{"id":40260,"date":"2017-06-08T07:02:56","date_gmt":"2017-06-08T14:02:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/69.46.6.243\/?p=40260"},"modified":"2017-06-08T07:02:56","modified_gmt":"2017-06-08T14:02:56","slug":"live-testimony-from-the-senate-select-committee-on-intelligence-from-james-b-comey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/?p=40260","title":{"rendered":"Live Testimony From The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence from James B. Comey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC&#8230;The following was released today ahead of the former FBI Director&#8217;s testimony tomorrow before the Senate Intelligence Committee.    Chairman Burr, Ranking Member Warner, Members of the Committee.  Thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. I was asked to testify today to describe for you my interactions with President-Elect and President Trump on subjects that I understand are of interest to you. I have not included every detail from my conversations with the President, but, to the best of my recollection, I have tried to include information that may be relevant to the Committee.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/evlBQSQwo4U\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/os-jcomey-060817.pdf\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/seanateintelcommunity.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"408\" height=\"200\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-40218\" srcset=\"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/seanateintelcommunity.jpg 408w, https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/seanateintelcommunity-300x147.jpg 300w, https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/seanateintelcommunity-150x74.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 408px) 100vw, 408px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nClick Above For The Statement In Its&#8217; Original Format<\/p>\n<p>January 6 Briefing<br \/>\nI first met then-President-Elect Trump on Friday, January 6 in a conference<br \/>\nroom at Trump Tower in New York. I was there with other Intelligence<br \/>\nCommunity (IC) leaders to brief him and his new national security team on the<br \/>\nfindings of an IC assessment concerning Russian efforts to interfere in the<br \/>\nelection. At the conclusion of that briefing, I remained alone with the President-<br \/>\nElect to brief him on some personally sensitive aspects of the information<br \/>\nassembled during the assessment.<\/p>\n<p>The IC leadership thought it important, for a variety of reasons, to alert the<br \/>\nincoming President to the existence of this material, even though it was salacious<br \/>\nand unverified. Among those reasons were: (1) we knew the media was about to<br \/>\npublicly report the material and we believed the IC should not keep knowledge of<br \/>\nthe material and its imminent release from the President-Elect; and (2) to the<br \/>\nextent there was some effort to compromise an incoming President, we could blunt<br \/>\nany such effort with a defensive briefing.<\/p>\n<p>The Director of National Intelligence asked that I personally do this portion<br \/>\nof the briefing because I was staying in my position and because the material<br \/>\nimplicated the FBI\u2019s counter-intelligence responsibilities. We also agreed I would<br \/>\ndo it alone to minimize potential embarrassment to the President-Elect. Although<br \/>\nwe agreed it made sense for me to do the briefing, the FBI\u2019s leadership and I were<br \/>\nconcerned that the briefing might create a situation where a new President came<br \/>\ninto office uncertain about whether the FBI was conducting a counter-intelligence<br \/>\ninvestigation of his personal conduct.<\/p>\n<p>It is important to understand that FBI counter-intelligence investigations are<br \/>\ndifferent than the more-commonly known criminal investigative work. The<br \/>\nBureau\u2019s goal in a counter-intelligence investigation is to understand the technical<br \/>\nand human methods that hostile foreign powers are using to influence the United<br \/>\nStates or to steal our secrets. The FBI uses that understanding to disrupt those<br \/>\nefforts. Sometimes disruption takes the form of alerting a person who is targeted<br \/>\nfor recruitment or influence by the foreign power. Sometimes it involves<br \/>\nhardening a computer system that is being attacked. Sometimes it involves<br \/>\n\u201cturning\u201d the recruited person into a double-agent, or publicly calling out the<br \/>\nbehavior with sanctions or expulsions of embassy-based intelligence officers. On<br \/>\noccasion, criminal prosecution is used to disrupt intelligence activities.<\/p>\n<p>Because the nature of the hostile foreign nation is well known, counterintelligence<br \/>\ninvestigations tend to be centered on individuals the FBI suspects to<br \/>\nbe witting or unwitting agents of that foreign power. When the FBI develops<br \/>\nreason to believe an American has been targeted for recruitment by a foreign<br \/>\npower or is covertly acting as an agent of the foreign power, the FBI will \u201copen an<br \/>\ninvestigation\u201d on that American and use legal authorities to try to learn more about<br \/>\nthe nature of any relationship with the foreign power so it can be disrupted.<\/p>\n<p>In that context, prior to the January 6 meeting, I discussed with the FBI\u2019s<br \/>\nleadership team whether I should be prepared to assure President-Elect Trump that<br \/>\nwe were not investigating him personally. That was true; we did not have an open<br \/>\ncounter-intelligence case on him. We agreed I should do so if circumstances<br \/>\nwarranted. During our one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower, based on President-<br \/>\nElect Trump\u2019s reaction to the briefing and without him directly asking the<br \/>\nquestion, I offered that assurance.<\/p>\n<p>I felt compelled to document my first conversation with the President-Elect<br \/>\nin a memo. To ensure accuracy, I began to type it on a laptop in an FBI vehicle<br \/>\noutside Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the meeting. Creating written<br \/>\nrecords immediately after one-on-one conversations with Mr. Trump was my<br \/>\npractice from that point forward. This had not been my practice in the past. I<br \/>\nspoke alone with President Obama twice in person (and never on the phone) \u2013<br \/>\nonce in 2015 to discuss law enforcement policy issues and a second time, briefly,<br \/>\nfor him to say goodbye in late 2016. In neither of those circumstances did I<br \/>\nmemorialize the discussions. I can recall nine one-on-one conversations with<br \/>\nPresident Trump in four months \u2013 three in person and six on the phone.<\/p>\n<p>January 27 Dinner<br \/>\nThe President and I had dinner on Friday, January 27 at 6:30 pm in the<br \/>\nGreen Room at the White House. He had called me at lunchtime that day and<br \/>\ninvited me to dinner that night, saying he was going to invite my whole family, but<br \/>\ndecided to have just me this time, with the whole family coming the next time. It<br \/>\nwas unclear from the conversation who else would be at the dinner, although I<br \/>\nassumed there would be others.<\/p>\n<p>It turned out to be just the two of us, seated at a small oval table in the<br \/>\ncenter of the Green Room. Two Navy stewards waited on us, only entering the<br \/>\nroom to serve food and drinks.<\/p>\n<p>The President began by asking me whether I wanted to stay on as FBI<br \/>\nDirector, which I found strange because he had already told me twice in earlier<br \/>\nconversations that he hoped I would stay, and I had assured him that I intended to.<br \/>\nHe said that lots of people wanted my job and, given the abuse I had taken during<br \/>\nthe previous year, he would understand if I wanted to walk away.<\/p>\n<p>My instincts told me that the one-on-one setting, and the pretense that this<br \/>\nwas our first discussion about my position, meant the dinner was, at least in part,<br \/>\nan effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship.<br \/>\nThat concerned me greatly, given the FBI\u2019s traditionally independent status in the<br \/>\nexecutive branch.<\/p>\n<p>I replied that I loved my work and intended to stay and serve out my tenyear<br \/>\nterm as Director. And then, because the set-up made me uneasy, I added that<br \/>\nI was not \u201creliable\u201d in the way politicians use that word, but he could always count<br \/>\non me to tell him the truth. I added that I was not on anybody\u2019s side politically<br \/>\nand could not be counted on in the traditional political sense, a stance I said was in<br \/>\nhis best interest as the President.<\/p>\n<p>A few moments later, the President said, \u201cI need loyalty, I expect loyalty.\u201d<br \/>\nI didn\u2019t move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the<br \/>\nawkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence. The<br \/>\nconversation then moved on, but he returned to the subject near the end of our<br \/>\ndinner.<\/p>\n<p>At one point, I explained why it was so important that the FBI and the<br \/>\nDepartment of Justice be independent of the White House. I said it was a paradox:<br \/>\nThroughout history, some Presidents have decided that because \u201cproblems\u201d come<br \/>\nfrom Justice, they should try to hold the Department close. But blurring those<br \/>\nboundaries ultimately makes the problems worse by undermining public trust in<br \/>\nthe institutions and their work.<\/p>\n<p>Near the end of our dinner, the President returned to the subject of my job,<br \/>\nsaying he was very glad I wanted to stay, adding that he had heard great things<br \/>\nabout me from Jim Mattis, Jeff Sessions, and many others. He then said, \u201cI need<br \/>\nloyalty.\u201d I replied, \u201cYou will always get honesty from me.\u201d He paused and then<br \/>\nsaid, \u201cThat\u2019s what I want, honest loyalty.\u201d I paused, and then said, \u201cYou will get<br \/>\nthat from me.\u201d As I wrote in the memo I created immediately after the dinner, it is<br \/>\npossible we understood the phrase \u201chonest loyalty\u201d differently, but I decided it<br \/>\nwouldn\u2019t be productive to push it further. The term \u2013 honest loyalty \u2013 had helped<br \/>\nend a very awkward conversation and my explanations had made clear what he<br \/>\nshould expect.<\/p>\n<p>During the dinner, the President returned to the salacious material I had<br \/>\nbriefed him about on January 6, and, as he had done previously, expressed his<br \/>\ndisgust for the allegations and strongly denied them. He said he was considering<br \/>\nordering me to investigate the alleged incident to prove it didn\u2019t happen. I replied<br \/>\nthat he should give that careful thought because it might create a narrative that we<br \/>\nwere investigating him personally, which we weren\u2019t, and because it was very<br \/>\ndifficult to prove a negative. He said he would think about it and asked me to<br \/>\nthink about it.<\/p>\n<p>As was my practice for conversations with President Trump, I wrote a<br \/>\ndetailed memo about the dinner immediately afterwards and shared it with the<br \/>\nsenior leadership team of the FBI.<\/p>\n<p>February 14 Oval Office Meeting<br \/>\nOn February 14, I went to the Oval Office for a scheduled counterterrorism<br \/>\nbriefing of the President. He sat behind the desk and a group of us sat in<br \/>\na semi-circle of about six chairs facing him on the other side of the desk. The<br \/>\nVice President, Deputy Director of the CIA, Director of the National Counter-<br \/>\nTerrorism Center, Secretary of Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and I<br \/>\nwere in the semi-circle of chairs. I was directly facing the President, sitting<br \/>\nbetween the Deputy CIA Director and the Director of NCTC. There were quite a<br \/>\nfew others in the room, sitting behind us on couches and chairs.<\/p>\n<p>The President signaled the end of the briefing by thanking the group and<br \/>\ntelling them all that he wanted to speak to me alone. I stayed in my chair. As the<br \/>\nparticipants started to leave the Oval Office, the Attorney General lingered by my<br \/>\nchair, but the President thanked him and said he wanted to speak only with me.<br \/>\nThe last person to leave was Jared Kushner, who also stood by my chair and<br \/>\nexchanged pleasantries with me. The President then excused him, saying he<br \/>\nwanted to speak with me.<\/p>\n<p>When the door by the grandfather clock closed, and we were alone, the<br \/>\nPresident began by saying, \u201cI want to talk about Mike Flynn.\u201d Flynn had resigned<br \/>\nthe previous day. The President began by saying Flynn hadn\u2019t done anything<br \/>\nwrong in speaking with the Russians, but he had to let him go because he had<br \/>\nmisled the Vice President. He added that he had other concerns about Flynn,<br \/>\nwhich he did not then specify.<\/p>\n<p>The President then made a long series of comments about the problem with<br \/>\nleaks of classified information \u2013 a concern I shared and still share. After he had<br \/>\nspoken for a few minutes about leaks, Reince Priebus leaned in through the door<br \/>\nby the grandfather clock and I could see a group of people waiting behind him.<br \/>\nThe President waved at him to close the door, saying he would be done shortly.<br \/>\nThe door closed.<\/p>\n<p>The President then returned to the topic of Mike Flynn, saying, \u201cHe is a<br \/>\ngood guy and has been through a lot.\u201d He repeated that Flynn hadn\u2019t done<br \/>\nanything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but had misled the Vice President.<br \/>\nHe then said, \u201cI hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn<br \/>\ngo. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.\u201d I replied only that \u201che is a good<br \/>\nguy.\u201d (In fact, I had a positive experience dealing with Mike Flynn when he was a<br \/>\ncolleague as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the beginning of my<br \/>\nterm at FBI.) I did not say I would \u201clet this go.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The President returned briefly to the problem of leaks. I then got up and<br \/>\nleft out the door by the grandfather clock, making my way through the large group<br \/>\nof people waiting there, including Mr. Priebus and the Vice President.<\/p>\n<p>I immediately prepared an unclassified memo of the conversation about<br \/>\nFlynn and discussed the matter with FBI senior leadership. I had understood the<br \/>\nPresident to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection<br \/>\nwith false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in<br \/>\nDecember. I did not understand the President to be talking about the broader<br \/>\ninvestigation into Russia or possible links to his campaign. I could be wrong, but I<br \/>\ntook him to be focusing on what had just happened with Flynn\u2019s departure and the<br \/>\ncontroversy around his account of his phone calls. Regardless, it was very<br \/>\nconcerning, given the FBI\u2019s role as an independent investigative agency.<\/p>\n<p>The FBI leadership team agreed with me that it was important not to infect<br \/>\nthe investigative team with the President\u2019s request, which we did not intend to<br \/>\nabide. We also concluded that, given that it was a one-on-one conversation, there<br \/>\nwas nothing available to corroborate my account. We concluded it made little<br \/>\nsense to report it to Attorney General Sessions, who we expected would likely<br \/>\nrecuse himself from involvement in Russia-related investigations. (He did so two<br \/>\nweeks later.) The Deputy Attorney General\u2019s role was then filled in an acting<br \/>\ncapacity by a United States Attorney, who would also not be long in the role.<\/p>\n<p>After discussing the matter, we decided to keep it very closely held, resolving to<br \/>\nfigure out what to do with it down the road as our investigation progressed. The<br \/>\ninvestigation moved ahead at full speed, with none of the investigative team<br \/>\nmembers \u2013 or the Department of Justice lawyers supporting them \u2013 aware of the<br \/>\nPresident\u2019s request.<\/p>\n<p>Shortly afterwards, I spoke with Attorney General Sessions in person to<br \/>\npass along the President\u2019s concerns about leaks. I took the opportunity to implore<br \/>\nthe Attorney General to prevent any future direct communication between the<br \/>\nPresident and me. I told the AG that what had just happened \u2013 him being asked to<br \/>\nleave while the FBI Director, who reports to the AG, remained behind \u2013 was<br \/>\ninappropriate and should never happen. He did not reply. For the reasons<br \/>\ndiscussed above, I did not mention that the President broached the FBI\u2019s potential<br \/>\ninvestigation of General Flynn.<\/p>\n<p>March 30 Phone Call<br \/>\nOn the morning of March 30, the President called me at the FBI. He<br \/>\ndescribed the Russia investigation as \u201ca cloud\u201d that was impairing his ability to act<br \/>\non behalf of the country. He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been<br \/>\ninvolved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded<br \/>\nwhen in Russia. He asked what we could do to \u201clift the cloud.\u201d I responded that<br \/>\nwe were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be<br \/>\ngreat benefit, if we didn\u2019t find anything, to our having done the work well. He<br \/>\nagreed, but then re-emphasized the problems this was causing him.<\/p>\n<p>Then the President asked why there had been a congressional hearing about<br \/>\nRussia the previous week \u2013 at which I had, as the Department of Justice directed,<br \/>\nconfirmed the investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the<br \/>\nTrump campaign. I explained the demands from the leadership of both parties in<br \/>\nCongress for more information, and that Senator Grassley had even held up the<br \/>\nconfirmation of the Deputy Attorney General until we briefed him in detail on the<br \/>\ninvestigation. I explained that we had briefed the leadership of Congress on<br \/>\nexactly which individuals we were investigating and that we had told those<br \/>\nCongressional leaders that we were not personally investigating President Trump.<br \/>\nI reminded him I had previously told him that. He repeatedly told me, \u201cWe need<br \/>\nto get that fact out.\u201d (I did not tell the President that the FBI and the Department<br \/>\nof Justice had been reluctant to make public statements that we did not have an<br \/>\nopen case on President Trump for a number of reasons, most importantly because<br \/>\nit would create a duty to correct, should that change.)<\/p>\n<p>The President went on to say that if there were some \u201csatellite\u201d associates<br \/>\nof his who did something wrong, it would be good to find that out, but that he<br \/>\nhadn\u2019t done anything wrong and hoped I would find a way to get it out that we<br \/>\nweren\u2019t investigating him.<\/p>\n<p>In an abrupt shift, he turned the conversation to FBI Deputy Director<br \/>\nAndrew McCabe, saying he hadn\u2019t brought up \u201cthe McCabe thing\u201d because I had<br \/>\nsaid McCabe was honorable, although McAuliffe was close to the Clintons and<br \/>\nhad given him (I think he meant Deputy Director McCabe\u2019s wife) campaign<br \/>\nmoney. Although I didn\u2019t understand why the President was bringing this up, I<br \/>\nrepeated that Mr. McCabe was an honorable person.<\/p>\n<p>He finished by stressing \u201cthe cloud\u201d that was interfering with his ability to<br \/>\nmake deals for the country and said he hoped I could find a way to get out that he<br \/>\nwasn\u2019t being investigated. I told him I would see what we could do, and that we<br \/>\nwould do our investigative work well and as quickly as we could.<\/p>\n<p>Immediately after that conversation, I called Acting Deputy Attorney<br \/>\nGeneral Dana Boente (AG Sessions had by then recused himself on all Russiarelated<br \/>\nmatters), to report the substance of the call from the President, and said I<br \/>\nwould await his guidance. I did not hear back from him before the President<br \/>\ncalled me again two weeks later.<\/p>\n<p>April 11 Phone Call<br \/>\nOn the morning of April 11, the President called me and asked what I had<br \/>\ndone about his request that I \u201cget out\u201d that he is not personally under investigation.<br \/>\nI replied that I had passed his request to the Acting Deputy Attorney General, but I<br \/>\nhad not heard back. He replied that \u201cthe cloud\u201d was getting in the way of his<br \/>\nability to do his job. He said that perhaps he would have his people reach out to<br \/>\nthe Acting Deputy Attorney General. I said that was the way his request should be<br \/>\nhandled. I said the White House Counsel should contact the leadership of DOJ to<br \/>\nmake the request, which was the traditional channel.<\/p>\n<p>He said he would do that and added, \u201cBecause I have been very loyal to<br \/>\nyou, very loyal; we had that thing you know.\u201d I did not reply or ask him what he<br \/>\nmeant by \u201cthat thing.\u201d I said only that the way to handle it was to have the White<br \/>\nHouse Counsel call the Acting Deputy Attorney General. He said that was what<br \/>\nhe would do and the call ended.<\/p>\n<p>That was the last time I spoke with President Trump.<br \/>\n# # #<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC&#8230;The following was released today ahead of the former FBI Director&#8217;s testimony tomorrow before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Chairman Burr, Ranking Member Warner, Members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. I was asked to testify today to describe for you my interactions with President-Elect and President Trump [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-government","category-news","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/seanateintelcommunity.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}