Rep. Jason Chaffetz formally requests Comey's 'memoranda, notes, summaries, and recordings' on Trump

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last updated 17 May 2017

On Tuesday evening, The New York Times and other major news organizations reported that, according to detailed notes former FBI Director James Comey kept on his conversations with President Trump, Trump asked him to drop the FBI's investigation of Michael Flynn, a day after Flynn resigned under pressure because of his communications with Russia's ambassador. House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) quickly said he wanted to see those memos and had his "subpoena pen ready," and on Tuesday night, he made it official.

In a letter to acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, Chaffetz said that if the reports are true, "these memoranda raise questions as to whether the president attempted to influence or impede the FBI's investigation as it relates to Lt. Gen. Flynn. So the committee can consider that question, and others, provide, no later than May 24, 2017, all memoranda, notes, summaries, and recordings referring or relating to any communications between Comey and the president."

The Times doesn't claim to have seen the memos, but said a Comey "associate" read parts of it, including Comey's recollection that Trump told him: "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." Political commentator Evan Siegfried theorizes that FBI associates didn't turn over the unclassified memos to the news media for this very reason:

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Or, as an active duty FBI agent put it to The Daily Beast, firing Comey was a "big gamble. You've got to kill him, metaphorically. You can't just wound him."

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.