Comey transcripts: early Russia suspects and claims he 'hugs' Mueller
The transcript of former FBI director James Comey’s testimony at a closed-door congressional hearing was released on Saturday, providing insight into the early stages of the Russia inquiry. Lawmakers also sought to find out if Comey was on “hugging and kissing” terms with special counsel Robert Mueller, as claimed by Donald Trump.
Comey said the FBI launched investigations in July 2016 into whether four Americans helped Russia’s interference in the presidential election. He did not identify the four but said they “had some connection to Mr Trump”. Trump was not one of them, he said.
The Republican John Ratcliffe asked Comey if the FBI had “any evidence” of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia when agents briefed Trump in 2016 about foreign intelligence threats. Comey said the investigations of the four Americans began in late July that year but he was not sure when agents briefed the candidate.
“If it was after 29 July, then the answer would be, yes, we had some reason to suspect that there were Americans who might have assisted the Russians,” Comey said.
The transcript of the nearly seven-hour hearing ran to 235 pages and was released as part of a deal reached after Comey sought to quash a subpoena ordering him to testify in private, expressing concern testimony would be selectively leaked. Afterwards, Comey described the hearing as a “desperate attempt to find anything that can be used to attack the institutions of justice investigating this president”.
Comey, who was fired by Trump in May 2017, is due to appear again on 17 December.
As reporters pored over the transcript, bizarre exchanges emerged. Sixty pages in, Jerrold Nadler, the New Yorker who is the likely next chairman of the judiciary committee, raised a striking claim made by Trump about Comey’s relationship with Mueller, his predecessor as FBI director.
“On 5 September,” Nadler said, “President Trump brought up special counsel Mueller in an interview with the Daily Caller, stating: ‘And he’s Comey’s best friend, and I could give you a hundred pictures of him and Comey hugging and kissing each other. You know he’s Comey’s best friend.’”
Nadler asked: “Are you best friends with Robert Mueller?”
Comey replied that though he admired “the heck out of the man”, he did not know his phone number or the names of his children.
“I think I had a meal once alone with him in a restaurant,” he said. “I like him … I’m an associate of his who admires him greatly. We’re not friends in any social sense.”
Nadler said he would not “ask whether you’ve ever hugged and kissed him”.
“A relief to my wife,” Comey said.
In the very first line of questioning, about text messages between two now former FBI staffers, which Republicans have said portray anti-Trump bias, the oversight committee chairman, Trey Gowdy, quoted a message about the margin an agent said Hillary Clinton “should win by”.
Gowdy asked: “In the course of human history, has anyone won an election 100 million to zero, to your knowledge?”
Comey replied: “I don’t mean to be facetious. I can’t speak to Stalin’s re-election or Mao Tse-tung re-election campaigns.”
Gowdy said: “100 million to zero is a lot.”
“Sure,” said Comey. “I’m not trying to be facetious, but I remember as a student the vote in Soviet Russia was 99.9% to …”
Interrupting, Gowdy said: “We are going to get to Russia in a little bit. We’ll get to Russia in a little bit.”
On Friday, filings by federal prosecutors and special counsel Robert Mueller revealed new findings in the cases of Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort, former aides to Trump. The filings detailed links between the two men and Russia and, in Cohen’s case, illegal payments to women claiming to have had affairs with the billionaire. Cohen had previously linked Trump to the payments but Friday was the first time prosecutors had done so.
Mueller took over the Department of Justice investigation of Russian election interference, links between Trump aides and Moscow and potential obstruction of justice by the president after Comey was fired. Trump told NBC he fired Comey because of “this Russia thing”, then contradicted himself. Comey has testified on Capitol Hill and published a book, A Higher Loyalty.
In the hearing, Comey said it was a 2016 encounter between the Trump adviser George Papadopoulos and a Russian intermediary in London that prompted the Russia investigation, rather than, as some Republicans maintain, Democratic-funded opposition research compiled by a former British spy.
“It was weeks or months later that the so-called Steele dossier came to our attention,” Comey said.
After the hearing, Comey told reporters Republicans had spent much of it “talking again about Hillary Clinton’s emails, for heaven’s sakes”. He led the FBI investigation of Clinton’s use of personal email and a private server while secretary of state. The FBI recommended against criminal charges, a recommendation Comey repeated to Gowdy. The impact on the 2016 election of Comey’s public announcements on the case remains hotly debated.
Comey also criticised Trump.
“We have become numb to lying and attacks on the rule of law by the president,” he said, before criticising Trump’s contention, in light of the cases of Manafort, Cohen and other former aides, that it should be a crime for subjects to “flip” and cooperate with investigators.
“It’s a shocking suggestion coming from any senior official, no less the president,” Comey said. “It’s a critical and legitimate part of the entire justice system in the United States.”
Trump responded, tweeting on Sunday complaints about questions Comey did not answer, the news four Americans were investigated and Comey’s statement that he has never met or spoken to Christopher Steele, the author of the infamous dossier.
“All lies!” the president wrote.
