Page 1015 - The Cloud News Today

Legislative agenda could bed a good as dead. one told me when they read comeys prepared remarks yesterday they said im not as worried. then they saw him go further today. one said he really came to do damage to donald trump, and he is doing it. there is just this sense that the administration doesnt have a good response. they dont have audio tapes to corroborate trumps version of events. you know, comey may be imperfect. he may have done himself some damage over the last year or so politically. ...

Corroborate what the director said. i would add a few more witnesses and that is the directors of the cia, director coats as well as director rogers of the nsa. would want to know did the president approach them to lobby comey on dropping the flynn memoranda. those will be important. and as we saw in the testimony today, a very basic rudimentary matter is if there are tapes, we need to get them. and if there are not tapes, the white house has to come clean about why they made that suggestion to ...

The president wanted to know, and for whatever reason, james comey felt that he could relieve the president of that anxiety and say youre not the target of the investigation. so, thats why -- thats what the white house is hanging their hat on today, saying were vindicated. it matches our version of events. >> well, at this point, i think david made a good point there -- at that point, he wasnt, but this is an ongoing -- this is a very nascent investigation. when they were having this conversatio...

Dramatic hearing today. >> james -- >> but the cloud -- >> hold on one second, because lets just talk about for one second how extraordinary this statement was from james comey, not just that it came out a day before his testimony, which is highly unusual, but that he felt compelled after every conversation -- he says that he had nine of them with the pre , president, some on the phone, some in person -- to go and take, as close as he could, verbatim notes to memorialize this. is that customary,...

You received from president trump, one on march 30 and one on april 11 where he, quote, described the russia investigation as a cloud that was impairing his ability, end quote, as president and asked you, quote, to lift the cloud, end quote. how did you interpret that? and what did you believe he wanted to you do? >> i interpreted that as he was frustrated that the russia investigation was taking up so much time and energy. i have think he meant of the executive branch, but in the public square ...

Attorney general to leave the oval office so that he could privately ask director comey, again, quote to see a way clear to letting flynn go. >> that is a statement that director comey interpret as a request that he drop the investigation connected to general flynns false statement itself. think about i. the president of the united states asking the fbi director to drop an ongoing investigation. after that, the president called the fbi director on two additional occasions, march 30th and april 1...

>> well, the f.b.i. during one of the two conversations, not remembering exactly. my chief of staff was actually sitting in front of me and heard my end of the conversations because the presidents call was a surprise. i discussed the lifting the cloud and the request with the senior leadership team who, typically and in all these circumstances was the deputy director, my chief of staff, the general counsel, the deputy directors chief counsel and i think in a number of circumstances the number th...

Detail. particularly the loyalty ask. this is one key moment from a january 27th dinner in which comey reveals that the president asked for loyalty. he says this anderson a few moments later the president said i need loyalty. i expect loyalty. he said i didnt move, speak or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. we simply looked at each other in silence. the conversation then moved on. but he returned to the subject near the end of our dinner. he asked f...

Again i would do it better. >> you described two phone calls that you received from president trump, one on march 3rd and one on april 11th, where he quote described the russia investigation as a cloud, that was impairing his ability end quote as president and asked you, quote, to lift the cloud, end quote. how did you interpret that? and what did you believe he wanted you to do? >> i took of that as he was frustrated that the russia investigation was taking up so much time and energy. i think h...

Trumps mouth, the cloud over his presidency, the cloud over his presidency. and thats what were talking about here. a cloud that hangs over his presidency of questions about what he was doing to try to pressure the fbi director, pressure the director of national intelligence, pressure the cia director. and then he took it one step further than richard nixon ever did. he fired the fbi director in an effort presumably to try to cut off this investigation. thats at least what he admitted on lester ...