Former FBI Director James Comey offered a stark assessment of President Donald Trump’s potential legal jeopardy Sunday, saying new filings from federal prosecutors point to heightened scrutiny of the president’s own conduct.
If Trump is not yet an unindicted co-conspirator to charges already filed by the special counsel and federal prosecutors against former Trump associates, “he’s certainly close,” Comey told Nicolle Wallace, host of MSNBC’s “Deadline White House” and an NBC News political analyst, during a discussion at the 92nd Street Y in New York Sunday night.
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He expressed his disbelief at how Trump and his transition team reacted to a briefing about Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. And Comey said bluntly that he took a chance early in the new administration by sending agents to interview Flynn without first negotiating with the White House counsel. In those interviews, Flynn lied about his interactions with then-Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak.
Days later, Trump seemed “distracted” by the revelation that Flynn had mislead Vice President Mike Pence about those contacts. Comey said he took it as a personal direction during a private conversation with the president for Comey to show leniency toward Flynn — which he soon documented in a memorandum to his closest aides.
“Obviously it’s evidence of obstruction of justice” that needed to be investigated further, Comey said. “How to handle that was something we struggled with.”
Ultimately they waited for Rod Rosenstein to be confirmed as deputy attorney general to brief the senior Justice Department leadership. Rosenstein appointed Mueller once Comey was fired that May.
Comey was careful in addressing the potential that Russia’s government continues to hold leverage over Trump.
“If there is significant information that would expose a lie by a major American public figure that the adversary nation knows, of course it’s a real concern,” he said. – READ MORE