90 Miles From Tyranny : James Comey Contradicts His Own Memo on Trump Oval Office Meeting

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Monday, May 13, 2019

James Comey Contradicts His Own Memo on Trump Oval Office Meeting

NEW YORK — There are major discrepancies between a story told on CNN by disgraced ex-FBI Director James Comey and the same story as Comey recalled it in his infamous memos purportedly memorializing his conversations with President Donald Trump.

At a town hall event broadcast on CNN last Thursday, Comey recounted the alleged details of a February 8, 2017 meeting inside the Oval Office.

He stated:
And so the next time I was alone with him, and he told something that was obviously false, which was very, very important, he was saying in the Oval Office — a torrent of words coming at me. I remember the day, February 8th of 2017, a torrent of words. And among the words were his saying, “We are the same kind of killers that Vladimir Putin is.” He was defending his moral equivalency between us and Putin.

And I interrupted and said, Mr. President, no, we’re not the kind of killers that Putin is. And when I said that, a shadow crossed the president’s face, and the meeting was over, because I just popped that cocoon he was trying to draw around us. And so I knew at that point, I went back to the FBI, and said my relationship with this man is over, and that’s not a bad thing.
Comey clearly stated that he was “alone” with Trump in the Oval Office during that meeting and that “the meeting was over” because Comey seemed to criticize something the president said. “And the meeting was over, because I just popped that cocoon he was trying to draw around us,” Comey claimed.

In his memos on that same February 8 meeting, however, Comey says that he was not alone but met Trump along with Reince Priebus, who served at the time as White House Chief of Staff.

“Reince stayed,” Comey wrote in the relevant memo. “Seated to my right as I sat in a chair facing the President,” he said, referring to Priebus.

Comey never wrote in the memo that he was alone with Trump, and does not describe Priebus as leaving the February 8 meeting at any time. In fact, he wrote that Priebus “tried to interject” about another matter just one paragraph before Comey describes the conversation about the Putin remarks that he talked about on CNN.

At the CNN town hall, Comey said the meeting was “over” just after seemingly criticizing the president, linking the end of the meeting to his criticism. Comey writes: “And I interrupted and said, Mr. President, no, we’re not the kind of killers that Putin is. And when I said that, a shadow crossed the president’s face, and the meeting was over, because I just popped that cocoon he was trying to draw around us.”

By contrast, in his memo, Comey described the conversation continuing after the Putin remarks, moving on to “other pleasantries and we wrapped up with handshake.”

The description of “pleasantries” and a handshake does not fit with Comey’s narrative on CNN that the meeting ended and also that he “knew at that point” that his “relationship with this man” — Trump — “is over, and that’s not a bad thing.”

Comey’s memo instead reads:

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