WASHINGTON: In more than two hours of gripping testimony, former FBI Director James Comey said on Thursday he had no doubts he was fired because he was investigating alleged Russian meddling into the 2016 US elections. He also said that President Donald Trump wanted him to stop the investigation and hinted at returning the favour if he did.

In his opening remarks, Comey accused the Trump administration of working to “defame” him and the agency and telling “lies” to the American people.

On Wednesday, Comey submitted a point-by-point dismissal of President Trump’s version of events in a written testimony to the committee. But he was even more blunt in the hearing on Thursday, particularly when responding to both Republican and Democratic senators.

“The administration then chose to defame me, and more importantly the FBI,” Comey said. “Those were lies, plain and simple.”

He said one of the reasons he began writing down his conversations with President Trump was because he “was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting”. Comey never recorded his conversations with President Obama.

“I knew there might come a day when I might need a record of what happened not just to defend myself” but also the FBI, he added. “My impression is something big is about to happen. I need to remember every word that is spoken,” he said of the memos he wrote.

In the written statement, Comey recalled that he had two one-on-one conversations with President Obama in four years but had nine one-on-one conversations with President Trump between Jan 6 and on May 9, when he was fired.

“I felt compelled to document my first conversation with the president-elect in a memo. To ensure accuracy, I began to type it on a laptop in an FBI vehicle outside Trump Tower,” he wrote. “This had not been my practice in the past.”

Later, when a senator asked him to explain why he did not record his conversations with past presidents, Comey said they never discussed an ongoing investigation alone with him. “The combination of factors just wasn’t present with either President Bush or President Obama,” he added. Comey served in senior law-enforcement positions under three presidents.

In the hearing, the former FBI director also revealed that he turned over memos about his conversations with Trump to the special counsel, Robert Mueller, prompted by the president’s “tapes tweets”.

“Lordy, I hope there are tapes,” Comey said, referring to Trump’s suggestion that he may have recorded their conversations.

Asked if he believed that President Trump’s request to shut down the investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn amounted to obstruction of justice, Comey said it was for the investigation’s special counsel’s job to determine if it was. But it was “a very disturbing thing, very concerning”, he added.

In the first round of questions, Senator Richard Burr, a Republican, tried to establish the seriousness of the probe into Russia’s alleged meddling in the presidential election.

The senator asked if he had “any doubt that Russia attempted to interfere” in last year’s elections. “None,” Comey replied.

“Do you have any doubt that the Russian government was behind the intrusions” of email accounts at the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign?” “No, no doubt,” said Comey.

“Do you have any doubt that the Russian government was behind attempted cyber intrusions into voter databases?” the senator asked. “No,” the former FBI director replied.

Comey also said he had “no doubt” that Russian government officials were aware of the attempts to meddle in the elections. But Comey also said he was “confident” that there were no ballots altered during the 2016 election. “I’d seen no indication of that whatsoever” before he was dismissed last month, he added.

Comey also said that President Trump never asked him to abandon the investigation nor that any administration official asked that he do so.

In his written testimony, Comey said that President Trump did ask him for a “loyalty” pledge during a one-on-one dinner and later asked him to scuttle the agency’s investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

President Trump has rejected both accusations as incorrect. But on Thursday, Comey insisted that what he wrote about the conversation was right.

The former FBI director told the committee he did see Trump’s request for loyalty from him as a sort of quid pro quo. “My common sense told me what’s going on here is he’s looking to get something in exchange for granting my request to stay in the job,” Comey said.

Published in Dawn, June 9th, 2017