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 that difficult. The President asked Comey what could be done to "lift the cloud." Comey explained "that we were running it down as quickly as possible and that there would be great benefit, if we didn't find anything, to our Good Housekeeping seal of approval, but we had to do our work." Comey also told the President that congressional leaders were aware that the FBI was not investigating the President personally. The President said several times, "We need to get that fact out." The President commented that if there was "some satellite" (which Comey took to mean an associate of the President's or the campaign) that did something, "it would be good to find that out" but that he himself had not done anything wrong and he hoped Comey "would find a way to get out that we weren't investigating him." After the call ended, Comey called Boente and told him about the conversation, asked for guidance on how to respond, and said he was uncomfortable with direct contact from the President about the investigation.

On the morning of April 11, 2017, the President called Comey again. According to Comey's contemporaneous record of the conversation, the President said he was "following up to see if [Comey] did what [the President] had asked last time—getting out that he personally is not under investigation." Comey responded that he had passed the request to Boente but not heard back, and he informed the President that the traditional channel for such a request would be to