“It’s true. All of it.” — Han Solo (and James Comey, basically) .
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One day before James Comey’s hugely anticipated testimony, a committee released the former FBI director’s statement detailing his chats with President Trump. You can read the whole thing here, and you should.
Comey confirms that Trump requested his loyalty, as previously reported by news outlets, and that Trump asked the then-director to drop an investigation into ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn, as previously reported by news outlets.
In short, Comey said the anonymously sourced stories on Trump and Russia —the sort Trump has decried as #FakeNews on multiple occasions — are true. Comey testifies at 10 a.m. Eastern time on Thursday, and we have your full viewing guide here. Trump may even comment live on Comey’s testimony via tweets. Or, as Comey might call them, #FakeTweets.
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We’re not going to say Trump sounds like a mafia boss in Comey’s seven-page statement, but he doesn’t not sound like a mafia boss, either. “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty, ” Trump said, per Comey, at a Jan. 27 dinner between just the two of them. That made it weird, according to Comey.
“I didn’ t move, speak or change my facial expression any way during the awkward silence that followed, ” he says.
Comey describes the dinner as “at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship.”
One bright spot for Trump: The statement confirms Trump’s assertion that Comey told the president multiple times that he wasn’t the subject of the FBI’s Russia inquiry, a bit Trump’s attorney said makes him feel “completely and totally vindicated.”
The memo is extensively detailed — a grandfather clock in the Oval Office is noted multiple times — and hints at the meticulous records Comey said he began keeping after his meetings with Trump. In one call with the president, Comey recounts how Trump asked him how they might “lift the cloud” of the ongoing Russia investigation tied to his associates.
Again, just read the whole thing. And tune in tomorrow.
The Trump Organization profited off of a charity golf tournament aimed at benefitting kids cancer research, according to Forbes. The total costs of an annual tournament at the Trump National Golf Club in New York’s Westchester County began at about $50,000 before ballooning to $322,000 by 2015, according to Forbes.
Eric Trump said his foundation used the course “free of charge, ” but Forbes found that the family’s conglomerate actually was paid, “part of more than $1.2 million that has no documented recipients past the Trump Organization.”
Also this week: Eric Trump said that Democrats are ” not even people .” The comment came in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, as Trump lamented the state of political discourse in the nation.
“Morals have flown out the window, ” said Trump, whose father, the president, once bragged about groping women aboard an “Access Hollywood” bus.
The heads of the NSA and national intelligence both told senators Wednesday that they never felt “pressured” to interfere with the Russia investigation. And that’s about all they said.
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers declined to say much on the matter before the Senate Intelligence Committee, alongside Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Coats and Rogers refused to say whether Trump asked them to downplay any Trump-Russia ties. McCabe refused to answer questions about Comey and Trump, and Rosenstein refused to discuss Comey’s firing. Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia later said he left the hearing “with more questions than when I went in.”
