James Comey's testimony in 7 minutes

you solemnly swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God please be seated do you have any doubt that Russia attempted to interfere in the 2016 elections none 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'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 after that briefing you felt compelled to document that conversation that you actually started documenting it soon as you got into the car I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting and so I thought it really important to document this was the only president that you felt like in every meeting you needed to document because at some point using your words he might put out a non-truthful representation of that meeting now that's right Senor and I I as I said in my written testimony as FBI director I interacted with President Obama and I spoke only twice in three years and didn't document it when I was Deputy attorney 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 sent 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 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 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 were yeah that was on the 20 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 that he's looking to get something in exchange for granting my request to stay in the job how unusual is it to have um a 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 he couldn't possibly be having dinner with me alone 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 I I've seen the Tweet about tapes lordy I hope there are 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 did you show copies of your memos to anyone outside of the Department of Justice yes 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 I'm not being vicious I hope there are and I'll consent to the release of so both of you both of you are in the same findings here you both hope there's tapes and recordings well I'm the I all I can do is hope U 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 gotcha 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 when you get a when a president of the United States in the Oval Office says something like I hope or I suggest or or would you do you take that as a as a as a directive yes yes it rings in my ear as kind of will no one rid me of this metalsome priest I was just going to quote that in 1170 December 29 Henry II said who will rid me of this metalsome priest and then the next day he was killed was your decision influenced by the Attorney General's tarmac meeting with the former President Bill Clinton yes in in a ultimately inclusive way that was the thing that kept it for me that I had to do something separately and then you made a comment earlier about um the Attorney General uh previous attorney general asking you about the uh 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 were 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 looked silly because the campaigns were talking about interacting with the FBI in the course of our work the 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 Joe and I were both going to 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 call it that call it a matter and I said why would I do that and she said just call it a matter 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 look I I've said before uh that was an extraordinarily difficult and painful time I think I did what I had to do I knew it was going to be very bad for me personally and the consequence of that might have been philler Clinton was elected I might have been terminated I don't know I really don't uh do you believe Donald Trump colluded with Russia that's a question I don't think I should answer um 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'll be answered by the investigation I think

Channel: CBS News

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Keywords: james comey, cbs news, donald trump, cbsn, news, comey testimony, watch live, live news, james comey testimony, FBI, russia, donald trump russia, james comey russia, james comey fbi, james comey testifying, president trump, trump, watch live news, trending news, world news, politics, breaking news, elections, 2016 presidential election, featured news, russian scandal, christopher a wray, live stream, senate hearing, comey news, comey hearing live

Id: 4HpEUKrmKTY

Length: 7min 19sec (439 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 08 2017