Update | Trump asked then FBI chief James Comey to halt investigation into ‘good guy’ Flynn: memo
The memo written by Comey, read aloud by one of his associates, is reportedly part of a ‘paper trail’ he kept to document efforts by Trump to influence investigation of Russia links
US President Donald Trump tried to shut down the FBI investigation into his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, according to reports in the New York Times and Washington Post, the latest in a series of controversies related to connections between associates of the president and Russian officials.
The reports are based on a memo written in February by James Comey, who was FBI director until Trump fired him last week. “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,” the reports cited Trump as telling Comey, based on accounts of people who had seen the memo.
The Times and the Post said the memo was written following a February meeting Comey had with the president in the Oval Office. The Times, which was the first to report on the memo, said it was read aloud by an associate of Comey.
But the Times reported that the memo was part of a “paper trail” that Comey created to document what he believed were the president’s improper efforts to influence the FBI’s investigations. The Post said the memo was two pages long and highly detailed.
According to the Times’ account of the meeting, other officials including Attorney General Jeff Sessions were initially in the room with Trump and Comey as they discussed other matters. But Trump then asked everyone except Comey to leave the room.
It was then that Trump asked Comey to halt the Flynn investigation, according to the Times, which said Comey wrote the memo immediately after the meeting concluded. An FBI agent’s contemporaneous notes are widely regarded as credible evidence of conversations in court proceedings, the report noted.
The Republican chairman of the House oversight committee, Representative Jason Chaffetz, said he would seek copies of any memos Comey wrote about his meetings with Trump.
He said in a tweet that he has his “subpoena pen ready.”
We’re going to keep doing our jobs, we’re going to keep passing our bills, we’re going to keep doing our reforms
Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer meanwhile said “history is watching” and “the country is being tested in unprecedented ways”. Schumer said in a brief, sombre floor speech Tuesday that he was “shaken” by the report that Trump asked Comey “to shut down an active investigation into a close political associate.”
House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Wednesday that lawmakers must “follow the facts wherever they lead” on President Donald Trump and Russian meddling in the election, adding that he still has full confidence in the president.
“Now is the time to gather all the pertinent information,” Ryan told reporters on Tuesday after a private meeting of House Republicans. “Our job is to be responsible, sober and focus only on gathering the facts.”
He said he wants to hear from fired FBI Director James Comey about why Comey didn’t take action immediately after a private meeting with Trump, if his allegation that the president asked him to drop the investigation of Flynn is true.
The speaker also sought to project a business-as-usual attitude as he and other House Republican leaders talked about national police week and their plans to overhaul the US tax code.
“We’re going to keep doing our jobs, we’re going to keep passing our bills, we’re going to keep doing our reforms,” Ryan 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
Trump fired Flynn for misrepresenting conversations he had with Kislyak after Trump won the 2016 presidential election. The dismissal followed a Washington Post report revealing that former acting attorney general Sally Yates, who was also fired by Trump, warned White House officials weeks earlier that Flynn’s misrepresentations left him vulnerable to blackmail by the Kremlin.
Trump has faced continued criticism for not firing Flynn immediately after Yates issued her warning, with many opponents alleging that he wouldn’t have acted if the media hadn’t brought Yates’ warning to light. Yates was fired by Trump in January for refusing to enforce an executive order on immigration and refugees, which eventually was blocked by US courts.
The Trump administration was already under fire before reports of the president’s attempts to end the FBI’s investigation emerged. Press Secretary Sean Spicer and US national security adviser H.R. McMaster had appeared before reporters, defending Trump’s decision to share sensitive information about Islamic State operations in the Middle East with Russian officials last week, a day after he fired Comey.
Frustration from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle had been building up since Trump fired Comey because the justification first offered by the administration – that it was done on the recommendation of the Department of Justice – conflicted with subsequent explanations by Trump himself in interviews and tweets, in which he said he had already decided to fire Comey and would have done so regardless of the department’s recommendations.
Throughout, Trump couldn’t shake allegations that he fired Comey to slow down or halt FBI investigations into connections between Flynn and other Trump associates and Russian officials before and after the 2016 US presidential election. The US intelligence community, including the FBI and the CIA have concluded that Russia launched a concerted effort to sway the election’s result in Trump’s favour.
More recently, allegations that the information Trump shared with the Russians after firing Comey could compromise intelligence officials operating in the Middle East and jeopardise ties with US allies, have prompted members of Trump’s own party to question the president.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a Bloomberg TV interview that he wished for “a little less drama from the White House”. Senator Robert Corker, also a Republican, was quoted in the media as saying Trump and his team are “in a downward spiral right now and have got to figure out a way to come to grips with all that’s happening”.
The Comey memo raises new questions about whether Trump may have crossed any legal lines into criminal behaviour by pressuring the FBI to end an investigation.
“There’s definitely a case to be made for obstruction,” said Barak Cohen, a former federal prosecutor who now does white collar defence work at the Perkins Coie law firm. “But on the other hand you have to realise that - as with any other sort of criminal law - intent is key, and intent here can be difficult to prove.”
Additional reporting by Associated Press, The Washington Post, Bloomberg
