when when a foreign power is using especially coercion or some sort of pressure to try and co-opt an American especially a government official to act on its behalf that's a serious concern to the FBI and at the heart of the FBI's counterintelligence mission so if you've got a 36 page document of specific claims that are out there the FBI would have to for counterintelligence reasons try to verify anything that might be claimed in there one and probably first and foremost is the counterintelligence concerns that we have about like May would that be an accurate statement yes if the FBI receives a credible allegation that there is some effort to coop coerce direct employee covertly an American on behalf of the foreign power that's the basis on which a counterintelligence investigation is open and when you read the dossier what was your reaction given that it was 100% directed at the president-elect not a question I can answer an open setting mr. chairman okay when did you become aware of the cyber intrusion the first cyber antis all kinds of cyber intrusions going on all the time the first Russia connected cyber intrusion I became aware of in the late summer of 2015 and in that timeframe there were more than the DNC and the d-triple-c that were targets correct there was a massive effort to target government and non-governmental near governmental agent agencies like nonprofits what would be the estimate of how many entities out there the Russians specifically targeted it in that timeframe it's hundreds I suppose it could be more than a thousand but it's at least hundreds when did you become aware that data had been exfiltrated I'm not sure exactly I think either late 15 or early 16 and did you the director of the FBI have verse Asians with the last administration about the risk that this post yes and share with us if you will what actions they took well the FBI had already undertaken an effort to notify all the victims and that's what we consider the entities that were attacked as part of this massive spear phishing campaign and so we notified them in an effort to disrupt what might be ongoing and then there was a series of continuing interactions with entities through the rest of 15 into 16 and then throughout 16 the administration was trying to decide how to respond to the intrusion activity that it saw and the FBI in this case unlike other cases that you might investigate did you ever have access to the actual hardware that was hacked or did you have to rely on a third party to provide you the data that they had collected in the case of the DNC and I believe the d-triple-c but I'm sure the DNC we did not have access to the devices themselves we got relevant forensic information from a private party a high-class entity that had done the work but we didn't get direct access but no content correct hidden content an important part of the forensics from a counterintelligence standpoint it is although what was briefed to me by my folks the people who were my folks at the time is that they had gotten the information from the private party that they needed to understand the intrusion by the spring of 2016 let me go back if I can very briefly to the decision to publicly go out with your results on the email was your decision influenced by the Attorney General's tarmac meeting with the former President Bill Clinton yes in in a ultimately conclusive way that was the thing that kept it from me that I had to do something separately to protect the credibility of the investigation which meant both the FBI and the Justice Department were there are other things that contributed to that that you can describe in an open session there were other things that contributed to that one significant item I can't I know the committee has been briefed on there's been some public accounts of it which are nonsense but I understand the committee has been briefed on the classified facts probably the only other consideration I guess I can talk of an open setting is that at one point the Attorney General had directed me not to call it an investigation but instead to call it a matter which confused me and concerned me but that was one of the bricks in the load that led me to conclude I have to step away from the department if we're to close this case credibly director of my last question you're not only a seasoned prosecutor you've lived the FBI for years you understand the investigative process you've worked with this committee closely and we're grateful to you because I think we've we've mutually built trust in what your organization does and and what we do is there any doubt in your mind that this committee can carry out its oversight role in the 2016 Russian involvement in the elections in parallel with the now special counsel that's been set up no no doubt it can be done it requires lots of conversations but Bob Muller is one of this country's great great pros and I'm sure you all will be able to work it out with him to run it in parallel I want to thank you once again I want to turn to the vice chairman Thank You mr. chairman and again director Comey thank you for your service and your comments to your FBI family I know we're heartfelt know that even though there are some in the administration who tried to smear your reputation you had acting director McCabe in public testimony a few weeks back and in public testimony yesterday reaffirm that the vast majority FBI community had great trust in your leadership and obviously trusting your integrity I want to go through a number of the meetings that you referenced in your testimony and let's start with the January sixth meeting in Trump Tower where you went up with a series of officials to brief the president-elect on the Russian investigation my understanding is you remained afterwards to brief him on again quote some personally sensitive aspects of the information you'll relate now you said after that briefing you felt compelled to document that conversation that you actually started documenting it soon as you got into the car now you've had extensive experience at the Department of Justice and if the FBI you've worked on the presidents of both parties what was it about that meeting that led you to determine that you needed to start putting down a written record a combination of things I think the circumstances the subject matter and the person I was interacting with circumstances first I was alone with the President of the United States or the president-elect soon to be President the subject matter I was talking about matters that touch on the FBI's core responsibilities and that relate to the president president-elect personally and then the nature of the person I was honestly concerned that you might lie about the nature of our meeting and so I thought it really important to document that combination of things I'd never experienced before but it led me to believe I got to write it down and it got to write it down in a very detailed way I think that's a very important statement just made and my understanding is that then again unlike your dealings with pres of either parties in your past experience in every subsequent meeting or conversation this president you created a written record did you feel that you needed to create this written record of these memos because they might need to be relied on at some future date sure I created records after conversations and I think I did it after each of our nine conversations if I didn't I did it for nearly all of them especially the ones that were substantive I knew that there might come a day when I would need a record of what had happened not just to defend myself but to defend the FBI and and our integrity as an institution and the independence of our investigative function that's what made this so so difficult is it was a combination of circumstances subject matter and the particular person and so in all your experience this was the only president that you felt like in every meeting you needed a document because at some point using your words he might put out a non truthful representation of that meeting that's right Center and I as I said in my written testimony as FBI director I interacted with President Obama I spoke only twice in three years and didn't document it when I was deputy general I had one one-on-one meeting with President Bush about a very important and difficult national security matter I didn't write a memo documenting that conversation either send a quick email to my staff to let them know there was something going on but I didn't feel with President Bush the need to document it in that way again because the combination of those factors just wasn't present with either President Bush or President Obama I think that is very significant I think others will probably question that not the Chairman and I have requested those medals that is our hope that the FBI will get this committee access to those memos so that again we can read that contemporaneous rendition so that we've got your side of the story now I know members have said and pressive stead that well if you were a great deal has been made of whether the present you are asked in effect indicate whether the president was the subject of any investigation my understanding is prior to your meeting on January 6 you discussed with your leadership team whether or not you should be prepared to assure then president-elect Trump that the FBI was not investigating him personally now my Chinese leadership team agreed with that but was that a unanimous decision was there any debate about that wasn't unanimous one of the members of leadership team had a view that although it was technically true we did not have a counterintelligence file case open on then president-elect Trump his concern was because we're looking at the potential again that's the subject of investigation coordination between the campaign and Russia because it was president Trump president like Trump's campaign this person's view was inevitably his behavior his conduct will fall within the scope of that work and so he was reluctant to make the statement that I made I disagreed I thought it was fair to say what was literally true there is not a counterintelligence investigation of mr. Trump and I decided in the moment to say it given the nature of our conversation at that moment in time did you ever revisit that as in in these subsequent sessions with the FBI leadership team sure and and the the leader had that view it didn't change his view was still that it was probably although literally true his concern was it could be misleading because the nature of the investigation was such that it might well touch obviously it would touch the campaign and the person the head of the campaign would be the candidate and so that was his view throughout let me move to the January 27th dinner where you said quote the president began by asking me whether I wanted to stay on as FBI director he also indicated that lots of people again your words wanted the job you go on to say that the dinner itself was seemingly an effort to quote have you asked him for your job and create some sort of quote unquote patronage relationship the president's seems from my reading of your memo to be holding your job or your possibility of continuing in your job over your head in a fairly direct way what was your impression and what did you mean by this notion of a patronage relationship well my impression and again it's my impression I could always be wrong but my common sense told me that what was going on is either he had concluded or someone had told him that you didn't you've already asked Comey to stay and you didn't get anything for it and that the dinner was an effort to build a relationship in fact he asked specifically of loyalty in the context of asking me to stay and as I said what was odd about that is we already talked twice about it by that point and he'd said I very much hope you'll stay hope you'll stay in fact I just remembered sitting here a third one when you've seen the picture of me walking across the Blue Room and what the president whispered in my ear was I really look forward to working with you so after those encounters and that was just a few days before you yeah that was on the twenty the Sunday after the inauguration the next Friday I have dinner and the president begins by wanting to talk about my job and so I'm sitting there thinking wait a minute three times we've already you've already asked me to stay or talked about me staying my common sense again I could be wrong but my common sense told me what's going on here is there he's looking to get something in exchange for granting my request to stay in the job again we all understand I was the governor had people work for me but this constant requests then again quoting you him saying that he despite you explaining your independence he kept coming back to I need loyalty I expect loyalty had you ever had any of those kind of requests before from anyone else you'd work for in the government no and what made me uneasy was I'm at that point the director of the FBI the reason that Congress created a ten year term is so that the director is not feeling as if they're serving at with political loyalty owed to any particular person the the statue of justice has a blindfold on because you're not supposed to be peeking out to see whether your patron is pleased or not with what you're doing it should be about the facts and law that's why I was that's why I became a bi director to be in that kind of position so that's why I was so uneasy well let me let me move on my time for running out February 14th again it seems a bit strange you're in a meeting and your direct superior the Attorney General was in that meeting as well yet the president asked everyone to leave including the Attorney General to leave before he brought up the matter of general Flynn what was your impression of that type of action have you ever seen anything like that before no my impression was something big is about to happen I need to remember every single word that is spoken and again I could be wrong I'm 56 years old I've been seeing a few things my sense was the Attorney General knew he shouldn't be leaving which is why he was lingering and I don't know mr. Kushner well but I think he picked up on the same thing and so I knew something was about to happen that I needed to pay very close attention to and I found it very interesting that in the memo that you wrote after this February 14th pull aside you made clear that you wrote that memo in a way that was unclassified if you affirmative Lee made the decision to write a memo that was unclassified was that because you felt at some point the facts of that meeting would have to come clean and come clear and actually be able to be cleared in a way that could be shared with the American people well I remember thinking this is a very disturbing development really important to our work I need to document it and preserve it in a way and this committee gets this but sometimes when things are classified it tangles them up it's hard to share it within an investigative team it's you have to be very careful about a handle it for good reason so my thinking was if I write it in such a way that I don't include anything that would trigger a classification that'll make it easier for us to discuss within the FBI and the government and to hold on to it in a way that makes it accessible to us well again it's our hope particularly since you pretty knowledgeable guy and you wrote this a way that was unclassified that this committee will get access to that unclassified document I think would be very important to our investigation let me just ask this in closing how many ongoing investigations at any time does the FBI have tens of thousands of thousands did the president ever ask about any other invested ongoing investigation no did he ever ask about you trying to interfere on any other investigation no I think again this speaks volumes this doesn't even get to the questions around the phone calls about lifting the cloud I know other members will get to that but I really appreciate your testimony and appreciate your service to our nation thank you senator Morra you know just I'm sitting here going through my contacts of them I had one conversation with the president that was classified where he asked about our and ongoing intelligence investigation it was brief and entirely professional but he didn't ask you to take any specific action unlike what he had done visa vie mr. Flinn and the overall Russia investigation direct thank you sir senator rush thank you very much mr. Comey thank you for your service America needs more like you and we really appreciate it yesterday I got and everybody got the seven pages of your direct testimony that's now part of the record here and the first I read it then I read it again and all I could think was number one how much I hated the class of legal writing when I was in law school and you were the guy that probably got the a after after reading this so I find it clear I find a concise and having been a prosecutor for number of years and handling hundreds maybe thousands of cases and read police reports investigative reports this is as good as it gets and and I really appreciate that not only not only the conciseness and the clearness of it but also the fact that you have things that were written down contemporaneously when they happened and you actually put them in quotes so we know exactly what happened and we're not gay some renditions of it that that's in your mind so thank you lay your ear to be complemented by great parents and great teachers who beat that into me that's obvious or um the Chairman walked you through a number of things that the American people need to know and want to know number one obviously we're all know about the active measures that the Russians have taken I think a lot of people were surprised at this those of us that work in the intelligence community didn't it didn't come as a surprise but now the American people know this and it's good they know this because this is serious and it's a problem I think secondly I gather from all this that you're willing to say now that while you were director the president United States was not under investigation is that a fair statement that's correct all right so that's a fact that we can rely on it yes sir okay I remember you you talked with us shortly after February 14th when the New York Times wrote an article that suggested that the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians you remember reading that article when it first came out I do it was about allegedly extensive electronic surveillance the correct communications yes and and that up should set you to the point where you actually went out and surveyed the intelligence community to see whether whether you were missing something in that is that correct that's correct I want to be careful and open sidon I'm not going to go any further than that so thank you in addition to that after that you sought out both Republican and Democrat senators to tell them that hey I don't know where this is coming from but this is not the key this is not factual that you recall that yes okay so so again so the American people can understand this that report by the New York Times was not true is that a fair statement yeah in the main it was not true would and again all of you know this maybe the American people don't the challenge that I'm not picking on reporters about writing stories about classified information is the people talking about it often don't really know what's going on and those of us who actually know what's going on are not talking about it and we don't call the press to say hey you got that thing wrong about this sensitive topic we just have to leave it there I mentioned the Chairman the nonsense around what influenced me to make the July fifth statement nonsense but I can't go explaining how it's nonsense thank you alright so so those three things we now know regarding the active measures were the presence under investigation and the collusion between the Russian the Trump campaign in the Russians I want a drill right down as my time is limited to the most recent dust-up regarding allegations that the president United States obstructed justice and boy you nailed this down on page five paragraph three you put this in quotes words matter you wrote down the words so we can all have the words in front of us now there's 28 words there that are in quotes and it says quote I hope this is the president speaking 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 now those are his exact words is that correct correct and you wrote them here and you put them in quotes correct okay um thank you for that he did not direct you to let it go not in his words no he did not order you to let it go again those words are not in order no he said I hope now like me you probably did hundreds of cases maybe thousands of cases charging people with criminal offenses and of course you have knowledge of the thousands of cases out there that where people have been charged do you know of any case where a person has been charged for obstruction of justice or for that matter any other criminal offense where this they said or thought they hoped for an outcome I don't know well enough to answer and the reason I keep saying his words is I took it as a direction right I mean there's a president United States with me alone saying I hope this I took it as this is what he wants me to do no I didn't obey that but that's the way I took it you may have taken it as a direction but that's not what he said correct I said he said I hope those are exact words correct you don't know of anyone that's ever been charged for hoping something is that a fair statement I don't as I sit here yeah thank you thank you mister senator Feinstein thanks very much of mr. chairman mr. Comey I just want you to know that I have great respect for you senator Cornyn and I sit on the Judiciary Committee so we have occasion to have you before us and I know that you're a man of strength and integrity and I really regret the situation that we all find ourselves in I just want to say that let me begin with one overarching question why do you believe you were fired guess I don't know for sure I believe the prank the President had his word that I was fired because of the Russia investigation something about the way I was conducting it the president felt created pressure on him they want to relieve again I didn't know that at the time but I watched his interview I've read the press accounts of his conversations so I take him at his word there now look I could be wrong maybe he's saying something that's not true but I take him at his word at least based on what I know now talk for a moment about his request that you pledged loyalty and your response to that and what impact you believe that had I I don't know for sure because I don't know the president well enough to read him well I think it was cause our relationship didn't get off to a great start giving the conversation I had to have on January 6th this was not this didn't improve the relationship because it was very very awkward he was asking for something and I was refusing to give it but again I don't know him well enough to know how he reacted to that exactly do you believe the Russia investigation played a role and why I was fired yes yes because I've seen the president say so um let's let's go to the Flynn issue um senator riche outlined I hope you could see your way to letting Flynn go he's a good guy I hope you can let this go but you also said in your written remarks and I quote that you 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 and quote please go into that with more detail well the context and the president's words are what led me to that conclusion as I said in my statement I could be wrong but Flynn had been forced to resign the day before and and the controversy around general Flynn at that point time was centered on whether he had lied to the vice president about the nature of his conversations with the Russians whether he had been candid with others in the course of that and so that happens on the day before on the 14th the president makes specific reference to that and so that's why I understood him to be saying that what he wanted me to do was drop any investigation connected to Flynn's account of his conversations with the Russians now here's the question you're big you're strong I know the Oval Office and I know what happens to people when they walk in there is a certain amount of intimidation but why didn't you stop and say mr. president this is wrong I cannot discuss this with you it's a great question maybe if I were stronger I would have I was so stunned by the conversation that I just took it in and the only thing I could think to say because I was playing in my mind because I remember every word he said I was playing in my mind what should my response be and that's why I very carefully chose the words and look like I've seen the tweet about tapes lordy I hope their tapes I I remember saying I agree he's a good guy as a way of saying I'm not agreeing with what you just asked me to do again maybe other people would be stronger in that circumstance but that that was a that's how I conducted myself I hope I'll never have another opportunity maybe I did it again I would do it better you described two phone calls that you received from President Trump one on March 30 and one on April 11 where he quote described the Russia investigation as a cloud that was impairing his ability end quote as president and asked you quote to lift the cloud end quote what how did you interpret that and what did you believe he wanted you to do I interpreted that as he was frustrated that the Russia investigation was taking up so much time and energy I think he meant of the executive branch but in the in the public square in general and it was making it difficult for him to focus on other priorities of his but what he asked me was actually narrower than that so I think what he meant by the cloud and again I could be wrong but what I think he meant by the cloud was the entire investigation is is taking up oxygen and making it hard for me to focus on the things I want to focus on the ask was to get it out that I the president of not personally under investigation after April 11th did he ask you more ever about the Russia investigation did he ask you any questions we ever spoke again after April 11th you told the president ice I would see what we could do what did you mean I was kind of a slightly cowardly way of trying to avoid telling him we're not going to do that that I would see what we could do was a way of kind of getting off the phone frankly and then I turned and handed it to the Acting Deputy Attorney General mr. Bente so did I wanted to go into that who did you talk with about that lifting the clouds stopping the investigation back at the FBI and what was their response well the FBI during one of the two conversations I'm not remembering exactly I think the first my chief of staff was actually sitting in front of me and my end of the conversation because the president's call was a surprise and I discussed the lifting the cloud in the request with the senior leadership team who in typically and I think in all these circumstances was the deputy director my chief of staff the general counsel the deputy directors chief counsel and I think in a number of circumstances the number three in the FBI and a few of the conversations included the head of the national security branch so that group of us that lead the FBI when it comes to national security okay you have the President of the United States asking you to stop an investigation that's an important investigation what was the response of your colleagues I think they were as shocked and troubled by it as I was some said things that led me to believe that I don't remember exactly but the reaction was similar to mine they're all experienced people who had never experienced such a thing so they were very concerned and then the conversation turned to about so what should we do with this information and that was a struggle for us because we are the leaders of the FBI so it's been reported to us in that I heard it and now I've shared it with the leaders of the FBI our conversation was should we share this with any senior officials at the Justice Department our absolute primary concern was we can't infect the investigative team we don't want the agents and analysts working on this to know the president United States as as asked and when it comes to the president I took it as a direction to get rid of this investigation because we're not going to follow that that request and so we decided we got to keep it away from our troops but is there anybody else we ought to tell at the Justice Department and as I laid out in my in my statement we considered whether to tell the Attorney General decided that didn't make sense because we believed rightly that he was shortly going to recuse there were no other Senate confirmed leaders in the Justice Department at that point the Deputy Attorney General was mr. Bente who was acting going to be shortly in that seat and we decided the best move would be to hold it keep it in a box documented as we'd already done and then this investigation is going to go on figure out what to do with it down the road is there way to corroborate this our view at the time was look it's your word against the president's there's no way to corroborate this that my view of that changed when the prospect of tapes was raised but that's how we thought about it then thank you thank you sir senator Rubio thank you director Comey the meeting in the Oval Office where he made the request about Mike Flynn was that the only time he asked you to hopefully let it go yes and in that meeting as you understood it that was he was asking not about the general Russian investigation he was asking very specifically about the Jeopardy that Flynn was in himself that's how I understood yes sir and as you perceived it while it was a request that he hoped you did away with it you perceived it as an order given his position to setting and the like in the some of the circumstances yes at the time did you say anything to the president about that is not an appropriate request or did you tell the White House Counsel that is not an appropriate request someone needs to go tell the president that he can't do these things I didn't know okay why I don't know I think the sir as I said early think the circumstances were such that it was I was a bit stunned and didn't have the presence of mind and I don't know you know I don't wanna make you sound like I'm captain courageous I don't know whether unified the presence of mine I would have said to the president sir that's wrong I don't know whether I would have but in the moment it didn't it didn't come to my mind what came to my mind is be careful what you say and so I said I agree Flynn is a good guy so on the cloud we keep talking about this cloud you perceived the cloud to be the Russian investigation in general yes sir but this specific ask was that you would tell the American people what you had already told him what you had already told the leaders of Congress both Democrats and Republicans that he was not personally under investigation yes sir that I was asking you to do what you have done here today correct yes sir okay and again at that setting did you say to the president that it would be inappropriate for you to do so and then talk to the White House Counsel or anybody so hopefully they would talk to him and tell him that he couldn't do this first time I said I'll see what we can do second time I explained how it should work that the White House Counsel should contact the Deputy Attorney General you told the president said okay that I think that's what I'll do and just to be clear for you to make a public statement that he was not under investigation would not have been illegal but you felt it made no sense because it could potentially create a duty to correct if circumstance has changed yes sir we wrestled with it before my testimony where I confirmed that there was an investigation and there were two primary concerns one was it creates a duty to correct which I've lived before and you want to be very careful about doing that and second it's a slippery slope because if we say the President and the Vice President aren't under investigation what's the principled basis for stopping and so the leadership at justice acting Attorney General bent a said you're not going to do that now on March 30th during the phone call about the general Flynn you said he abruptly shifted and brought up something that you call quote unquote the McCabe thing specifically the McCabe thing as you understood it was that McCabe's wife had received campaign money from what I assume means Terry McAuliffe yes sir that was very close to the Clintons and and so why did you had the president any point in time expressed to you concern opposition potential opposition to McCabe I don't like this guy because he got money from someone that's close to Clinton he had asked me during previous conversations about Andy McCabe and said in essence how's he gonna be with me as president I was pretty rough on him on the campaign trail he was rough on McCabe he was roughed by his own account he said he was rough on McCabe and mrs. McCabe on the campaign trail how's he going to be and I assured the president Andy is a total Pro the no issue at all you got to know the people the FBI they are not so that so the president turns to you and says remember I never brought up the McCabe thing because you said he was a good guy did you perceive that to be a statement that I took care of you I didn't do something because you told me he was a good guy so now you know I'm asking you potentially for something in return is that how you perceived it I wasn't sure what to make of it honestly that's possible but it it was so out of context that I didn't have a clear view of what it was now on a number of occasions here you bring up let's talking now about the general Russian investigation okay and page six of your testimony you say the first thing you say is he asked what we could do to quote-unquote lift the cloud the general Russian investigation and you 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 having done the work well and he agreed here iam ffice eyes the problems it was causing him but he agreed so in essence the president agreed with your statement that it would be great if we could have a investigation all the facts came out and we found nothing so he agreed that that would be ideal but this cloud is still messing up my ability to do the rest of my agenda is that an accurate assessment yes sir he actually went farther than that he said and if some of my satellites did something wrong would be good to find that out well that's the second part and that is the satellites he said it's one of my satellites I imagine by that he met some of the other people surrounding his campaign did something wrong it would be great to know that as well yes sir that's what he said so are those the other are those the only two instances in which that sort of back-and-forth happened where the president was basically saying and I'm paraphrasing here it's ok do the Russian investigation I hope it all comes out I have nothing to do with anything Russia it'd be great if it all came out if people around me were doing things that were wrong yes as I recorded it accurately there that was a sentiment he was expressing so what it bears he comes down to is the president is asked three things of you he asked for your loyalty and you said you would be loyally honest honestly loyal honestly loyal the the he asked you on one occasion to let the Mike Flint thing go because he was a good guy by the way you're aware that he said the exact same thing in the press the next day he's a good guy he's been treated unfairly etc etc so I imagine your FBI agents read that I'm sure they did your breath the president's wishes were known to them certainly by the next day when he had a press conference with a prime minister going back the three requests were number one be loyal number two let the Mike Flynn thing go he's a good guy he's been treated unfairly and number three can you please tell the American people what these leaders in Congress already know what you already know you've told me three times that I'm not under personally under investigation those are the three things he asked yes sir you know this investigation is full of leaks left and right I mean we've learned more from the newspapers sometimes than we do our open hearings for sure you ever wonder why of all the things in this investigation the only thing that's never been leaked is the fact that the president was not personally under investigation despite the fact that both Democrats and Republicans and the leadership of Congress knew that and have known that for weeks I don't know I find matters that are brief to the gang of eight are pretty tightly held in my experience finally who are those senior leaders at the FBI that you shared these conversations with as I said in response to senator Feinstein's question of deputy director my chief of staff general counsel the deputy directors chief counsel and then more often than not the number three person at the FBI who is the associate deputy director and then quite often the head of the national security branch Center what Thank You mr. chairman mr. call me welcome you and I have had significant policy differences over the years particularly protecting Americans access to secure encryption but I believe the timing of your firing stinks and yesterday you put on the record testimony that demonstrates why the odor of presidential abuse of power is so strong now to my questions in talking to Senator Warner about this dinner that you had with the president leave January 27th all in one dinner the president raised your job prospects he asked for your loyalty and denied allegations against him all took place over one supper now you told senator Warner that the president was looking to quote get something looking back did that dinner suggest that your job might be contingent on how you handled the investigation I don't know that I'd go that far I got the sense my job would be contingent upon how he felt I excuse me how he felt I conducted my self and whether I demonstrated loyalty but I don't know what I go so far as to connect it to the event the president was trying to create some sort of patronage relationship in a patronage relationship isn't the underling expected to behave in a manner consistent with the wishes of the boss yes or at least consider how what you're doing will affect the boss as a significant consideration let me turn to the Attorney General in your statement you said that you and the FBI leadership team decided not to discuss the president's actions with attorney general sessions even though he had not recused himself what was it about the Attorney General's own interactions with the Russians or his behavior with regard to the investigation that would have led the entire leadership of the FBI to make this decision our judgment as I recall was that he was very close to and inevitably going to recuse himself for a variety of reasons we also were aware of facts that I can't discuss in an open setting that would make his continued engagement in a Russia related investigation problematic and so we were we were convinced in fact I think we'd already heard that the career people were recommending that he recused himself that he was not going to be in contact with Russia related matters much longer and that turned out to be the case how would you characterize Attorney General Sessions adherence to his recusal in particular with regard to his involvement in your firing which the president has acknowledged was because of the Russian investigation that's a question I can't answer I think it's a reasonable question if if as the president said I was fired because of the Russia investigation why was the Attorney General involved in that chain I don't know and so I don't have an answer for the question your testimony was that the President's request about Flynn could infect the investigation had the president got what he wanted and what he asked of you what would have been the effect on the investigation but we would have closed any investigation of general Flynn in connection with his statements and encounter statements about encounters with Russians in the late part of December so we would have dropped an open criminal investigation so in effect when you talk about infecting the enterprise you would have dropped something major that would have spoken to the overall ability of the American people to get the facts correct and and as good as our people are our judgment was we don't want them hearing that the present United States wants this to go away because it might have an effect on their ability to be fair and impartial and aggressive now the acting Attorney General Yates found out that Michael Flynn could be blackmailed by the Russians and she went immediately to warn the White House Flynn is gone but other individuals with contacts with the Russians are still in extremely important positions of power should the American people have the same sense of urgency now with respect to them I think all I can say senator is it's a the special counsels investigation is very important to understanding what efforts there were or are by the Russian government to influence our government is a critical part of the FBI's mission so and you've got the right person in Bob Muller to lead it so it's a very important piece of work vice president Pence was the head of the transition to your knowledge was he aware of the concerns about Michael Flynn prior to ordering general Flynn's tenure as national security adviser I don't you're asking including up to the time when Flynn was forced to resign my understanding is that he was and I'm trying to murder where I get that understanding from I think from acting Attorney General Yates so former acting Attorney General Yates testified that concerns about general Flynn were discussed with the intelligence community would that have included anyone at the CIA or dan coates ha's office the DNI I would assume yes Michael Flynn resigned four days after Attorney General Sessions was sworn in do you know if the Attorney General was aware of the concerns about Michael Flynn during that period I don't as I sit here I don't I don't recall that he was I could be wrong but I don't remember that he was and finally let's see if you can give us some sense of who recommended your firing besides the letters from the Attorney General the Deputy Attorney General do you have any information on who may have recommended or have been involved in your firing I don't I don't okay name is Jim 800 Collins Thank You mr. chairman mr. Comey let me begin by thanking you for your voluntary compliance with our request to appear but for this committee and assist us and that's very important investigation I want first to ask you about your conversations with the president the three conversations in which you told him that he was not under investigation the first was during your January 6th meeting according to your testimony in which it appears that you actually volunteered that assurance is that correct that's correct did you limit that statement to counter in intelligence investigation sir were you talking about any kind of FBI investigation I didn't I didn't use the term counterintelligence I was speaking to him and briefing him about some salacious and unverified material it was in the context of that that he had a strong and defensive reaction about that not being true and my reading of it was it was important for me to assure him we were not personally investigating him and so the context then was actually narrower focused on what I just talked to him about that was very important because it was first true and second I was very very much about being in kind of a kind of a J Edgar Hoover type situation I didn't want him thinking that I was briefing him on this to sort of hang it over him in some way I was briefing him on it because we had been told by the media it was about to launch we don't want to be keeping that from him and if there was something he needed to know this was being said but I was very keen not to leave him with an impression that the bureau was trying to do something to him and so that's the context in which I said sir we're not personally investigating you and then on and that's why you volunteered the information yes ma'am correct then and on the January 27th dinner you show you told the president that he should be careful about asking you to investigate because quote you might create a narrative that we are investigating him personally which we weren't again were you limiting that statement to counterintelligence investigations or more broadly such as a criminal investigation the context was very similar I didn't I didn't modify the word investigation it was again he was reacting strongly against that unverified material saying I'm tempted to order you to investigate it and that in the context of that I said sir you want to be careful about that because it might create a narrative we're investigating you personally and then there was the March 30th phone column with the president in which you reminded him that congressional leaders have been briefed that we were not personally the see I was not personally investigating president Trump and again was that statement to congressional leaders and to the president limited to counter intelligence investigations or was that a broader statement I'm trying to understand whether there was any kind of investigation of the president underway no I'm sorry if I misunderstood I apologize we briefed the congressional leadership about what Americans we had opened counterintelligence investigation cases on and we specifically said the president is not one of those Americans but that there was no other investigation of the president that we were not mentioning at that time what the context was counterintelligence but I wasn't trying to hide some criminal investigation of the president and was the president under investigation at the time of your dismissal on May 9th no I'd like to now turn to the conversations with the president about Michael Flynn which had been discussed at great length and him first let me make very clear that the president never should have cleared the room and he never should have asked you as you reported to let it go to let the investigation go but I remain puzzled by your response your response was I agree that Michael plan is a good guy you could have said mr. president this meeting is inappropriate this response could compromise the investigation you should not be making such a request it's fundamental to the operation of our government that the FBI be insulated from this kind of political pressure and you've talked to bed today about that you were stunned by the president making the request but my question to you is later on upon reflection did you go to anyone at the Department of Justice and ask them to call the White House counsel's office and explain that the president had to have a far better understanding and appreciation of his role visa be the FBI in general I did I spoke to the Attorney General and I spoke to the new Deputy Attorney General mr. Rosen Stein when he took office and explained my serious concern about the way in which the president is interacting especially with the FBI and I specifically as I said my testimony I asked the told the Attorney General it can't happen that you get kicked out of the room and the president talks to me but look in the room and and but why didn't we raise the specific it was of investigative interest to us to try and figure out so what just happened with the President's request so I would not have wanted to alert the White House that it had happened until we figured out what are we going to do with this investigative Lee your testimony was that you went to attorney general sessions and said don't ever leave me alone with him again are you saying that you also told him that he had made a request that you let it go with regard to part of the investigation of Michael Flynn no I specifically did not I did not you mentioned that from your very first meeting with the president you decided to write a memo memorializing the conversation what was it about that very first meeting that made you write a memo when you not done that with two previous presidents as I said a combination of things a gut feeling is important overlay on the but the circumstances that I was alone the subject matter and the nature of the person that I was interacting with in my read of that person and yeah and and and really just a gut feel laying on top of all of that that this it's going to be important to protect this organization that I make records of this and finally did you show copies of your memos to anyone outside of the Department of Justice yes and to whom did you show copies I asked a president tweeted on Friday after I got fired that I better hope there's not tapes I woke up in the middle of the night on Monday night because it didn't dawn on me originally that there might be corroboration for our conversation there might be a tape and my judgment was I needed to get that out into the public square and so I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter didn't do it myself for a variety of reasons but I asked him to because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel and so I asked a close friend of mine to do it and was said mr. Widders no no who was that a good friend of mine who's a professor at Columbia Law School Thank You senator Heinrich mr. Comey uh prior to January 27th of this year have you ever had a one-on-one meeting or or a private dinner with a President of the United States no I met dinner no I had two one-on-ones with President Obama that I laid out in my testimony wants to talk about law enforcement issues law enforcement and race which was an important topic throughout for me and for the president and then once very briefly for him to say goodbye were those brief interactions no the one about law enforcement and race and policing we spoke for probably over an hour just the two of us how unusual is it to have a one-on-one dinner with the President did that strike you as odd yeah so much so that I assumed there would be others that couldn't possibly be having dinner with me alone um if do you have a impression that if you had found if you would behave differently in that dinner and I am quite pleased that you did not but if you had found a way to express some sort of expression of loyalty or given some suggestion that the Flynn Criminal Investigation might be pursued less vigorously do you think you would have still been fired I don't know I get it's impossible to say looking back I don't know but you felt like those two things were were directly relevant to you're the kind of relationship that the president was seeking to establish with you sure yes yeah the the president has repeatedly talked about the Russian investigation into the u.s. or the Russian Russia's involvement in the u.s. election cycle as a hoax and as fake news can you talk a little bit about what you saw as FBI director and obviously only the parts that you can share in this setting that that demonstrate how serious this action actually was and why there was an investigation in the first place yes sir the there should be no fuzz on this whatsoever the Russians interfered in our election during the 2016 cycle they did it with purpose they did it with sophistication they did it with overwhelming technical efforts and it was an active measures campaign driven from the top of that government there is no fuzz on that it is a high confidence judgment of the entire intelligence community and and the members of this committee have seen the intelligence it's not a close call that happened that's about as unfazed you can possibly get and is very very serious which is why it's so refreshing to see a bipartisan focus on that because this is about America not about any particular party so that was a hostile act by the Russian government against this country yes sir did the president in any of those interactions that you've shared with us today asked you what you should be doing or what our government should be doing or the intelligence community to protect America against Russian interference in our election system I don't recall a conversation like that never no do you find it now not with the President Trump right attended a fair number of meetings on that with the President Obama do you find it odd that the president seemed unconcerned by Russia's actions in our election I can't answer that because I don't know what other conversations he had with other advisers or other intelligence community leaders so I I just don't know sitting here did you have any interactions with the president that suggested he was taking that hostile action seriously I don't remember any interactions with the president of other than the initial briefing on January the 6th I don't remember it could be wrong but I don't remember any conversation with him at all about that as you're very aware it was only the two of you in the room for that dinner you've told us the president asked you to back off the Flint investigation the president told the report not in that dinner fair enough told the reporter he did never did that you've testified that the president asked for your loyalty in that dinner the White House denies that a lot of this comes down to who should we believe do you want to say anything as to why we should believe you probably my mother raised me not to say things like this about myself so I'm not gonna I think people should look at the whole body of my testimony because as I used to say to juries that when I talked about a witness you can't cherry pick it you can't say I like these things he said but on this he's a he's a dirty rotten liar but you got to take it all together and I've tried to be open and fair and transparent and accurate a really significant fact to me is so why did he kick everybody out of the Oval Office why would you kick the Attorney General the president the chief of staff out to talk to me if it was about something else and so that that to me is as an investigator is a very significant fact and as we look at at testimony or as communication from both of you we should probably be looking for consistency well looking at any witness you look at consistency track record demeanor record overtime that sort of thing thank you so there are reports that the incoming Trump administration either during the transition and or after the inauguration attempted to set up a sort of backdoor communication channel with the Russian government using their infrastructure their devices or facilities what would be the risks particularly for a transition someone not actually in the office of the president yet to setting up unauthorized channels with a hostile foreign government especially if they were to evade our own American intelligence services I'm not going to comment on whether that happened in an open setting but the risk is primary risk is obvious you spare the Russians the cost and effort of having to break into our communications channels by using theirs and so you make it a whole lot easier for them to capture all of your conversations and then to use those to the benefit of Russia against the United States the memos that you wrote you wrote did you write all nine of them in a way that was designed to prevent them from needing classification no and on a few of the occasions I wrote I sent emails to my chief of staff or others on some of the brief phone conversations that I recall the first one was a classified briefing although it wasn't it asked if it was in a conference room at Trump Tower it was a classified briefing and so I wrote that on a classified device the one I started type engine in the car that was a classified laptop that I started working on any reason in a classified environment in a skiff that this committee would it would not be appropriate to see those communications from at least from your perspective as the author know Thank You mr. chairman senator blunt Thank You mr. chairman mr. call me when you were terminated at the FBI I said and still continue to feel that you have provided years of great service to the country I also said that I'd had significant questions over the last year about of the decisions you made if if the president hadn't terminated your service would you still be in your opinion the director of the FBI today yes sir so you took as a direction from the president something that you thought was serious and troublesome but continued to show up for work the next day yes sir and six weeks later were still telling that we're telling the president on March the 30th that he was not personally the target of any investigation correct on March the 30th and I think again on e I think on April 11th as well I told him we're not investigating him personally that was true well the point to me the concern to me there is that all these things are going on you now in retrospect or at least you now to this committee that these were you had serious concerns about what the president had you believe directed you to do and had taken no action hadn't even reported up the chain of command assuming you believe there isn't up the chain of command that these things had happened do you have a sense of that looking back that that was a mistake no in fact I think no action was the most important thing I could do to make sure there was no interference with the investigation and on the on the Flynn issues specifically I believe you said earlier that you believe the president was suggesting you drop any investigation of Flynn's account of his conversation with the Russian ambassador which was essentially misleading the vice president and others correct and and I'm not going to into the details but whether there were false statements made to government investigators as well the any suggestion that the general Flynn had violated the Logan Act I always find pretty incredible the Logan acts been on the books for over 200 years nobody's ever been prosecuted for violating the Logan Act my sense would be that the discussion not the problem misleading investigators or the vice president might have that's fair yes sir and and your had you previously on February the 14th discussed with the president and the previous meeting anything your investigators had learned or their impressions from talking to Flynn no sir so he said he's a good guy you said he's a good guy and that was no further action taken on that well he said more than that but there was no the action was wrote it up briefed our senior team tried to figure out what to do with it and it's made a decision we're going to hold this and then see what we make of it down the road yes sir was it your view that not briefing up meant you really had no responsibility to report that to the Justice Department in some way I think at some point and I don't know what director Muller is going to do with it but at some point I was sure we were going to brief it to the team in charge of the case but our judgment was in the short-term doesn't make sense to know fuzz on the fact I reported to the Attorney General that's why I stressed he shouldn't be kicked out of the room but didn't make sense to report to him now you know you said the Attorney General said I don't want to be in the room with him alone again but you continued to talk to him on the phone what is the difference in being in the room alone with him and talking to him on the phone alone yeah I think I would I stress the change I was a little broader than just the room I said you I report to you it's very important you be between me and the White House but after that discussion with the attorney general did you take phone calls from the president yes sir so why did you just say you need to talk to it when you say I'm not taking that call you need to talk to the Attorney General well I all I did on the April 11th call and I reported the calls the March 30th call on the April 11th call to my superior who was the Acting Deputy Attorney General I don't want to run out of time here let me make one other point in reading your testimony January the 3rd January the 27th and March the 30th it appears to me that on all three of those occasions you unsolicited by the president made the point to him that he was not a target of an investigation correct yes sir one I thought the March 30th very interesting you said well even though you don't want you may not want to step was the 27th where he said why don't you look into that dossier thing more you said well you may not want that because then we couldn't tell you you couldn't say with we couldn't answer the question about you being a target of the investigation but you didn't seem to be in answering that question anyhow senator Rubio pointed out the one unanswered unli question seems to have been that in this whole period of time but you said something earlier I don't want to fail to follow up on you said after you were dismissed you gave information to a friend so that friend could get that information into the public media correct what kind of information was that was not what kind of information did you give to a friend that the prep the de Flynn conversation that the president asked me to let the Flynn man forgetting my exact own words but the conversation in the Oval Office so you didn't consider your memo or your sense of that conversation to be a government document you consider to be somehow your own personal document that you could share with the media as you wanted to correct grew my friend I understood this to be my recollection recorded of my conversation with the president as a private citizen I felt free to share that thought of very important to get it out so we're all of your memos that you recorded on classified or other documents memos that might be yours as a private citizen I'm sorry I'm not following the question well I think you said you'd use classified classified oh yeah not the classified documents unclassified I don't have any of them anymore if I gave them to the special counsel but yet my view was that the content of those unclassified the memorialization of those conversations was my recollection recorded so why didn't you give those to somebody yourself rather than give them through a third party because I was worried the media was camping at the end of my driveway at that point and I was actually going out of town with my wife to hide and I worried it would be like feeding seagulls at the beach if if it was if it was I who gave it to the media so I asked my friend make sure this gets out it does seem to me that what you do there is create a source close to the former director of the FBI as opposed to just taking responsibility yourself for saying here are these records and like everybody else I have other things I'd like to get into but I'm out of time okay senator King thank you first I'd like to acknowledge senator Blumenthal and earlier Senator Nelson I think the one principal thing you'll learn today senator is that the chairs they're less comfortable than the chairs here but welcome you to the hearing mr. Comey a broad question was the Russian activity in the 2016 election a one-off proposition or is this part of a long-term strategy will they be back oh it's a long-term practice of theirs it stepped up a notch in a significant way in 16 they'll be back I think that's very important for the American people to understand that this is this is very much a forward-looking investigation in terms of how do we understand what they did and how do we prevent it would you agree that that's a big part of our role here yes sir and it's not a Republican thing or a democratic thing it really is an American thing they're going to come for whatever party they choose to try and work on behalf of and they're not devoted to either in my experience they're just about their own advantage and they will be back that's my observation I don't think Putin is a Republican or a Democrat he's an opportunist I think that's a fair statement uh with regard to the several of these conversations in his interview with Lester Holt on NBC the president said I had dinner with him he wanted to have dinner because he wanted to stay on is this an accurate statement no sir did you in any way initiate that dinner no he called he called me at my desk at lunchtime and asked me was I free for dinner that night they called himself and said can you come over for dinner tonight I said yes sir he said well six work I think he said six first and then he said I was going to bite your whole family but we'll do that next time I want you to come over and is that a good time I said sir whatever works for you and then he said how about 6:30 and I said whatever works for you sir and then I hung up and had to call my wife and break a date with her I was supposed to take her out to dinner that night and that's one of the all-time great excuses for breaking it happen in retrospect I would have loved spending time with my wife I wish I had been there that night that's one question I'm not gonna follow up mr. Koh but in that same interview the president said in one case I called him and in one case he called me is that an accurate statement no did you ever call the president no I yeah I might the owner is I'm hesitating is I think there was at least one conversation where I was asked to call the White House switchboard to be connected to him but I never initiated a communication with the president uh and it is press conference on May 18th the president was asked whether he had urged you to shut down the investigation into Michael Flynn the president responded quote no no next question is that an accurate statement I don't believe it is thank you with regard to the question of him being under personal personally under investigation does that mean that the dossier is not being reviewed or investigated or followed up on in any way I obviously can't come I can't comment either way I can't talk an open setting about the investigation as it was when I was the head of the FBI and obviously its its director Muller's Bob Muller's responsibility now so I just I don't know so clearly your statements to the president back in those these various times when you assured him he wasn't under investigation where as of that moment that correct is it right correct uh now on the Flyn investigation is it not true that mr. Flynn was and is a central figure in this entire investigation of the relationship between the Trump campaign and the Russians I can't answer that in an open setting sir uh and certainly mr. Flynn was part of the so-called Russian investigation can you answer that question I have to give you the same answer all right we'll be having a closed session shortly so we will follow up on that in terms of his comments to you about I think you're in response to mr. rish just senator you said he said I hope you will hold back on that but when you get it when a present in the United States in the Oval Office says something like I hope or I suggest or would you do you take that as a directive yes yes it rings in my ear is kind of well no one rid me of this meddlesome priest I was just gonna quote that in 1170 December 29 Henry the second said who will rid me of this meddlesome priest and then the next day he was killed thomas a becket as exactly the same situation you're we're thinking along the same lines several other questions and these are a little bit more detailed what do you know about the Russian bang VEB nothing that I can talk about in an open setting well I know it ignore my next three quite know what exists yes sir you know it exists what is the relationship of ambassador the ambassador from Russia to the United States to the Russian intelligence infrastructure well he's a diplomat who is the chief of mission at the Russian embassy which employs a robust cohort of intelligence officers and so surely he's witting of they're very very aggressive intelligence operations least some of it in the United States I don't I don't consider him to be an intelligence officer himself he's a diplomat did you ever did the FBI ever brief the Trump administration about the the advisability of interacting directly with Ambassador Kissel yeah all I can say sitting here is there were a variety of defensive briefings given to the incoming administration about the counterintelligence risk back to mr. Flynn would the would closing out the Flynn investigation have impeded the overall Russian investigation no it unlikely except to the extent there's always a possibility if you have a criminal case against someone and you bring it and squeeze them you flip them and they give you information about something else but I saw the two as touching each other but separate with regard to your memos isn't it true that in a court case when you're weighing evidence contemporaneous memos and contemporary contemporaneous statements to third parties are considered probative in terms of the the the validity of testimony yes thank you Thank You mr. chairman senator cotton or excuse me senator Langford or director Comey could see again - we've had multiple opportunities to be able visitors everyone on this daya's has and I appreciate you and your service and what you have done for the nation for a long time which you continue to do I've told you before in the heat of last year and we had the opportunity to visit personally not to pray for you and for your family because you do carry a tremendous amount of stress and that is still true today Thank You Mia let me walk through a couple things with you your notes are obviously exceptionally important because they give a very rapid account of what you what you wrote down and what you perceive to happen in those different meetings have you had an opportunity to be able to reference those notes when you were preparing the written statement that you put for us today yes I yes I think nearly all of my written recordings of my conversations had a chance to review them before filing my statement do you have a copy of any of those notes personally I don't I turn them over to Bob Muller's investigators the individual that you told about your memos that then sent on to the New York Times did they have a copy of those memos or were they told orally of those memos had a copy I had a copy of the time do they do they still have a copy of those memos it's a good question I think so I guess I can't say for sure sitting here but I I guess I don't know but I think so so the question is could you ask them to hand that copy right back to you so you could hand them over to this committee potentially I would like to move that from potential to see if we can ask that question so we can have a copy of those obviously those notes are exceptionally important to us to be able to go through the process so we can we can continue to get to the facts as see it as you know the written documents are exceptionally important other other documents that we need to be aware of that you used in your preparation for your written statement that we should also have that would assist us in helping with this not that I'm aware of no past the February the 14th meeting which is a very important meeting obviously as we discuss the conversations here about Michael Flynn when the president asks you about he hopes that you would let this go and the conversation back and forth about being me being a good guy after that time did the president ever bring up anything about Michael Flynn again to you you had multiple other conversations you have documented with the president no I don't remember him ever bringing it up did any member of the White House staff ever come to you and talk to you about letting go of the Michael Flynn case or dropping it or anything referring to that no no the Director of National Intelligence come to you and talk to you about that no did anyone from the attorney general's office the Department of Justice ask you about that no did the head of NSA talk to you about that no the the key aspect here is if this seems to be something the president's trying to get you to drop it this seems like a pretty light touch to drop it to bring it up at that moment the day after he had just fired Flynn to come back in and say I hope we can let this go but then it never reappeared again did it slow down your investigation or any investigation that may or may not be occurring with Michael Flynn no although I don't know there any manifestations outward manifestations of the investigation between February 14th and when I was fired so I I don't know that the president of any way of knowing whether it was effective or not okay it's fair enough if if the president wanted to stop an investigation how would he do that knowing it's an ongoing criminal investigation or counterintelligence investigation would that be a matter of trying to go to you you perceive and to say you make it stop because he doesn't have the authority to stop or how how would the president make an ongoing investigation stop again I'm not a legal scholar so smarter people answer this better but I think as a legal matter the president's the head of the executive branch and could direct in theory we have important norms against this but to rekt that anybody be investigator anybody not be investigated I think he has the legal authority because all of us ultimately report in the executive branch up to the president okay would that be to you would that be the Attorney General would that be a hoot that would do that suppose you could do it too if you want to issue a direct order I could do it in any way could do it through the Attorney General or issue it directly to me well is there any question that the president is not real fond of this investigation I can think of multiple hundred and forty word character expressions that he's done publicly to express he's not fond to the investigations I've heard you share before in this conversation that you're trying to keep the agents that are working on it away from any comment the president might have made quite frankly the president has informed around six billion people that he's not real fond of this investigation do you think there's a difference in that yes okay well he is a big difference in kicking superior officers out of the Oval Office looking the FBI director in the eye and say I hope you let this go I think if our if the agents as good as they are heard the president I today's did that to you there's a real risk of a chilling effect on their work that's why we kept it so tight okay you had mentioned before about some news stories and news accounts without having to go into all the names in the specific times and to be able to dip and all that have there been news accounts about the Russian investigation about collusion about this whole event or accusations that as you read the story you were stunned about how wrong they got the facts yes there been many many stories purportedly based on classified information about about lots of stuff but especially about Russia that are just dead wrong I was interested in your comment that you made as well that the president said to you if there were some satellite Associates of his that did something wrong it would be good to find that out that the president seemed to talk to you specifically on March the 30th and say I'm frustrated that the word is not getting out that I'm not under investigation but if there are people that are in my circle that are let's finish the investigation is that how you took it as yes sir yes and then you made a comment earlier about the Attorney General previous Attorney General asking you about the investigation on the Clinton emails saying that you've been asked not to call it an investigation anymore but to call it a matter and you had said that confused you can you give us additional details on that well it concerned me because we're at the point where we had refused to confirm the existence as we typically do of an investigation for months and it was getting to a place where that looks silly because the campaigns were talking about interacting with the FBI in the course of our work the Clinton campaign at the time was using all kinds of euphemisms security review matters things like that for what was going on we were getting to a place where the attorney Jo and I were both gonna have to testify and talk publicly about it and I want to know was she going to authorize us to confirm we had an investigation and she said yes but don't call it that call it a matter and I said why would I do that and she said just call it a matter and again you look back in hindsight you think should I have resisted harder I just said all right isn't worth this isn't a hill worth dying on and so I just said okay the press is going to completely ignore it and that's what happened when I said we have opened a matter they all reported the FBI has an investigation open and so that concerned me because that language tracked the way the campaign was talking about the FBI's work and that that's concerning it gave the impression that the campaign was somehow using the same language the FBI because you were handed the campaign language and totally be able to use the campaign but and I get out of whether it was intentional or not but it gave the impression that the Attorney General was looking to align the way we talked about our work with the way political campaign was describing the same activity which was inaccurate we had a criminal investigation open with as I've said before the Federal Bureau of Investigation we had an investigation open at the time and so that gave me a queasy feeling thank you I'm gonna mention Thank You mr. chairman Thank You mr. Comey I appreciate very much your being here West Virginians are very interested in this and in this hearing that we're having today I've had over 600 requests for questions to ask you for my fellow West Virginians and most of them have been and there's quite a few of that we're quite detailed while I ask in our classified hearing I want to thank you first of all for coming and green to be here volunteering but also volunteering to stay into the classified hearing I don't know if you had a chance to watch our hearing yesterday I watched part of it yes much and it was quite troubling my colleagues here had some very pointed questions they want answers - they weren't classified they could have answered this open setting they refused to do so so that even much makes us much more appreciative of your cooperation sir the seriousness of the Russian aggressions in our past elections and knowing that it'll be ongoing as senator R King had alluded to this what's your concerns there I mean what what should American public understand people said well this is a why are we worried about this why make such a big deal out of this Russian investigation can you tell me what your thoughts Ghazi and then the final thing is on this same topic did the president ever show any concern or interest or curiosity about what the Russians were doing Thank You senator as I said earlier I don't remember any conversations with the president about the Russia election interference did he ever ask you any questions concerning this well there was an initial briefing of our findings and I think there was conversation there I don't remembered exactly where he asked questions about what we had found and what our sources were and what our confidence level was but after that I don't remember anything what the reason this is such a big deal has we have this big messy wonderful country where we fight with each other all the time but nobody tells us what to think what to fight about what to vote for except other Americans and that's wonderful and often painful but we're talking about a foreign government that using technical intrusion lots of other methods try to shape the way we think we vote we act that is a big deal and people need to recognize it it's not about Republicans or Democrats they're coming after America which I hope we all love equally they want to undermine our credibility in the face of the world they think that this great experiment of ours is a threat to them and so they're going to try to run it down and dirty it up as much as possible that's what this is about and they will be back because we remain as as difficult as we can be with each other we remain that shining city on the hill and they don't like it this is extremely important is extremely dangerous what would what we're dealing with and it's needed is what you're saying yes sir um do you believe there were any tapes or recordings of your conversations with the president it never occurred to me till the president's tweet I'm not being facetious I hope there are and I'll consent to the release of the both of you both of you are in the same findings here you both hope there's tapes and recordings well I'm new all I can do is hope the president surely knows whether he taped me and if he did my feelings aren't hurt release the entire release all the tapes I'm good with it got you sir do you believe that Robert Mueller the our new special investigator on Russia will be thorough and complete without political intervention and would you be confidence on these findings and recommendations yes Bob Muller is one of the finest people and public servants this country has ever produced he will do it well he is a dogged tough person and you can have high confidence that when it's done he's turned over all the rocks you've been asked a wide variety of Crush of questions today and then we're going to be hearing more I'm sure in our classified hearing something often asked folks when they come here what details of this saga would be should we be focusing on and what would you recommend us do differently hmm or to just our perspective on this I don't know I one of the reasons that I'm pleased to be here is I think this committee has shown the American people although we have two parties and we disagree about important things we can work together when involves the core interests of the country so I would hope you'll just keep doing what you're doing it's good in and of itself but it's also a model especially for kids that we we are a functioning adult democracy and you also mention you mad I think what two six six meetings three times in person six on the phone nine times in conversation the president did he ever at that time allude that you are not performing adequately ever indicate that at all no in fact the contrary quite often yeah he called me one day I was about to get on a helicopter the head of the DEA was waiting the helicopter for me and he just called to check in and tell me I was doing an awesome job and want to see how I was doing I said I'm doing fine sir and then I finished the call got on the helicopter mr. Comey do you believe you would have been fired if Hillary Clinton had become president that's a great question I don't know yeah I don't know you have any thoughts about him no I might have been I I don't know look I I've said before that was an extraordinarily difficult and painful time I think I did what I had to do I knew it was gonna be very bad for me personally and the consequence of that might have been filler Clint was elected I might have been terminated I don't know I really don't my final question will be after February 14th meeting in the Oval Office you mentioned that you asked her in general sessions to in short that you were never left alone with the president did you ever consider why Attorney General Sessions was not asked to stay in the room oh sure I did and and have and in that moment I never talked to him about it no you never had discussion with Jeff sessions on this no not at all on any of your meetings no did he inquired he did he show any inquiry whatsoever what was that meeting about no oh you're right I did say to him I'd forgotten this when I talked to him and said you have to be between me and the president and that's incredibly important and I forget my exact words I passed along the President's message about the importance of aggressively pursuing leaks of classified information which is a goal I share and I passed that along to the Attorney General I think was the next morning in our in a meeting and but I did not tell him about the Flynn part do you believe this arise to the obstruction justice I don't know that's Bob Muller's job to sort that out thank you sir he's chairman senator cotton mr. Comey you encouraged the president to release the tapes will you encourage the department justice or your friend at Columbia or mr. Muller to release your memos sure you said that you did not record your conversations with President Obama or President Bush and memos did you do so with attorney general sessions or any other senior member of the Trump Department of Justice no did you think you I'm sorry did you record conversations and memos with attorney general Lynch or any other senior member of the Obama Department of Justice no not that I recall in your statement for the record you cite nine private conversations with the president three meetings and two phone calls there are four phone calls that are not discussed in your statement for the record what happened in those phone calls President called me I believe shortly before I was inaugurated as a follow-up to our conversation private conversation on January the 6th he just wanted to reiterate his rejection of the allegation and talk about he thought about it more and why he thought it wasn't true the the the verified unverified in salacious parts and during that call he asked me again hope you're going to stay you're doing a great job and I told them that I intended to there was another phone call that I mentioned I think was good of the day wrong March the first where he called just to check in with me as I was about to get on the helicopter there was a secure call we had about an an operational matter that was not related to any of this about something the FBI was working on he wanted to make sure that I understood how important he thought it was totally appropriate call and then the fourth call probably forgetting may have been that I may have meant the call when he called to invite me to dinner I'll think about it as I'm answering other questions but I think I got that right let's turn our attention to the underlying activity at issue here Russia's hacking into those emails and releasing them allegations of collusion do you believe Donald Trump colluded with Russia it's a question I don't think I should answer in an open setting as I said that we didn't when I left we did not have an investigation focused on president Trump but that's a question that will be answered by the investigation I think let me turn to a couple statements by one of my colleagues senator Feinstein she was the ranking member on this committee until January which means she had access to information that only she and chairman Byrd did she's now the senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee meaning she has access to the FBI that most of us don't on May 3rd I'm CNN's Wolf Blitzer show she was asked do you believe do you have evidence there was in fact collusion between Trump associates in Russia during the campaign she answered not at this time on May 18th the same show mr. Blitzer said the last time we spoke senator asked if you had actually seen any evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign in the Russians and you said to me and I'm quoting you now you said not at this time has anything changed since we last spoke senator Feinstein said well no no it hasn't do you have any reason to doubt those statements I don't doubt that senator Feinstein was saying with what she understood I just don't want to go down that path first of all because I'm not in the government anymore and answering in the negative I just where he leads me deeper and deeper into talking about the investigation in an open setting I don't I want to be I'm always trying to be fair no be unfair to President Trump I'm not trying to suggest by my answer something nefarious but I don't want to get into the business of saying not as to this person not as to that person On February 14th the New York Times published a story the headline of which was Trump campaign aides had repeated contacts with Russian intelligence you're asked earlier if that was an inaccurate story and you said in the main would it be fair to characterize that story is almost entirely wrong yes did you have at the time that sort of published any indication of any contact between Trump people and Russians intelligence officers other government officials or close associates of the Russian government that's when I can't answer sitting here we can discuss that in classified setting then I want to turn attention now to mr. Flynn and the allegations of his underlying conduct to be specific his alleged interactions with the Russian ambassador on the telephone and then what he said to senior Trump administration officials in Department Justice officials I understand there are other issues with mr. Flynn related to his receipt of foreign monies or disclosure of potential advocacy activity on behalf of foreign governments those are serious and credible allegations I'm sure will be pursued but I want to speak specifically about his interactions with the Russian ambassador there was a story on January 23rd in The Washington Post it says entitled FBI reviewed Flynn's calls with Russian ambassador but found nothing illicit is the story accurate I don't want to comment on that senator because I'm pretty sure that Bureau has not confirmed any interception of communications and so I don't want to talk about that in an open setting would it be improper for an incoming national security adviser to have a conversation with a foreign ambassador it might in my experience no but you can't confirm or deny that the conversation happened and we would need to know the contents of that conversation to know if it was in fact improper yeah I don't think I can talk about that an open setting I and again I've been out of government now a month so I don't also don't want to talk about things when it's now somebody's else's responsibility but maybe in the in the classified setting we can talk more about that you stated earlier that there wasn't an open investigation of mr. Flynn and the FBI did you or any FBI agent ever since that mr. Flynn attempted to deceive you or made false statements to an FBI agent I don't want to go too far at that was the subject of the criminal inquiry did you ever come close to closing investigation on mr. Flynn I don't think I can talk about that an open setting either I can discuss these more with a closed setting then mr. Comey in 2004 you were a part of a well publicized event about a intelligence program that had been recertified several times and you were acting Attorney General when Attorney General John Ashcroft was incapacitated due to illness there was a dramatic showdown at hospital here the next day you've said that you wrote a letter of resignation and signed it before you me went to meet with President Bush to explain why you refused to certify it is that accurate yes I think so at any time in three and a half months you are the FBI director during the Trump administration did you ever write and sign a letter of recommendation and leave it on your desk let her resignation no sir letter of resignation no sir so despite all of the things that you've testified to here today you didn't feel this rose to the level of an honest but serious difference of legal opinion between accomplished and skilled lawyers in that 2004 episode I wouldn't characterize the circumstances of 2004 that way but dancer no I didn't find encounter any circumstance that led me to intend to resign consider to resign no sir Thank You senator Harris there are two call me I want to thank you you are now a private citizen and you are enduring a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing and each of us get seven minutes instead of five is yesterday to ask you questions so thank you know from I'm between opportunities like oh so well you're you you are I'm sure you'll have future opportunities you know you and I are both former prosecutors not going to require you to answer I just want to make a statement that um in my my experience of prosecuting cases when a robber held a gun to somebody's head and and said I hope you will give me your wallet the word hope was not the most operative word at that moment but all you don't have to respond to that point um I have a series of questions to ask you and and they're going to start with are you aware of any meetings between the Trump administration officials and Russian officials during the campaign that have not been acknowledged by those officials in the White House that's not it even if I remember clearly that's not a question I can answer in an open setting are you aware of any efforts by Trump campaign officials or associates of the campaign to hide their communications with Russian officials through encrypted communications or other means I have to give you the same answer senator sure in the course of the FBI's investigation did you ever come across anything that suggested that communications records documents or other evidence had been destroyed I think I got to give you the same answer because it would touch on investigative matters and are you aware of any efforts or potential efforts to conceal communications between campaign officials and Russian officials we got to give you the same answer senator thank you um as a former attorney general I have a series of questions about your connection with the Attorney General during the course of your tenure as director what is your understanding of the parameters of General Sessions recusal from the adverse Russia investigation I think it's described in a written release or statement from DOJ which I don't remember sitting here but gist was he would be recused from all matters relating to Russia and that and the campaign or activities of Russia and the 16 election I think something like that is so is your knowledge of the extent of his recusal based on the public statements he's made or correct okay so was there any kind of memorandum issued from the Attorney General or the Department of Justice to the FBI outlining the parameters of his recusal not the norm or and do you know if he reviewed any FBI or DOJ documents pertaining to the investigation before he was recused I don't I don't know and after he was recused I'm assuming it's the same answer same answer and as aside from any notice or memorandum that was not sent or was what mechanism or processes were in place to ensure that the Attorney General would not have any connection with the investigation to your knowledge I don't know for sure I know that he had consulted with career ethics officials that know how to run a recusal at DOJ but I don't know what mechanism they set up and the Attorney General recused himself from the investigation but do you believe it was appropriate for him to be involved in the firing of the chief investigator of that case that Russia interference that's something I can't answer sitting here it's a it's a reasonable question but that would depend a lot of things I don't know like what did he know what was he told did he realize that the president was doing it because of the rush investigation things like that I just don't know the answer you've mentioned in your written testimony in here that the president essentially asked you for a loyalty pledge are you aware of him making the same request of any other members of the cabinet I am NOT do you know what one way or another wait he I don't know one way or another I've never heard anything about it and you mentioned that on you had the conversation where he hoped that you would let the Flynn matter go on February 14th or there abouts it's my understanding that mr. sessions was recused from any involvement in the investigation about a full two weeks later to your knowledge was the Attorney General did he have access to information about the investigation in those interim two weeks I I don't I in theory sure because he's the Attorney General I don't know whether he had any contact with any materials related to that to your knowledge was there any directive that he should not have any contact with any information about the Russian investigation between the February 14th date and the day he was ultimately recused or recused himself on March 2nd not to my knowledge I don't know one way or another and did you speak to the Attorney General about the Russia investigation before his recusal I don't think so no do you know if anyone in the department and the FBI I forwarded any documents or information or memos of any sort to the attention of the Attorney General before his recusal I don't I don't know of any remember any sitting here it's possible but I don't remember any do you know if the Attorney General was involved in fact involved in any aspect of the Russia investigation after his recusal on the 2nd of March I don't I would assume not but I don't I don't well let me say this way I don't know of any information that would lead me to believe he did something to touch the Russian investigation after the recusal in your written testimony you indicate that you when you after you were left alone with the president you mentioned that it was inappropriate internet and ever happen again to the Attorney General and apparently he did not reply and you write that he did not reply what did he do if anything did he just look at you was there pause for a moment what happened I don't remember real clearly I have a recollection of him just kind of looking at me and there's a danger here I'm projecting onto him so this may be a faulty memory but I kind of got his body language gave me the sense like what am I gonna do did he shrug all right I don't remember clearly I think the reason I have that impression is I have some recollection of almost implement imperceptible like what am I going to do but I don't have a clear recollection of that he didn't say anything and on that same February 14th meeting you said you understood the president to be requesting that you drop the investigation after that meeting however you received two calls from the president March 30th and April 11th where the president talked about a cloud over his presidency has anything you've learned in the months since your February 14th meeting changed your understanding of the President's request I guess it would be what he has said pub in public documents or public interviews correct and is there anything about this investigation that you believe is in any way biased or is is is not being informed by a process of seeking the truth no the appointment of a special counsel should offer great especially given who that person is great comfort to Americans no matter what your political affiliation is that this will be done independently competently and honestly and do you believe that he should have full authority mr. Muller to be able to pursue that investigation yes and I and knowing him well over the years if there's something that he thinks he needs he will he will speak up about it he believed he should have full independence oh yeah and he wouldn't be part of it if he wasn't gonna get full independence Thank You senator Cornyn Thank You mr. chairman mr. Comey off I'll repeat what I've said at previous hearings that I believe you're a good and decent man who's been dealt that very difficult and starting back with the Clinton email investigation and I appreciate your willingness to appear here today voluntarily and answer our questions and cooperate with our investigation as a general matter if an FBI agent has reason to believe that a crime has been committed do they have a duty to report it that's a good question I don't know that there's a legal duty to report it they certainly have a cultural ethical duty to report it you're unsure whether they would have a legal duty yeah it's a good question I'm not thought about for I don't know where the legal is a statute that prohibits misprision of a felony knowing of a felony and taking steps to conceal it but this is a different question and so look let me be clear I would expect any FBI agent who has a reason information about a crime committed to report it me too but but where you rest that obligation I don't know it exists and let me ask you is a general proposition if you're trying to make an investigation go away is firing an FBI director a good way to make that happen by that I'm here it doesn't make a lot of sense to me but I'm obviously hopelessly biased given that I was the one fired I understand it's personal now given the eight nature of the FBI I meant what I said no indispensable people in the world including at the FBI that there's lots of bad things about me not being at the FBI most of them are for me but the works going to go on as before so nothing that's happened that you've testified to here today has impeded the investigation the FBI or director molars commitment to get to the bottom of this from the standpoint of the FBI in the Department of Justice would you agree with that correct especially the appointment of director and former director Muller is critical part of that equation let me take you back to the Clinton email investigation I think you've been cast as a hero or a villain depending on the whose political Gok ox is being gored at many different times during the course of the Clinton email investigation even even now perhaps but you clearly were troubled by the conduct of the sitting attorney general Loretta Lynch when a client came to the Clinton email investigation you mentioned the characterization that you've been asked except that this was a matter and not a criminal investigation which you said it it was there was the matter of President Clinton's meeting on the tarmac with the sitting Attorney General at a time when his wife was subject to a criminal investigation and you suggested that perhaps there are other matters that you may be able to share with us later on in a classified setting but it seems to me that you clearly believed that Loretta Lynch the Attorney General had an appearance of a conflict of interest on the Clinton email investigation is that correct I think that's fair I didn't believe she could credibly decline that investigation at least not without grievous damage to the Department of Justice and to the FBI and under Department of Justice and FBI norms wouldn't it have been appropriate for the Attorney General or if she had recused herself which she did not do for the Deputy Attorney General to appoint a special counsel that's essentially what's happened now with director mower would that have been an appropriate step in the Clinton email investigation in your opinion certainly a possible step yes sir and were you aware that miss Lynch had been requested numerous times to appoint a special counsel and it refused front yes from I think Congress had members of Congress had repeatedly asked yes sir yours truly did on multiple occasions and that heightened your concerns about the appearance of a conflict of interest with the Department of Justice which caused you to make what you have described as an incredibly painful decision to basically take the matter up yourself and led to that July press conference yes sir I can say after the President Clinton former President Clinton met on the plane with the Attorney General I considered whether I should call for the appointment of a special counsel and it decided that that would be an unfair thing to do because I knew there was no case there we had investigated it very very thoroughly I know this is a subject of passionate disagreement but I knew there was no case there and calling for the appointment of special counsel would be brutally unfair because it would send the message aha there's something here that was my judgment again lots of people have different views of it but that's how I thought about it well if the special counsel had been appointed they could have made that determination that there was nothing there and declined to pursue it right sure but it would have been many months later or a year later let me just ask you - given the experience of the Clinton email investigation and what happened there you think it's unreasonable for anyone any president who has been assured on multiple occasions that he's not the subject of an FBI investigation do you think it's unreasonable for them to want the FBI director to publicly announce that so that this cloud over his administration would be removed I think that's a reasonable point of view the concern would be obviously because a Ted boomerang comes back it's a gonna be a very big deal because there will be a duty to correct well we we saw that in the Clinton email investigation yes I recall that yeah I know you do so let me ask you finally in the minute we have left there was this conversation back and forth about loyalty and I think we all appreciate the fact that FBI director is a unique public official in the sense that isn't not he's a political appointee in one sense but he has a duty of Independence to pursue the law pursuant to the Kotton has caught the constitutional laws of the United States and so when the president asked you about loyalty you got in this back and forth about well I pledge you my honesty and then it looks like from what I've read you agreed upon honest loyal T or something like that is that the characterization yes thank you very much thank you Senator Reid thank you mr. chairman Thank You director Comey there have been press reports that the president in addition to asking you to drop the Flint investigation has asked other senior intelligence officials to take steps which would tend to undermine the investigation to Russia there's no reports that he's asked DNI coats and Admiral Rogers to make public statements exonerating him or taking the pressure off him and also reports about Admiral Rogers and director Pompeo to intervene and reach out to the FBI asked them are you aware of any of these do you have any information with respect to any of these four allegation I don't I'm aware of the public reporting but I had no contact no conversation with any of those leaders about that subject thank you you have testified that you interpret the discussion with the president about Flynn as a direction to stop the investigation is that correct yes you've testified that the president asked you to lift the cloud by essentially making public statement exonerating him and perhaps others you received correct I didn't I didn't do it I didn't refuse the breadth of the president I told him we would see what we could do and then the second time he called I told him in substance that's something your lawyer will have to take up with the Justice Department and part of the underlying logic was that was we've discussed many times throughout this morning is the duty to correct that is one of the theatres kalisch what also for a practical issue it was there your feeling that the direction of the investigation could in fact include the president well in theory I mean as I explained the concern of one of my senior leader colleagues was if you're looking at potential coordination between the campaign and Russia the person at the head of the campaign is the candidate so logically this person argued the candidates knowledge understanding logically become a part of your inquiry if it proceeds and so I understood that argument my view was that that what I said to the president was accurate and fair and fair to him I resisted the idea of publicly saying it although if the Justice Department wanted to that I would have done it because of the duty to correct and the slippery slope problem and again also you've testified that the president asked you repeatedly to be loyal to him and you responded he would be honest we loyal which is I think your way of saying I'll be honest and I'll be the head of the FBI and independent of that fear correct I tried honest first and also you've seen in my Testament also tried to explain to him why it's in his interest and every president's interest for the FBI to be a part in a way because its credibility is important to a president and to the country and so I tried to hold the line hold line I got very awkward and I then said you'll always have honesty from me he said honest loyal T and then I acceded to that as a way to end this awkwardness at the culmination of all these events you're summarily fired well any explanation or anything else well there was an explanation I just don't buy it okay well ah yes so you're fired so do you believe that you were fired because you refused to cooperate to take the president's direction that the ultimate reason I don't know for sure I know I was fired again I take the president's words I know I was fired because of something about the way I was conducting the Russian investigation was in some way putting pressure on him in some way irritating him and he decided to fire me because of that now I can't go farther than that the Russian investigation as you pointed out and as all my colleagues have reflected is one of the most serious hostile acts against this country in our history undermining the very core of our democracy in our elections is not a discrete event it will likely occur it's probably being prepared now for 18 and 20 and beyond and yet the president United States and buys you because in your own words some relation to this investigation and then he shows up in the Oval Office with the Russian Foreign Minister first after classifying you as crazy in a real nutjob which I think you've effectively disproved this morning he said I face crush pressure because of Russia that's taken off your conclusion would be that the president I would think is downplaying the seriousness of this threat in fact took specific steps to stop a thorough investigation of the Russian aggression influence and also from what you've said or what was said this morning doesn't seem to particularly interested in these hostile threats by the Russians is that fear I don't know that I can agree to that level of detail there's no doubt that it's a fair judgment it's my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation I was fired in some way to change or the endeavor was to change the way the Russia investigation was being conducted that is a that is a very big deal and not just because it involves me the nature of the FBI and the nature of its work requires that it not be the subject of political consideration and on top of that you have the Russia investigation itself is vital because of the threat and I know I should have said this earlier but it's obvious if any Americans were part of helping the Russians do that to us that is a very big deal and I'm confident that if that is the case director Muller will find that evidence finally a the president tweeted that James Connelly better hope that there are no tapes of our conversations where he starts leaking to the press with that rather unsubtle attempt to intimidate you from testifying and intimidate anyone else who seriously courses his bath of not doing it I'm not going to sit here and try to interpret the president's tweets it to me it's major impact was as I said occurred to me in the middle of the night holy cow there might be tapes and if there are tapes it's not just my word against his on the direction to get rid of the Flint investigation thank you very much Senator McCain in the case of Hillary Clinton you made the statement that there wasn't sufficient evidence to bring a suit against her although it had been very careless in their behavior but you did reach a conclusion in that case that it was not necessary to further pursue her yet at the same time in the case of mr. Comey you said that there was not enough information to make a conclusion tell me the difference between your conclusion as far as former Secretary Clinton is concerned and and mr. mr. Trump the Clinton investigation was a completed investigation that the FBI had been deeply involved in and so I had an opportunity to understand all the facts and apply those facts against the laws I understood them this investigation was under way still going when I was fired so it's nowhere near in the same place least it wasn't when I was what is still ongoing correct so far as I know it was when I left that investigation was going on this investigation is going on you reach separate conclusions now that one was done that only had an investigation of any involvement of Secretary Clinton or any of her associates is completed yes as of July the 5th the FBI completed its investigative work and that's what I was announcing what we had done and what we had found well at least in the minds of this member there's a whole lot of questions remaining about what went on particularly considering the fact that as you mentioned it's a quote big deal as to what went on during the campaign so I'm glad you concluded that part of the investigation but I I think that the American people have a whole lot of questions out there particularly since you just emphasized the role that Russia played and obviously she was a candidate for president at the time so she was clearly involved in this whole situation where fake news as you just described it big deal took place and you're going to have to help me out here in other words we're complete the investigation of anything that former Secretary Clinton had to do with the campaign is over and we don't have to worry about it anymore with respect to second fused center with respect to Secretary Clinton yeah we investigated criminal investigation in connection with her use of a personal email server understand and that's the investigation I announced inclusion of on July 5th so clicked in at the same time you made the announcement there would be no charges brought against then Secretary Clinton for any activities involved in the Russia involvement in our engagement in our election I don't quite understand how you could be done with that but not complete done with the whole investigation of their attempt to affect the outcome of our election no I'm sorry we're not at least when I left when I was fired on May tonight there was still an open active investigation to understand the Russian efforts and whether any Americans work with them but you reach the conclusion that there was no reason to bring charges again and Secretary Clinton so you reached a conclusion in the case of mr. Comey you the president called me serves me case of present Trump you have an ongoing investigation so you got one candidate who you're done with and another candidate that you have a long way to go is that correct I don't know how far the FBI has to go but yes that the Clinton email investigation was completed the investigation of Russia's efforts in connection with the election and whether there was any coordination and if so with whom between Russian in the campaign he just was ongoing when I left you just made it clear and what you said this is a quote big deal unquote I think it's hard to reconcile your in one case you reach complete conclusion and the other side you have you have not and you in fact obviously there's a lot more there as as we know as you called it a quote big deal she's one of the candidates but in her case you say there will be no charges and in the case of President Trump there the investigation continues what has been brought out in this hearing is is more and more emphasis on the Russian engagement and involvement in this campaign how serious do you think this was very serious but I want to say some be clear it was we have not announced and there was no predication to announce an investigation of whether the Russians may have coordinated with secretary Clinton's campaign secretary Clinton's kills but they may not have been involved with their campaign they were involved with the entire presidential campaign obviously of course yes sir and that that is an investigation that began last summer and so far as I'm aware continues so both President Trump and former candidate Clinton are both involved in the investigation yet one of them you said there's going to be no charges and the other one that the investigation continues well I think there's a double standard there tell you the truth then when the president said to you he talked about the April 11th phone call and he said quote because I've been very loyal to you very loyal we had that thing you know did that arouse your curiosity is what quote that thing was yes why didn't you ask him it didn't seem to me to be important for the conversation we were having to understand it I took it to be some an effort to to communicate to me this that there is a relationship between us where I've been good to you you should be good to me yeah but I I think it would intensely arouse Mike curiosity if the president I state said we had that thing you know I'd like to know what the hell that thing is particularly if I'm the director of the FBI yeah I get that senator honestly I'll tell you what this is speculation but what I concluded at the time is in his memory he was searching back to our encounter at the dinner and was preparing himself to say I offered loyalty you you promised loyalty to me and all of a sudden his memory showed him that did not happen and I think he pulled up short that's just a guess but a lot of conversations with humans over the years I think I would have had some curiosity if it have been about me I'd be honest with you so are you aware anything that would believe you to believe that the president other members the administration or members the campaign could potentially be used to coerce or blackmail the administration that's a subject for investigations not something I can comment on sitting here but you reached that conclusion as far as Secretary Clinton was concerned but you're not reaching a conclusion as far as this administration is concerned are you aware of anything that would lead you to believe that information exists that could coerce members of the administration or blackmail the administration that's not a question I can answer senator centers x expired thank you all times expired for the hearing can I say four members will reconvene promptly at 1:00 p.m. in the hearing room we have a vote scheduled for 1:45 I would suggest that all members promptly be there at 1:00 o'clock we have about three minutes I'd like to have order photographers photographers return to where you were please this hearings not adjourned yet hear that it will remove you to members we have about three minutes of updates that we would love to cover as soon as we get into the closed session before we have an opportunity to spend some time with director Comey based on our agreement it would be my intentions to adjourn that closed hearing between two and two ten so that members can go vote and I would urge you to eat at that time Jim several of us on this committee have had the opportunity to work with you since you walked in the door I want to say personally on behalf of all this all the committee members we're grateful to you for your service to your country not just in the capacity as FBI director but it's prosecutor and more importantly being somebody that loves this country enough to tell it like it is I want to say to your workforce that we're grateful to them with the level of cooperation that they have shown us with the trust we've built between both organizations the Congress and and the bureau we couldn't do our job if it wasn't for their willingness to share candidly with us the work that we need to see this hearings the ninth public hearing this committee has had this year that is twice the historical year-long average of this committee I think the vice chairman and my biggest challenge when this investigation has concluded is to return our hearings to the secrecy of a closed hearing to encourage our numbers not to freely talk about intelligence matters publicly and to respect the fact that we have a huge job and that's to represent the entire body of the United States Senate and the American people to make sure that we work with the intelligence community to provide you the tools to keep America safe and that you do it within the legal limit or those limits that are set by the executive branch we could not do it if it wasn't for trusted partnership that you have been able to lead and others before you so as we depart from this this is a pivotal hearing in our investigation we're grateful to you for the professionalism you've shown and your willingness I will turn to the vice chairman I simply want to echo want to get into thanks for your appearance and there clearly still remain a number of questions and the one thing I want to commit to you and more importantly I think the chimer I want to commit to all those who are still potentially watching and following there's still a lot of unanswered question and we're going to get to the bottom of this where I get the facts out the American people deserve to know there's the questions around implications of Trump officials and the Russians but there's also the macro issue of what the Russians did and continue to do and I think it is very important that all Americans realize that threat is real it is continuous it is not just towards our nation it is all towards all Western democracies and we have to come to a solution set Thank You mr. chairman director Comey thank you once again on behalf of the committee this here integer is hot five the problem Oh thank you [Music]

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Published: Thu Jun 08 2017

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