James Comey admits that he leaked the Trump memo
Former FBI Director James Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he personally leaked to a reporter a memo he kept regarding the detailed and private conversation he had with President Trump.
Comey admitted that leak after Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, asked him why he kept those memos, asking if he ever shared any of them outside the Department of Justice.
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“…the 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 a tape. My judgment was, I need to get that out into the public square. 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. I asked him to because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel. I asked a close friend to do it.”
The New York Times ended up getting the story about Comey’s memo, which said Trump had encouraged Comey to drop the FBI’s investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
“Encouraged” appears to be the tricky word since Trump was never under investigation.
Comey said he gave the memo to a friend of his who is a professor of law at Columbia Law School.
Daniel C. Richman confirmed to the Washington Examiner that he was Comey’s friend at Columbia. He has been referred to in the New York Times as a “longtime confidant and friend of Mr. Comey’s,” and his bio at Columbia’s website lists him as an “adviser to FBI Director James B. Comey.”
Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) touched on the issue again, asking “Finally, the president tweeted that James Comey better hope there are no tapes of our conversations before they start leaking to the press. Was that a rather unsubtle attempt to intimidate you from testifying and intimidate anyone who seriously crosses his path from doing it?”
Comey responded: “I’m not going to sit here and try to attempts the president’s tweets. To me, it’s major impact. It occurred in the middle of the night, holy cow, there might be tapes. If there’s tapes it’s not just my word against him on the direction to get rid of the Flynn investigation.”
Check out the full transcript HERE
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