Despite admitting President Trump “simply hoped” the FBI would drop its probe into former national security advisor Michael Flynn, former FBI Director James Comey said he interpreted this as a direct order, which contradicts his sworn Senate testimony on May 3.
Comey now confirms Trump simply hoped the investigation into Flynn would end during their Feb. meeting in the White House, which Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) pointed out was a “wish” rather than an actual directive from the president:
But Comey claims he interpreted Trump’s wish as a direct order, which contradicts his sworn Senate testimony on May 3 in which he said from his experience, the Trump administration did not try to stop the investigation.
The former FBI director even told Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) it would “be a big deal to tell the FBI to stop doing something that – without an appropriate purpose.”
“But I’m talking about a situation where we were told to stop something for a political reason, that would be a very big deal. It’s not happened in my experience,” he said.
Here’s that exchange from May 3:
Comey’s statement to Rubio also contradicts his February memo that the mainstream media claimed was a “smoking gun” against Trump, particularly the New York Times article from May 16 which sourced Comey’s memo to claim Trump asked him to shut down the probe.
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