Comey testified before the Senate intelligence committee on Thursday, just one of a number of committees and agencies, and a special counsel, that are investigating whether Russian Federation meddled in the 2016 presidential election - or what's more politically explosive, whether members of the Trump campaign team co-ordinated efforts with officials from Moscow.
That didn't stop Salon from running a headline reading "James Comey Says Donald Trump Lied, 'Plain and Simple.'" NBC lead with the same quote, but in a effort to be a tad bit more honest, added "about firing" at the end. In their last conversation on April 11, Trump was still pleading for the blind loyalty he thought Comey had promised him.
In the most eagerly anticipated United States congressional hearing in years, Comey told lawmakers the Trump administration had lied and defamed him and the Federal Bureau of Investigation after the president dismissed him on May 9.
"I took it as a direction".
"I hardly know the man".
Comey testified for almost three hours on Thursday, answering questions about the FBI's investigation of Russian Federation and his private conversations with Trump. Dianne Feinstein of California, who asked the question that many Republicans have raised in the weeks since Comey's firing as one media leak followed another revealing Comey's claims about Trump's inappropriate interactions with him.
Comey would not say whether he thought Trump tried to obstruct justice, leaving that determination to Mueller. "I found him to be credible, candid and thorough", Collins said of Comey on MSNBC's "Morning Joe". Trump's only written statement remains the May 9 letter in which he asserted that Comey had told him "on three separate occasions that I am not under investigation". His testimony does not implicate the Trump presidency, but it nonetheless questions the billionaire Republican president's personality. "We will not back down from doing what is right".
A U.S. president is given a wide array of immunities from criminal prosecutions. While Trump might feel vindicated, Comey's reputation as a truth-teller didn't seem to take a hit.
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Comey's accusations could further mire Trump's administration in legal difficulties, as special counsel Robert Mueller, appointed by the Justice Department after Comey was sacked, and several congressional committees investigate alleged Russian efforts to influence the election.
Both Russia and the White House have repeatedly denied any collusion. "That's not leaking", said Comey Sr.
Comey told Senators that during an unusual one-on-one meeting in February with the president in the Oval Office Trump urged him to "let go" an investigation into fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
"Mr. Comey has now admitted that he is one of these leakers", he said. Comey wrote a memo on the encounter and made sure the memo was unclassified, so it could be more easily shared.
Comey was unabashed about accusing Trump and his administration of telling "lies", and said he began the practice of immediately making notes after talking with the president because "I was honestly concerned that he might lie" about the conversations.
Dressed in a dark suit and giving short, deliberative answers, Comey painted a picture of an overbearing president who he did not trust and who pressured him to stop the FBI investigating Flynn. To the contrary, Mueller is nearly certainly investigating the related Michael Flynn and Comey-firing angles.
Comey has come under fire from the president and Republicans who say what he did was illegal and violated Trump's executive privilege, which prevents the judicial or legislative branches of government from demanding certain information from the executive.
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