Comey to testify Trump told him: ‘I expect loyalty’

Ex-FBI chief James Comey will tell Congress on Thursday President Donald Trump wanted a “patronage relationship” and asked for his “loyalty”.

According to his opening statement, Mr Comey will also testify the president asked him to drop an inquiry into fired National Security Adviser Mike Flynn.

He says Mr Trump called the Russian probe “a cloud” over him.

Mr Comey also says he had told Mr Trump three times he was not under scrutiny, confirming the president’s account.

Reacting to the prepared testimony on Wednesday evening, Mr Trump’s private legal counsel on the Russia inquiry, Marc Kasowitz, said the president was “pleased” Mr Comey had confirmed he was not in investigators’ crosshairs.

“The president feels completely and totally vindicated,” said the attorney.

Two national security officials, NSA Director Mike Rogers and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, earlier testified to senators that they never felt pressured by the White House to do anything illegal.

But in Thursday’s Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Mr Comey will detail how Mr Trump made him uncomfortable during a series of encounters leading up to the FBI director’s firing on 9 May.

It is one of several congressional panels that, along with the Justice Department, is investigating US intelligence assessments that Russian hackers meddled in last November’s presidential election in an effort to help Mr Trump beat Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

The inquiries are also investigating whether any Trump campaign officials colluded with the alleged Kremlin plot, which Moscow has repeatedly denied.

According to seven pages of prepared testimony, Mr Comey will say his first meeting with the president occurred on 6 January in a conference room at Trump Tower, where Mr Comey briefed him alone on “salacious and unverified” allegations about him.

A dossier compiled by a former British intelligence official had claimed the Russian security services possessed compromising material on Mr Trump, including that he had been recorded consorting with prostitutes at a Moscow hotel.

Mr Comey’s statement says the president “expressed his disgust for the allegations and strongly denied them” during a subsequent meeting.

That denial came in a one-to-one dinner on 27 January at the White House, Mr Comey will say, adding that he had a “very awkward conversation” with the president that evening.

Mr Trump asked the FBI director during the discussion in the Green Room whether he wanted to stay in his job, Mr Comey will testify.

He will say he found this “strange” because Mr Trump had already told him twice in earlier conversations that he hoped he would not step down.

The former FBI director will testify the question “concerned me greatly” because he felt the dinner was an effort to “create some sort of patronage relationship”.

The former FBI director will say: “A few moments later, the president said, ‘I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.’

“I didn’t move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence.”

In testimony, the former FBI director will detail his next encounter with Mr Trump, during a meeting attended by intelligence chiefs at the White House on 14 February.

The president asked Mr Comey to stay at the end of the Oval Office meeting and told him: “I want to talk about Mike Flynn.”

Mr Trump accepted Mr Flynn’s resignation as national security adviser just 24 days into the job after he misled the White House about his conversations with the Russian ambassador.

Mr Comey will say Mr Trump told him: “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy.”

The former FBI director will testify that he offered no such assurance.

Mr Comey will also say the president phoned him on 30 March and said the Russia investigation was “a cloud that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country”.

The former FBI director will testify that Mr Trump “said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia”.

Mr Comey will say he assured Mr Trump during their discussions on 6 January, 27 January and 30 March that the president himself was not under investigation.

He will testify that Mr Trump told him during the 30 March phone call: “We need to get that fact out.”

The former FBI director will say Mr Trump phoned him again on 11 April to press him on this matter. It was the last time they spoke.

Mr Comey will say he told the president the White House should contact the Department of Justice.

The former FBI director notes that he spoke with President Barack Obama only twice during the more than three years that their time in office overlapped.

But he can recall nine one-on-one conversations with Mr Trump in four months, three in person and six on the phone. BBC News