Ex-FBI agent James Comey said President Donald Trump asked him to shut down the investigation into former National Security Advisor Gen. Mike Flynn.
“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Trump allegedly told Flynn. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”
The memo was “leaked” to the New York Times, which stated Comey wrote “detailed” memos about every conversation he had with Trump over the phone or in person.
Comey reportedly shared the memo with “senior officials” at the FBI. It isn’t clear when Comey shared the memo with senior officials — before or after he was fired on May 9.
White House aides denied the allegations on Tuesday. “This is not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation between the president and Mr. Comey,” they said, adding that Trump never asked Comey to shut down the investigation.
White House aides also pointed to a statement from acting F.B.I. director Andrew G. McCabe who testified under oath before the Senate that there was no effort on the president’s part to impede the Russian investigation.
After Comey was fired, he refused to testify before a Senate hearing investigating Russian ties to the Trump administration.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr doubted the veracity of the NY Times story.
“I actually believe the director might have told us that there’d been a request like that and it was never mentioned by him,” Burr told reporters. “So somebody’s going to have to do more than have anonymous sources on this one for me to believe that there’s something there.”
Even Trump’s critics cast doubt on the leaked memo.
“I’m not going to opine about a memo,” Sen. Lindsay Graham said late Tuesday. “We’re not going to try somebody on a piece of paper.”
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