Former FBI Director James Comey, through his testimony, described what generated bad blood between him and President Trump while he was in service.
Comey says Trump tried to coerce him
According to Comey's testimony, he was invited to a dinner by Trump in January with his family, but the president later changed the invitation to be for him alone. Comey attended the dinner on Friday, January 27th at 6.30 pm in the Green Room at White House, which turned out to be a one on one meeting between him and the president. There were only two Navy Guards waiting on them to serve food and drinks.
Comey alleges that it turned out to be a setup by Trump, to coerce him into patronizing his administration under the pretense that he wanted to discuss his position.
During their conversation, Trump apparently asked him if he wanted to stay in his job. Comey found strange, especially when Trump went on to say that a lot of people were interested in his job. Comey felt that Trump was indirectly making him beg for his job by entering into a patronage relationship with him and this disturbed the former Director given his FBI status.
Comey did not give in to Trump's coercion, but simply replied that he loved his work and wanted to serve his full term as a director but would not be "reliable" in the political sense.He also told Trump he could count on him to tell him the truth, since he was not on anybody's side politically.
Comey alleges that Trump said, "I need loyalty" to which he didn't respond either by word or expression. The conversation went on but Trump came back to the issue of loyalty and said again, "I need loyalty" this time Comey replied, “you will always get honesty from me.” Then he said, “that’s what I want, honest loyalty.”
Comey made notes and shared them with his colleague
The former Director made it clear to Trump the kind of services he should expect from him, but the president decided to play "giving a dog a bad name in order to hang it" with Comey.
Comey also had the details of this conversation in a memo he made after the meeting, which he even shared among his colleagues in the senior leadership team of theFBI.
Trump had allegedly asked Comey to shut down the investigation into Micheal T. Flynn who was fired on May 9th, over Flynn's financial links to Russia and Turkey; the investigation continued anyway.
Trump denies Comey's story but public start to question the truth.
The relationship between the former director and the president had been soured because of what Trump perceived to be a lack of loyalty on the side of Comey which led to his being fired last month. Trump is denying it, but as the information comes to light, more American are beginning to think that there is a spark of truth in all the recent White House intrigue.
