Breaking: Comey's opening statement posted

Comey's statement is out on the Senate intelligence committee website.

  • On Jan 6, Comey briefed Trump on a salacious and unverified report about Russian efforts to undermine the election
  • The President expressed his disgust for the allegations and strongly denied them
  • Comey says FBI wasn't investigating Trump personally
  • Told Trump they didn't have an open counter-intelligence case on him on Jan 6
  • Had one-on-one dinner with President on Jan 27
  • On Feb 14 asked others to leave the pair alone and 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."
  • Flynn says he understood the President to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December
  • Later asked Attorney General Sessions that he didn't want to be left alone with President. Sessions didn't reply
  • On April 11, Trump added, "Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know." Comey says he did not reply or ask him what he meant by "that thing."
  • Comey was fired May 9

This is the juicy bit:

The President began by asking me whether I wanted to stay on as FBI Director, which I found strange because he had already told me twice in earlier conversations that he hoped I would stay, and I had assured him that I intended to. He said that lots of people wanted my job and, given the abuse I had taken during the previous year, he would understand if I wanted to walk away. My instincts told me that the one-on-one setting, and the pretense that this was our first discussion about my position, meant the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship. That concerned me greatly, given the FBI's traditionally independent status in the executive branch.

I replied that I loved my work and intended to stay and serve out my ten-year term as Director. And then, because the set-up made me uneasy, I added that I was not "reliable" in the way politicians use that word, but he could always count on me to tell him the truth. I added that I was not on anybody's side politically and could not be counted on in the traditional political sense, a stance I said was in his best interest as the President.

A few moments later, the President said, "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty." I didn't move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence. The conversation then moved on.

There's nothing here that we haven't heard before or is particularly damaging.