President Trump attacked James B. Comey in a fusillade of tweets Sunday morning, suggesting that the former FBI director deserves to be imprisoned as he served up a number of his favorite theories and alleged misdeeds without evidence.
Trump’s tweets are part of a broader effort by the White House and the Republican National Committee to discredit Comey, who has written a damaging tell-all book titled “A Higher Loyalty,” to be released Tuesday. A Sunday night interview on ABC News will kick off his national book tour and publicity campaign for the memoir.
Comey’s book is a scathing depiction of his interactions with Trump, in which he likens the president to an “unethical” mob boss and casts his inner circle in largely unflattering terms.
Trump fired Comey in May amid a sprawling investigation into his 2016 presidential campaign and Russian meddling in the election. Comey’s firing then spurred the appointment of a special counsel and a broader investigation into Trump’s campaign and administration — a probe that now covers potential obstruction of justice and Trump’s business dealings.
The book, obtained by news outlets and reviewed last week, has caused great agita for Trump. The president has also been infuriated in recent days by FBI raids on the office and home of Michael Cohen, his personal attorney.
Former FBI director James B. Comey testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill on June 8, 2017. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
“The big questions in Comey’s badly reviewed book aren’t answered, like how come he gave up classified information (jail), why did he lie to Congress (jail), why did the DNC refuse to give server to the FBI (why didn’t they TAKE it), why the phony memos, McCabe’s $700,000 more?” the president tweeted before 8 a.m. Sunday.
Trump soon added: “Comey throws AG Lynch ‘under the bus!’ Why can’t we all find out what happened on the tarmac in the back of the plane with Wild Bill and Lynch? Was she promised a Supreme Court seat, or AG, in order to lay off Hillary. No golf and grandkids talk (give us all a break)!”
The tweets were filled with unproven assertions.
Comey has not been formally accused of disclosing classified information or lying to Congress.
The memos Trump appears to reference are ones that Comey wrote memorializing his meetings and phone calls with the president — which have since become public. Comey asked a friend to give some of those memos to the New York Times, but the memos are not thought to contain classified material.
Comey has testified about the memos under oath to Congress, saying Trump asked him to ease off a probe into fired national security adviser Michael Flynn and wanted complete “loyalty.”
Trump has continued to allege that McCabe was deferential to Hillary Clinton during the FBI’s investigation of Clinton’s use of a private email server because his wife took donations from a Clinton ally for a state Senate race in Virginia. The accusation is one that McCabe has denied and has never been proven.
McCabe’s attorney, Michael R. Bromwich, responded Sunday to the president’s claims, tweeting: “1. The book isn’t out so you don’t know what’s in it. 2. The Comey and McCabe memos are very real. 3. The story about “McCabe’s $ 700,000” has been fully explained. 4. Your strategy of attacking beloved former FBI leaders — not smart.”
The president’s tweet about Comey and Loretta E. Lynch appears to reference a part of the book in which Comey says the then-attorney general was conflicted on the Clinton investigation because of unspecified classified information that he said he was aware of — and that Lynch wanted him to call the probe a “matter.”
Trump references a meeting that Bill Clinton — whom he calls “Wild Bill” — and Lynch had on a Phoenix tarmac in July 2016 that was seen as questionable, as Lynch was leading the investigation into Hillary Clinton. There is no proof, however, that Bill Clinton offered Lynch a job or a favor to ease off the investigation into his wife. The two said that their planes just happened to be on the same tarmac and that they made casual conversation after Clinton asked to come on board Lynch’s plane.
Trump also attacked Comey for saying in the book that political considerations may have driven him to reopen the Clinton investigation in the last days of the election campaign. Comey writes that “my concern about making her an illegitimate president by concealing the restarted investigation bore greater weight than it would have if the election appeared closer or if Donald Trump were ahead in all polls.”
“Unbelievably, James Comey states that Polls, where Crooked Hillary was leading, were a factor in the handling (stupidly) of the Clinton email probe. In other words, he was making decisions based on the fact that he thought she was going to win, and he wanted a job. Slimeball!” Trump wrote.
It is unclear why Trump thought reopening the probe into the email server would help Comey get a job with the Clintons. In fact, Clinton and her allies have resented the move and said it hurt her chances to become president.
After an hour of trashing Comey’s character and reputation, Trump posted that he barely knew Comey, his favorite way of distancing himself from a contentious figure.
“I never asked Comey for Personal Loyalty. I hardly even knew this guy. Just another of his many lies. His ‘memos’ are self serving and FAKE!” he said.
The president soon turned his focus to the Cohen raid, an aggressive move by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, who were referred material by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s team.
“Attorney Client privilege is now a thing of the past. I have many (too many!) lawyers and they are probably wondering when their offices, and even homes, are going to be raided with everything, including their phones and computers, taken. All lawyers are deflated and concerned!” Trump wrote.
In fact, Trump has struggled to find lawyers to handle Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election and any potential coordination with Trump’s campaign, and investigators in New York say they took Cohen’s materials in the Monday raid because his communications with clients could be part of the commission of a crime.
A little after 9 a.m. Sunday, Trump returned his focus to Comey — whom he seemed to know better by then.
“Slippery James Comey, a man who always ends up badly and out of whack (he is not smart!), will go down as the WORST FBI Director in history, by far!” Trump wrote.
MOSCOW/DAMASCUS (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Sunday that further Western attacks on Syria would bring chaos to world affairs, while signs emerged that Moscow and Washington want to pull back from the worst crisis in their relations for years.
Putin made his remarks in a telephone conversation with Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani after the United States, France and Britain launched missile strikes on Syria on Saturday over a suspected poison gas attack.
A Kremlin statement said Putin and Rouhani agreed that the Western strikes had damaged the chances of achieving a political resolution in the multi-sided, seven-year conflict that has killed at least half a million people.
“Vladimir Putin, in particular, stressed that if such actions committed in violation of the U.N. Charter continue, then it will inevitably lead to chaos in international relations,” a Kremlin statement said.
The attacks struck at the heart of Syria’s chemical weapons program, Washington said, in retaliation for a suspected poison gas attack a week ago. All three participants insisted the strikes were not aimed at toppling President Bashar al-Assad or intervening in the conflict.
The bombings, hailed by U.S. President Donald Trump as a success but denounced by Damascus and its allies as an act of aggression, marked the biggest intervention by Western countries against Assad and ally Russia, whose foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called them “unacceptable and lawless”.
Putin’s comments were published shortly after Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov struck a more conciliatory note by saying Moscow would make every effort to improve political relations with the West.
When asked whether Russia was prepared to work with the proposals of Western countries at the United Nations, Ryabkov told TASS news agency: “Now the political situation is extremely tense, the atmosphere is extremely electrified, so I will not make any predictions.
“We will work calmly, methodically and professionally, using all opportunities to remove the situation from its current extremely dangerous political peak.”
Russian Foreign Ministry official Vladimir Ermakov said Washington would want to maintain a dialogue with Moscow about strategic stability after the raids, Russian media reported.
“In the U.S. administration there are specific people who it is possible to talk with,” said Ermakov, head of the ministry’s department for non-proliferation and arms control.
In Damascus, Syria’s deputy foreign minister, Faisal Mekdad, met inspectors from the global chemical weapons watchdog OPCW for about three hours in the presence of Russian officers and a senior Syrian security official.
The inspectors were due to attempt to visit the site of the suspected gas attack in Douma on April 7, which medical relief organizations say killed dozens of people. Moscow condemned the Western states for refusing to wait for OPCW’s findings before attacking.
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HYSTERIA
Mekdad declined to comment to reporters waiting outside the hotel where the meeting took place.
Russia denounced allegations of a gas attack in Douma and said it was staged by Britain to whip up anti-Russian hysteria.
In an indication that the West, too, would prefer to lower tensions, the United States and Britain both reiterated that their military action on Saturday was not aimed at Assad, Putin’s ally, only at his use of chemical weapons.
Speaking to the BBC, Britain’s Foreign Secretary (Minister) Boris Johnson said that Western powers had no plans for further missile strikes, though they would assess their options if Damascus used chemical weapons again.
“This is not about regime change … This is not about trying to turn the tide of the conflict in Syria,” he told the BBC, adding that Russia was the only country able to pressure Assad to negotiate an end to the conflict.
Asked about U.S.-Russia relations, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said ties were “very strained” but that the United States still hoped for a better relationship.
Haley said that the United States would not pull its troops out of Syria until its goals were accomplished. Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Haley listed three aims for the United States: ensuring that chemical weapons are not used in any way that poses a risk to U.S. interests, that Islamic State is defeated and that there is a good vantage point to watch what Iran is doing.
Trump has made clear he wants to withdraw the roughly 2,000 U.S. troops involved in the anti-Islamic State campaign in Syria. But he appeared to contradict that message when he said on Saturday that Western allies were prepared to “sustain” the military response if Assad does not stop using prohibited chemical weapons.
British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn said the legal basis used to support the British role was debatable, adding that he would only support action backed by the U.N. Security Council.
“I say to the foreign secretary, I say to the prime minister, where is the legal basis for this?” Corbyn said in an interview with the BBC.
“RESILIENCE”
In Damascus, Assad told a group of visiting Russian lawmakers that the Western missile strikes were an act of aggression, Russian news agencies reported.
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a ceremony to receive credentials from foreign ambassadors at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia April 11, 2018. Sergei Ilnitsky/Pool via REUTERS
Syria released video of the wreckage of a bombed-out research lab, but also of Assad arriving at work as usual, with the caption “morning of resilience” and there were no immediate reports of casualties.
Russian agencies quoted the lawmakers as saying that Assad was in a “good mood”, had praised the Soviet-era air defense systems Syria used to repel the Western attacks and had accepted an invitation to visit Russia at an unspecified time.
President Trump had said “mission accomplished” on Twitter after the strikes, though U.S. Lieutenant General Kenneth McKenzie at the Pentagon acknowledged elements of the program remain and he could not guarantee that Syria would be unable to conduct a chemical attack in the future.
Russian and Iranian military help over the past three years has allowed Assad to crush the rebel threat to topple him.
The United States, Britain and France have all participated in the Syrian conflict for years, arming rebels, bombing Islamic State fighters and deploying troops to fight the militants. But they have refrained from targeting Assad’s government, apart from a volley of U.S. missiles last year.
RED LINE BREACHED?
France, the United States and Britain plan to put forward a new draft resolution aimed at dismantling Syria’s chemical weapons program, wiping out terrorism, demanding a ceasefire across Syria and finding a political solution to the war, French U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre told the council on Saturday.
Most Gulf stock markets rose on Sunday, supported by firm oil prices and relief that the weekend’s military attack on Syria was relatively limited in scope and there was no immediate retaliation.
Internationally, gold and oil are expected to extend gains on Monday, albeit modestly, when the markets open for the first time since the missile attack. Equities and bonds are unlikely to suffer big losses unless the West strikes again or Russia retaliates.
Gold has benefited in recent days as a safe-haven asset amid a U.S.-China trade dispute and the escalating conflict in Syria, which also pushed oil above $70 a barrel on concerns over a spike in Middle Eastern tensions.
The strikes suggest that Trump may have reset America’s red line for military intervention in Syria over the use of chemical weapons.
In Washington, a senior administration official said that “while the available information is much greater on the chlorine use, we do have significant information that also points to sarin use” in the attack.
Sarin had previously appeared to be the threshold for intervention. Chlorine, in contrast, has been used more widely in Syria’s conflict without past U.S. reprisals and is far easier to find and weaponize, experts say.
Washington described the strike targets as a center near Damascus for the research, development, production and testing of chemical and biological weapons; a chemical weapons storage site near the city of Homs; and another site near Homs that stored chemical weapons equipment and housed a command post.
Slideshow (10 Images)
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei described the attack as a crime and the Western leaders as criminals, while U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged all Security Council members to use restraint but said charges of chemical weapons use demand investigation.
Meanwhile, Pope Francis called on world leaders to renew efforts to bring peace to Syria, saying he was deeply troubled by their failure to agree on a joint plan to end the bloodshed.
Reporting by Elizabeth Piper and Tom Perry; Additional reporting by Phil Stewart, Jeff Mason, Steve Holland, Idrees Ali, Yara Bayoumy, Matt Spetalnick and Joel Schectman in Washington; Michelle Nichols in New York; Samia Nakhoul, Tom Perry, Laila Bassam, Ellen Francis and Angus McDowall in Beirut; Kinda Makieh in Barzeh; Michael Holden and Guy Faulconbridge in London; and Jean-Baptiste Vey, Geert de Clercq and Matthias Blamont in Paris; Andrey Ostroukh and Jack Stubbs in Moscow; Alison Bevege in Sydney,; Writing by William Maclean; Editing by Adrian Croft, Alexander Smith and David Goodman
