WASHINGTON (AP) — Contradicting previous White House explanations, President Donald Trump declared Thursday he had planned to fire FBI Director James Comey all along, regardless of whether top Justice Department officials recommended the stunning step. His assertions came as Comey’s temporary replacement joined in, contradicting other administration statements on the snowballing controversy.
In an interview with NBC News, Trump also said he’d asked Comey point-blank if he was under investigation and was assured three times he was not. Trump showed no concern that the request might be viewed as interference in an active FBI probe into his 2016 campaign’s possible ties to Russia’s election meddling.
“I said, ‘If it’s possible, would you let me know am I under investigation?’ He said you are not under investigation,” Trump told NBC. He said the discussions happened in two phone calls and at a dinner in which Comey was asking to keep his job.
Comey has not confirmed Trump’s account.
The New York Times late Thursday cited two unnamed Comey associates who recounted his tale of a January dinner with the president in which Trump asked for a pledge of loyalty. Comey declined, instead offering “honesty.” When Trump then pressed for “honest loyalty,” Comey told the president, “you will have that,” said the associates, who told the newspaper they agreed to keep the story confidential while Comey was FBI director.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders disputed the report and said the president would “never even suggest the expectation of personal loyalty.”
But the account echoed wording in a comment made a day earlier to The Associated Press by longtime Comey friend Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor, who said the president had removed “somebody unwilling to pledge absolute loyalty to him.”
The White House initially cited a Justice Department memo criticizing Comey’s handling of last year’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails as the impetus for Trump’s decision. But Trump on Thursday acknowledged for the first time that the Russia investigation — which he dismissed as a “made-up story” — was also on his mind as he ousted the man overseeing the probe.
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