President Trump reportedly asked former FBI Director James Comey to end the investigation into ousted National Security Adviser Michael Flynn just one day after Flynn resigned, The New York Times reported Tuesday. Comey apparently wrote a memo about the exchange immediately after speaking with Trump in mid-February.
Comey apparently created "similar memos" for every phone call and meeting he had with the president, the Times reports. His account of the mid-February conversation about Flynn reportedly indicates Trump explicitly sought to meddle in an FBI investigation:
The existence of Mr. Trump's request is the clearest evidence that the president has tried to directly influence the Justice Department and FBI investigation into links between Mr. Trump's associates and Russia.
Mr. Comey wrote the memo detailing his conversation with the president immediately after the meeting, which took place the day after Mr. Flynn resigned, according to two people who read the memo. The memo was part of a paper trail Mr. Comey created documenting what he perceived as the president's improper efforts to influence an ongoing investigation. An FBI agent's contemporaneous notes are widely held up in court as credible evidence of conversations.
[...] "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go," Mr. Trump told Mr. Comey, according to the memo. "He is a good guy." [The New York Times]
Comey apparently did not respond to Trump's request, only agreeing that Flynn "is a good guy," per his memo. The New York Times did not view the memo, which is not classified; an "associate" of Comey's read parts of the document aloud to a Times reporter.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The White House denied the report, saying, "The president has never asked Mr. Comey or anyone else to end any investigation." An FBI spokesman declined to comment to the Times. Read more about Trump's reported appeal to Comey at The New York Times.
-
‘Consistency at the ballot box isn’t nearly as meaningful to many voters here’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
8 musicals to see this winter, all across the United Statesthe week recommends New shows and reconsidered productions are on the move
-
Rob Reiner, wife dead in ‘apparent homicide’speed read The Reiners, found in their Los Angeles home, ‘had injuries consistent with being stabbed’
-
Senate votes down ACA subsidies, GOP alternativeSpeed Read The Senate rejected the extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits, guaranteeing a steep rise in health care costs for millions of Americans
-
Abrego García freed from jail on judge’s orderSpeed Read The wrongfully deported man has been released from an ICE detention center
-
Indiana Senate rejects Trump’s gerrymander pushSpeed Read The proposed gerrymander would have likely flipped the state’s two Democratic-held US House seats
-
Democrat files to impeach RFK Jr.Speed Read Rep. Haley Stevens filed articles of impeachment against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
-
$1M ‘Trump Gold Card’ goes live amid travel rule furorSpeed Read The new gold card visa offers an expedited path to citizenship in exchange for $1 million
-
US seizes oil tanker off VenezuelaSpeed Read The seizure was a significant escalation in the pressure campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro
-
Judge orders release of Ghislaine Maxwell recordsSpeed Read The grand jury records from the 2019 prosecution of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein will be made public
-
Miami elects first Democratic mayor in 28 yearsSpeed Read Eileen Higgins, Miami’s first woman mayor, focused on affordability and Trump’s immigration crackdown in her campaign
