James Comey, the former FBI director who was fired by Donald Trump last month, testified today that Trump may have been trying to obstruct justice by interfering with an open and independent investigation.

The bombshell statement during a Senate Intelligence Committee meeting today raised the possibility of corruption at the highest levels of United States government.

Comey testified that in February, after a meeting, Trump asked all other members of the administration to leave the Oval Office so that Trump and Comey could talk. Then Trump asked Comey to drop an investigation into Michael Flynn. Sensing that Trump’s request was “disturbing,” Comey said he wrote a detailed account of the conversation following the meeting for potential investigation.

“Do you believe this will rise to obstruction of justice?” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) asked Comey today.

“I don’t know,” Comey said, “That’s [Special Counsel] Bob Mueller’s job to sort that out.”

“A really significant fact to me is why did you kick everybody out of the office. Why kick out the attorney general and chief of staff to talk to me about something else? That, to me as an investigator, is a very significant fact,” Comey said.

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The FBI, which acts as an independent law enforcement agency in the US, had been investigating whether Trump’s National Security Advisor Michael Flynn lied about contacts with Russian officials. It also had a counterintelligence investigation open into whether Trump’s campaign worked with Russia on the 2016 presidential election. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was appointed by Trump, recused himself, and Mueller, a former FBI director as well, is now overseeing the investigation.

Comey released written testimony on Wednesday ahead of his appearance at the Senate Intelligence Committee today in which he revealed that he had kept nine detailed written recollections of each of his meetings with Trump in recent months.  

“I was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting so it led me to document it. It led me to think, I gotta write it down and write it down in a clear way,” he said.

Comey said he even hoped there were recordings of his conversations with Trump, after news broke following the firing that Trump may have secretly recorded the head of the nation’s top law enforcement agency.

“Lordy I hope there are tapes,” the former FBI director said.

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Comey detailed three meetings in which Trump asked for his loyalty, asked him to drop the Flynn investigation, and asked him to publicly state to the media that there was no FBI investigation into Trump personally.

In all three cases, Comey said he did not do what the president asked, though he did assure the president there was no investigation into him personally.

In May Comey was suddenly fired by Trump.

Senators questioned Comey today on whether Trump specifically ordered him to drop the Flynn investigation. Comey’s account of the conversation left some gray area in its interpretation.

“He is a good guy and has been through a lot,” Trump said, according to Comey’s recollection. “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.”

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Comey said he understood the conversation to be an order from the president, but he declined to follow it. After the meeting Comey told his direct superior, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, to never leave Trump and Comey alone together again. Sessions did not respond.

When he told his colleagues about Trump’s request, they were as “shocked and troubled as I was” by the president’s behavior, Comey said. But the FBI chose not to inform Attorney General Jeff Sessions about Trump’s request because Sessions was too close to the Russia probe, Comey revealed today.

Comey also revealed that he believed Vice President Mike Pence was aware of the investigation into Flynn, though that has not been the narrative from the White House.

Comey appeared calm and at ease throughout his testimony at the open sessions — that is, the televised session that was open to the press and the public. He was scheduled to have a closed-door session with the committee this afternoon.

The White House said after the testimony that the president was not a liar, and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said Trump probably merely misunderstood protocol between his office and the FBI. 

 “The President is new at this,” Ryan said. “He’s new to government. And so he probably wasn’t steeped into the long-running protocols that establish the relationships between DOJ, FBI and White Houses. He’s just new to this.”

In his opening remarks though, he did express anger at the way he was fired. The White House initially said that it was the Department of Justice, particularly a deputy attorney general, who suggested Comey be fired for his handling of an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, but Trump later clarified he decided to fire him because of the Russia investigation.

“It confused me when I saw the president on television saying he fired me because of the Russia investigation,” Comey said. “I was also confused by the first explanation...they decided to defame me and more importantly the FBI.”

“Those were lies, plain and simple,” Comey said of the initial explanation. “I’m so sorry the FBI workforce had to hear them and the American people were told them.”

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Fired FBI Director Comey on His Firing: ‘Those Were Lies, Plain and Simple’

By Colleen Curry