WASHINGTON — The former F.B.I.
director, James B. Comey, plans to testify on Thursday that President
Trump repeatedly pressured him to publicly announce that he was not
personally under federal investigation in connection with the Justice
Department inquiry into Russian meddling in last year’s election.
Mr.
Comey will say that he told Mr. Trump on at least one occasion in
January that he was not under investigation at that time. Mr. Comey has
said that investigators are looking into possible links between
associates of Mr. Trump and the Russian election interference.
Mr.
Trump, in a previously undisclosed phone call on March 30, also asked
Mr. Comey what could be done to “lift the cloud” over Mr. Trump from the
investigation, according to remarks written by Mr. Comey and published Wednesday
by the Senate Intelligence Committee, before which he will appear.
During the call, the president told Mr. Comey that the Russia
investigation was hurting his ability to govern.
“I
did not tell the president that the F.B.I. and the Department of
Justice had been reluctant to make public statements that we did not
have an open case on President Trump for a number of reasons, most
importantly because it would create a duty to correct, should that
change,” Mr. Comey said in the prepared testimony.
It was unclear why the committee released the testimony before the highly anticipated appearance by Mr. Comey, who was abruptly fired last month by Mr. Trump.
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Mr.
Comey wrote a series of memos documenting his interactions with the
president, some of which have been described to The New York Times by
people who have read them. In one, he told of Mr. Trump asking him to end the investigation into his former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn.
Document: Read James Comey’s Prepared Remarks for Testimony
Mr.
Comey will tell senators that he wrote his first memo shortly after he
first met Mr. Trump on Jan. 6, during the presidential transition. In
that meeting, Mr. Comey briefed the president-elect on the contents of a dossier of salacious allegations that a former British spy believed the Russian government had collected on Mr. Trump.
“To
ensure accuracy, I began to type it on a laptop in an F.B.I. vehicle
outside Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the meeting,” Mr. Comey
said. “Creating written records immediately after one-on-one
conversations with Mr. Trump was my practice from that point forward.”
Mr.
Comey, who was confirmed in 2013, said that he had not written similar
memos for his interactions with President Barack Obama, whom he met
privately with twice when he was in office.
Mr.
Comey said the last time he had spoken with Mr. Trump was on April 11.
Mr. Trump called to ask again when Mr. Comey planned to put out word
that Mr. Trump was not under investigation.
Mr. Comey responded that he had passed the request on to his bosses at the Justice Department but had not heard back.
“He replied that ‘the cloud’ was getting in the way of his ability to do his job,” Mr. Comey wrote in his written testimony.
The president emphasized that he had been loyal to Mr. Comey.
“Because
I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing, you
know,” Mr. Trump said, according to Mr. Comey, who wrote that he had not
replied or asked Mr. Trump what he meant by “that thing.”
“That was the last time I spoke with President Trump,” Mr. Comey said.
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