24 Choice Cuts From The Comey Written Statement
A list in ranked list form
Before the hearing today, revisit some choice cuts from the written statement.
24. “subjects that I understand are of interest to you”
23. “methods that hostile foreign powers are using to influence the United States”
22. “the President called me and asked what I had done about his request that I ‘get out’ that he is not personally under investigation. I replied that I had passed his request to the Acting Deputy Attorney General, but I had not heard back. He replied that ‘the cloud’ was getting in the way of his ability to do his job.
21. “I remained alone with the President-Elect to brief him on some personally sensitive aspects of the information assembled during the assessment”
20. “I would do it alone to minimize potential embarrassment to the President-Elect”
19. “hoped I would find a way to get it out that we weren’t investigating him”
18. “As the participants started to leave the Oval Office, the Attorney General lingered by my chair, but the President thanked him and said he wanted to speak only with me. The last person to leave was Jared Kushner, who also stood by my chair and exchanged pleasantries with me. The President then excused him, saying he wanted to speak with me.”
17. “In an abrupt shift, he turned the conversation to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, saying he hadn’t brought up ‘the McCabe thing’ because I had said McCabe was honorable, although McAuliffe was close to the Clintons and had given him (I think he meant Deputy Director McCabe’s wife) campaign money. Although I didn’t understand why the President was bringing this up, I repeated that Mr. McCabe was an honorable person.”
16. “I spoke alone with President Obama twice in person (and never on the phone) — once in 2015 to discuss law enforcement policy issues and a second time, briefly, for him to say goodbye in late 2016. In neither of those circumstances did I memorialize the discussions. I can recall nine one-on-one conversations with President Trump in four months — three in person and six on the phone.”
15. “stressing ‘the cloud’ that was interfering with his ability to make deals for the country”
14. “Reince Priebus leaned in through the door by the grandfather clock”
13. “the President returned to the salacious material”
12. “considering ordering me to investigate the alleged incident to prove it didn’t happen”
11. “individuals the FBI suspects to be witting or unwitting agents of that foreign power”
10. “I took the opportunity to implore the Attorney General to prevent any future direct communication between the President and me.”
9. “‘Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know.” I did not reply or ask him what he meant by ‘that thing.’”
8. “just the two of us, seated at a small oval table”
7. “I added that I was not ‘reliable’ in the way politicians use that word”
6. “I had understood the President to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December.”
5. “had not been involved with hookers in Russia”
4. “I felt compelled to document my first conversation with the President-Elect in a memo. To ensure accuracy, I began to type it on a laptop in an FBI vehicle outside Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the meeting. Creating written records immediately after one-on-one conversations with Mr. Trump was my practice from that point forward. This had not been my practice in the past.”
3. “He then said, ‘I need loyalty.’ I replied, ‘You will always get honesty from me.’ He paused and then said, ‘That’s what I want, honest loyalty.’ I paused, and then said, ‘You will get that from me.’ As I wrote in the memo I created immediately after the dinner, it is possible we understood the phrase ‘honest loyalty’ differently”
2. “He then said, ‘I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.’ I replied only that ‘he is a good guy.’”
- “the President said, ‘I need loyalty, I expect loyalty’
You can read the entire thing at Politico and elsewhere.
Dane A. Wisher is based in Brooklyn.
