Pressure to Release Comey Memos May Have Backfired on GOP

Comey went on to say that Trump had a “corrosive” and “staining” effect on his employees, and the nation as a whole.

Trump shot back that sending that message may involve jailing reporters.

Comey said that he assumed Trump was referring to his previous pledge for loyalty before his inauguration, where Comey responded he would provide “honesty”, and Trump responded, “honest loyalty”.

President Donald Trump questioned the judgment of his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, according to memos written by former FBI Director James Comey that were published Thursday evening.

But Mukasey refuted Mulroy’s claims, telling Ingraham, “I think we ought to put to rest something that one of your last guests said on the last segment about how, ‘Well, the memos weren’t marked classified at the time‘”.

But, in a nod to criticisms in the media that Comey has been more interested in promoting himself rather than serving the interests of the country, the GOP lawmakers said Comey ignored the central issue of whether Trump obstructed or threatened him in favor of frivolous details.

The revelation disproves the narrative that President Trump had sought to abuse his power to end the investigation.

“By leaking two classified memos for political purposes, Comey will have a hard time demonstrating that his actions were lawful”.

Comey, however, has said McCabe did not acknowledge having done so and left the impression that he didn’t know who had shared the information with the journalist.

The 15 pages of documents contain new details about a series of interactions with Trump that Comey found so unnerving that he chose to document them in writing.

Here Comey’s moral posturing falters as he weakly argues the investigation was in its early days, and that it wasn’t wise to put Americans’ faith in the electoral process in doubt.

At some point in the 1 hour and 20 minute encounter, the matter of paying Russian women for lewd acts was picked up and returned to.

“This president is unethical, and untethered to truth and institutional values”, Comey said in the book due out Tuesday, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters.

Mr Flynn was sacked a month later after White House officials said he had misled about his Russian contacts during the transition period.

In the same conversation, Trump also suggested he would sue Christopher Steele, the British ex-intelligence officer who wrote the dossier, although he never did so. “I don’t know what to make of it, but he clearly noticed I had directly criticized him”.

Soon after, Comey was again at the White House for another meeting. The information was marked confidential, the lowest category of classified information, another person said.

Trump has denied any collusion and has called Mueller’s investigation a witch hunt.

The Times reported at the time that Trump was irritated at Flynn for delaying such a call with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russian Federation.

After Comey’s dismissal from office by the president in May of previous year, he purposefully leaked one of his memos to the media in a bid to prompt a special counsel investigation.

Mr Comey said in an interview on Thursday with CNN that he’s “fine” with the Justice Department turning his memos over to Congress.

In an offshoot of the Mueller probe, Trump’s longtime personal lawyer’s office and home were raided by the Federal Bureau on Investigation on Monday.