Former FBI Director James Comey agreed to meet behind closed doors with the joint House Oversight and Government Reform and Judiciary committee on Friday on the condition a transcript of that interview be made publicly available within 24 hours.
The transcript, available Saturday, contains some interesting information.
First, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) objects to having to abide by the committee's agreement not to leak Comey's testimony before the interview is complete.
Mr. Gaetz. Matt Gaetz from Florida. I wanted to state that I was not a party to any such agreement and don't consider myself bound by it. I also don't know of any provision in the Constitution, the rules of the House, or any Federal law that would prohibit members of the committee from engaging in free speech, debate, and opining at any time.
His colleagues encourage him to honor the committee's commitment.
After some discussion about Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, their text messages, and the Clinton email investigation, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) asks the first questions about the Russia investigation.
Mr. Gowdy. What was the Russia investigation? When you hear the phrase "Russia investigation," what do you think?
Mr. Comey. To my mind, the term "Russia investigation" often refers to two different things: First, the investigation to understand what are the Russians doing to interfere in our election during the 2015-16 period; and then, second, it's often used to refer to the counterintelligence investigations that the FBI opened in late July.
And so I hear it used interchangeably there, and those two things obviously connect, but I've always thought of it in two separate elements.
Mr. Gowdy. Okay. We'll go with that. Late July of 2016, the FBI did, in fact, open a counterintelligence investigation into, is it fair to say the Trump campaign or Donald Trump himself?
Mr. Comey. It's not fair to say either of those things, in my recollection. We opened investigations on four Americans to see if there was any connection between those four Americans and the Russian interference effort. And those four Americans did not include the candidate.
Comey indicates there are several questions he cannot answer because of the ongoing special counsel's investigation, including the names of those four Americans.
Mr. Gowdy. Do you believe your firing is evidence of obstruction of justice?
Mr. Comey. I don't know that I can answer that question because I'm not -- because I'm a witness, in a sense. I don't know the universe of facts that would reflect on that, so I can't answer it.
Gowdy asks Comey to weigh in on the legitimacy of the memo Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein wrote that President Trump used as a pretext for firing Comey before admitting to Lester Holt on national television that he fired Comey because of the Russia probe. Comey explains he cannot get into the mind either of Rosenstein or Trump and, therefore, cannot speak to their motives.
The subsequent GOP line of questioning focuses almost entirely on the Clinton email investigation.
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) brings it back to the Russia probe, and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, allows Comey the chance to address several issues, including whether he and Robert Mueller are best friends as the president repeatedly has alleged.
Mr. Cohen. All right. Despite the emails between Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page, was there anything you ever saw that you believe caused the FBI or the Justice Department, particularly the FBI, to not operate and investigate in an unbiased fashion?
Mr. Comey. No, I never saw -- and in those two people's cases -- I never saw any indication at all of bias by Mr. Strzok or Ms. Page. And, in fact, Peter Strzok helped draft my letter to Congress on October 28th that Hillary Clinton blames for her defeat. So it's hard for me to see how he was on Team Clinton secretly at that point in time. And he also was one of the handful of people in the entire world who knew we were investigating four Americans who had some connection to Mr. Trump during the summer of 2016, and he didn't tell a soul. So it's hard to reconcile that with his being on Team Clinton.
And so all of that is consistent with my view, I never saw any indication of anything but the facts and the law from those people.
Mr. Nadler. How would you characterize the special counsel investigation and its importance, not only to our national security, but as a means of restoring public confidence in our elections and law enforcement agencies?
Mr. Comey. Watching it from the outside, my judgment as an experienced prosecutor and investigator is it's been conducted with extraordinary speed, with extraordinary professionalism, and zero disclosure outside of public court filings. It represents the way our criminal justice system is supposed to work in investigating, and I believe it's incredibly important to the rule of law in this country that the work be allowed to finish.
Mr. Nadler. Now, you may have answered this already, but one specific assertion is that you and Special Counsel Mueller are, quote, "best friends."
On September 5th, President Trump brought up Special Counsel Mueller in an interview with The Daily Caller stating, quote: And he's Comey's best friend, and I could give you a hundred pictures of him and Comey hugging and kissing each other. You know he's Comey's best friend, close quote.
Are you best friends with Robert Mueller?
Mr. Comey. I am not. I admire the heck out of the man, but I don't know his phone number, I've never been to his house, I don't know his children's names. I think I had a meal once alone with him in a restaurant. I like him. I am not a -- I'm an associate of his who admires him greatly. We're not friends in any social sense.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you. I will not ask whether you've ever hugged and kissed him.
Mr. Comey. A relief to my wife.
Mr. Nadler. And how confident are you that he will do things the right way with respect to the special counsel investigation?
Mr. Comey. There are not many things I would bet my life on. I would bet my life that Bob Mueller will do things the right way, the way we would all want, whether we're Republicans or Democrats, the way Americans should want.
Mr. Nadler. And is it fair to say that there are no facts that you know of to support the notion that Special Counsel Mueller is politically motivated or biased?
Mr. Comey. I don't know of any. I'm smiling at this moment because I can't imagine any, given the nature of that person and his life.
Mr. Nadler. And it's still accurate that you're not particularly close to Robert Mueller?
Mr. Comey. It is accurate.
Mr. Nadler. On October 17th, the FBI responded to a Freedom of Information Act request for, quote, "photographs of former FBI Director James Comey and Robert Mueller hugging and kissing each other," by saying "no responsive records were located."
I assume you're not aware of any such photographs?
Mr. Comey. I'm not aware of any such photograph. I have never hugged or kissed the man. Again, I'm an admirer but not that kind of admirer.
Mr. Nadler. And you have previously noted, I believe, that if Agent Strzok, who had expressed his personal political opinions negatively about then-candidate Trump, had wanted to misuse his office to damage the Trump campaign, he could easily have done so by leaking information about the fact that there was an ongoing investigation. Is that not correct?
Mr. Comey. Certainly, yes.
Mr. Nadler. And he could have done that, but he did not do that?
Mr. Comey. He did not.
Mr. Nadler. That would be evidence that he was not doing anything to bring his political opinions into making judgments at the FBI?
Mr. Comey. Certainly inconsistent with the conspiracy theory that he was trying to hurt Donald Trump.
On page 86, Comey explains to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), ranking member of the Oversight Committee, the significance of the Russia investigation.
Mr. Cummings. If someone were to impede or prematurely halt the special counsel's Russia investigation, how severe would the implications be to our national security, in your opinion?
Mr. Comey. Well, in my opinion, it would undermine our national security by not holding accountable people who might have been involved in either the Russians or people who worked with them, first. And second, it would send an absolutely appalling message about the rule of law in this country of ours.
Mr. Cummings. And would there also be severe implications for our democracy and the rule of law?
Mr. Comey. Yes. The Russians' goal was for everyone in the world to have doubt about the nature and credibility of the American democracy, to dirty it up so it's not a shining city on the hill. So their attack had implications for that, the role of the American democratic experiment. And if someone were to order it stopped, the investigation into that, it would have a similar effect.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): Director Comey, do you agree with Mr. Baker that the initial allegation in the FBI's counterintelligence operation into the Trump campaign's potential coordination with the Russian Government, quote/unquote, had nothing to do with the Steele dossier?
Mr. Comey. Yes. That's correct.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And do you agree the initial allegation was actually related to information that George Papadopolous conveyed? Mr. Comey. That he conveyed to a diplomat that was then conveyed to the U.S. several months after he first conveyed it, yes.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Thank you.
On pages 152-154, Krishnamoorthi asks Comey about the suspicion that someone in the FBI was, and may still be, leaking information to Rudy Giuliani.
How concerned were you about leaks from the New York field office to Rudy Giuliani or other media personalities in 2016?
Mr. Comey. I was concerned that there appeared to be in the media a number of stories that might have been based on communications reporters or nonreporters like Rudy Giuliani were having with people in the New York field office. In particular, in I want to say mid October, maybe a little bit later, Mr. Giuliani was making statements that appeared to be based on his knowledge of workings inside the FBI New York. And then my recollection is there were other stories that were in the same ballpark that gave me a general concern that we may have a leak problem -- unauthorized disclosure problem out of New York, and so I asked that it be investigated.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Oh, okay. So the investigation began at some point after you asked for the investigation to start?
Mr. Comey. I think sometime in October, maybe they didn't get going on it until November, an effort led by our internal affairs component, as I understand it, began to try and understand, do we have leaks and what are they?
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And to your knowledge, has anyone been held accountable for these purported leaks?
Mr. Comey. Not to my knowledge. The investigation ultimately led to disciplining of FBI Deputy Director McCabe because the investigation turned up communications that he had apparently authorized about a pending investigation of the Clinton Foundation, but I don't know beyond that.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. How about anything related to the New York field office?
Mr. Comey. I don't -- I never got a report out on that before I was fired.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. I see. Okay. Here's the concern, Director Comey. If no one's been held accountable, especially from the New York field office, and if there are leaks from the New York field office to potentially people like Rudy Giuliani, who's the current lawyer for the President, then they have an active window into the investigation of them, and that's why I think a lot of people are concerned about whether that investigation concluded or not.
Who would we talk to about this particular issue if we wanted to learn the status of that investigation?
Mr. Comey. Well, the FBI, whoever you normally talk to there, would be the place to start. I don't know whether they're in a position to comment or not. I don't know what its status was when I was fired in May.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Got it.
Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL): Mr. Comey, was the FBI's investigation into Russian interference and potential coordination with the Trump campaign started by a fraudulent dossier?
Mr. Comey. It was not.
Mr. Deutch. Can you explain how you know that?
Mr. Comey. Because I know what the basis was for starting the investigation. It was the information we'd received about a conversation that a Trump foreign -- campaign foreign policy adviser had with an individual in London about stolen emails that the Russians had that would be harmful to Hillary Clinton. It was weeks or months later that the so-called Steele dossier came to our attention.
Mr. Deutch. Was there anything illegal or improper about the way the FBI started the Trump-Russia investigation?
Mr. Comey. No. And, in fact, I would hope that Republicans and Democrats would agree that we would have been derelict not to investigate.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD): Can you just elaborate on why that was the first thing that came into your mind, this comparison to a made boss ceremony for La Cosa Nostra?
Mr. Comey. It was an impression that kept popping into my head when I interacted with President Trump, and particularly it started when I watched him interact as President-elect that first week of January at Trump Tower, and I kept trying to push it away because it seemed too dramatic. But his leadership style -- I'm not trying to suggest he's out robbing banks -- but his leadership style reminded me of that of a mafia boss, of a Cosa Nostra boss, because it's all about me, what you can do for me, it's all about your loyalty to me. It's not about any higher values or institutional values. It's about how are you feeding me the boss, how are you taking care of me the boss.
Mr. Raskin. And that was novel to your experience in terms of dealing with Presidents of the United States?
Mr. Comey. Correct. I dealt closely with three, and this was the first time I'd had that reaction.
Comey sat down with Nicolle Wallace for an interview in New York on Sunday night and offered his thoughts on recent developments concerning Michael Cohen and the president.
If Trump is not yet an unindicted co-conspirator to charges already filed by the special counsel and federal prosecutors against former Trump associates, “he’s certainly close,” Comey told ... Wallace...
(...)
The government for the first time Friday sponsored the account that Trump directed Cohen to commit a crime in making payments to women accusing him of affairs, Comey said.
Asked what would happen typically to someone identified in such a way, Comey said, “That person would be in serious jeopardy of being charged.”
“The government wouldn’t make that sponsoring allegation if they weren’t seriously contemplating going forward with criminal charges. Now where it stands now, I can’t say,” he said.
(...)
Comey offered new insight into the circumstances that ultimately led Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, to plead guilty to lying to federal investigators, and to Trump’s state of mind as he was briefed about Russian meddling into the election.
He expressed his disbelief at how Trump and his transition team reacted to a briefing about Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. And Comey said bluntly that he took a chance early in the new administration by sending agents to interview Flynn without first negotiating with the White House counsel. In those interviews, Flynn lied about his interactions with then-Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak.
Days later, Trump seemed “distracted,” Comey said, adding that he took it as a personal direction during a private conversation with the president for Comey to show leniency toward Flynn — which he soon documented in a memorandum to his closest aides.
Comey says there's 'obviously' evidence Trump obstructed justice in 2017 talk about Flynn (NBC News)
Comey calls on Americans to 'use every breath we have' to oust Trump in 2020 (CNN)