Page:Ex-FBI-Director-James-Comey-s-memos.pdf/4



l l

weasel moves. Eui‘l was not on anybody'x side politically and could not be counted on in that tradition Ipoli‘iicnl sense, which I said i thought was in [lie president‘s best interest He a had whether [lie FBI leaks and lanswored that ofcourse in an organization el’36, 0 we were going to have some uithat. but i said i iliinh the FBI leaks far less than euple often say. [predicted he, like all Presidents, would discover the enrircigovernmeni leak: like crazy and explained thatit often comes from the ﬁrst arse pm: hop out frnm those actually working on the sensitive thing.

He replied lhnthe needed Iayalty and expected loyalty i did no! rcpiy. or even nod archange my facial, expression, which iic noted because we came back to ic later.

Th: :onversatian than swerved Into a long discussion nftlie en-iall Investigation [which we returned to at least once more). This was where I spoke the mast and laid out for him mylthlnking [with frequent iniarruption) in a manner similar to my dlscu55iotis with ' ators Feinshein and Grasslcy duringour one-ou-oncs. The one derail l added was ghoul: d'ieAG direciilig me not to use [lie word "investigation."

He knew the sequence of evenis extremely well, breaking them down in his lexwon mm Carney One, Cagney Two, and Comey Three developments and he walked through how he saw each played out during the campaign, in great detail, He asked whether it was true "than: was a revolt“ after Carney One. lsaid that was nonsense and I had worked ha! d to see lffolks had concerns. l added that l Eurzly didn’t need to tell him that the media sometimes gets stuff wrong. iexplaincd that the investigators all ayieed there was no case; he said he disagreed and thought there wasa case. He askdd me arseveral palms howl had held up under all the abuse. I explained the {reed m that comes from doing the right thing in the right way, surrounded by pee ‘ le who are helping make the decisions in the same way

At ihis point he asked me [and asked again later) whether 'ynur guy McCahe” has a problem with me. airplaining lhaL "l was preily rough on him and his wife duringthe campaign.” l explained thatAndy was a true professional and had no prublem ataii. I then explained whjai FBI peuple were like, that whatever there personal views, theystrip them when they step into their bureau rules and actually hold "political iieupld’ in slight contempt without regard to party.

At about thlS Point. he asked me an compare AG lluldei‘ and AC Lynch, lsaidl thmight AG Holder inns smarter and more sophisticated and smoother than AG Lynch, who i addedlls a good poison. He said Holder and Presidentobama were quite close. lreplia that they were and ii: illustrated, in my Vienna mistake President: Mala: 0v r and over again. Because they reason that problems for a Presidentoiten cani: irom lustlcz, they try to bring iusiice close, which paradoxically makes things worse because an independent D0] and FBI are better fora Presidenrand die country. I listed offlohn Mitchell, Ed Meese, an Al Gonzales as examples ofthis mistake and he added Bobby Kennedy,