NATION/WORLD
Saturday, April 21, 2018
East Oregonian
Page 9A
In Comey memos, Trump talks of ‘hookers,’ jailing journalists
By MARY CLARE
JALONICK, ERIC TUCKER
and CHAD DAY
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — In a
series of startlingly candid
conversations,
President
Donald Trump told former
FBI Director James Comey
that he had serious concerns
about the judgment of a top
adviser, asked about the
possibility of jailing jour-
nalists and described a boast
from Vladimir Putin about
Russian prostitutes, according
to Comey’s notes of the talks
obtained by The Associated
Press on Thursday night.
The 15 pages of docu-
ments contain new details
about a series of interactions
with Trump that Comey
found so unnerving that he
chose to document them
in writing. Those seven
encounters in the weeks and
months before Comey’s May
2017 firing include a Trump
Tower discussion about
allegations involving Trump
and prostitutes in Moscow; a
White House dinner at which
Comey says Trump asked
him for his loyalty; and a
private Oval Office discus-
sion where the ex-FBI head
says the president asked him
to end an investigation into
Michael Flynn, the former
White House national security
adviser.
The documents had been
eagerly anticipated since their
existence was first revealed
last year, especially since
Comey’s interactions with
Trump are a critical part
of special counsel Robert
Mueller’s
investigation
into whether the president
sought to obstruct justice.
Late Thursday night, Trump
tweeted that the memos
“show clearly that there was
NO COLLUSION and NO
OBSTRUCTION.”
In a Friday morning
tweet, Trump lamented that
Flynn’s life has been “totally
destroyed” after he pleaded
guilty to lying to the FBI
about his contacts with the
For Trump, Giuliani
adds toughness, star
power to legal team
WEST PALM BEACH, Florida (AP) — For
weeks, President Donald Trump had grown
increasingly frustrated with the cable news chatter
that he couldn’t hire a big-name attorney for his
legal team.
But the president boasted to a confidant this
week that he had struck a deal that he believed
would silence those critics: He
was hiring “America’s F---ing
Mayor.”
With the addition of former
New York City Mayor Rudy
Giuliani, Trump gains a former
U.S. attorney, a past presiden-
tial candidate and a TV-savvy
defender at a time when the
Giuliani
White House is looking for ways
to bring the president’s involvement with special
counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation to a
close. Trump has been weighing whether to sit for
questioning by Mueller’s team, and his lawyers
have repeatedly met with investigators to define
the scope of the questions he would face.
Giuliani will enter those negotiations, filling
the void left by attorney John Dowd, who resigned
last month.
The deal was finalized over dinner in the
last week at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s coastal
Florida retreat. On Monday, Giuliani was spotted
at a West Palm Beach hotel, gleefully puffing on a
cigar but declining to talk to the press.
Giuliani’s addition to the legal team fulfills
his long-delayed hope for a White House job.
After drawing wide praise for his leadership in
New York after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks,
Giuliani ran for president seven years later only to
see his bid quickly falter.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci, left, and Andrew Harnik
This combination photo shows President Donald Trump speaking during a round-
table discussion on tax policy in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., on April 5, left, and
former FBI director James Comey speaking during a Senate Intelligence Committee
hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington in June 2017.
Russian ambassador, “while
Shadey (sic) James Comey
can Leak and Lie and make
lots of money from a third rate
book (that should never have
been written).”
He added: “Is that really
the way life in America is
supposed to work? I don’t
think so!”
The president also has
accused Comey of leaking
classified information. The
memos obtained by the AP
were unclassified, though
some portions were blacked
out as classified. Details from
Comey’s memos reported in
news stories last year appear
to come from the unclassified
portions.
In explaining the purpose
of creating the memos,
which have been provided
to Mueller, Comey has said
he “knew there might come
a day when I would need a
record of what had happened”
to defend not only himself but
the FBI as well.
The memos cover the
first three months of the
Trump administration, a
period of upheaval marked
by staff turnover, a cascade of
damaging headlines and reve-
lations of an FBI investigation
into potential ties between
the Trump campaign and
Russia. The documents reflect
Trump’s uneasiness about
that investigation, though not
always in ways that Comey
seemed to anticipate.
In a February 2017
conversation, for instance,
Trump told Comey how Putin
told him, “we have some of
the most beautiful hookers
in the world” even as the
president adamantly, and
repeatedly, distanced himself
from a salacious allegation
concerning him and prosti-
tutes in Moscow, according
to one memo. Comey says
Trump did not say when Putin
had made the comment.
In another memo, Comey
recounts how Trump at a
private White House dinner
pointed his fingers at his head
and complained that Flynn,
his embattled national security
adviser, “has serious judgment
issues.” The president blamed
Flynn for failing to alert him
promptly to a congratulatory
call from a world leader,
causing a delay for Trump in
returning a message.
The foreign leader’s name
is redacted in the documents,
but two people familiar with
the call tell the AP it was Putin.
They were not authorized
to speak publicly about the
matter and spoke on condition
of anonymity.
“I did not comment at
any point during this topic
and there was no mention
or acknowledgment of any
FBI interest in or contact
with General Flynn,” Comey
wrote.
By that point, the FBI had
already interviewed Flynn
about his contacts with the
Russian ambassador, Sergey
Kislyak, and the Justice
Department had already
warned White House officials
that they were concerned
Flynn was vulnerable to
blackmail.
Flynn was fired Feb. 13,
2017, after White House
officials said he had misled
them about his Russian
contacts during the transition
period by saying that he had
not discussed sanctions. The
following day, according to a
separate memo, Comey says
Trump cleared the Oval Office
of other officials, encouraged
him to let go of the investiga-
tion into Flynn and called him
a good guy. Flynn pleaded
guilty to lying to the FBI
and is now cooperating with
Mueller’s investigation.
The memos reveal that
days before Flynn’s firing,
then-White House chief of
staff Reince Priebus asked
Comey if Flynn’s communi-
cations were being monitored
under a secret surveillance
warrant.
“Do you have a FISA order
on Mike Flynn?” Priebus
asked Comey, according to
the memos, referring to an
order under the Foreign Intel-
ligence Surveillance Act.
Comey said he “paused for
a few seconds and then said
that I would answer here, but
that this illustrated the kind
of question that had to be
asked and answered through
established channels.”
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