The Comey Hearing Transcript, as Told by GIFs

BURR: Senator Heinrich?

HEINRICH: Did the president, in any of those interactions that you’ve shared with us today, ask you what you should be doing, or what our government should be doing, or the intelligence community, to protect America against Russian interference in our election system?

COMEY: I don’t recall a conversation like that.

HEINRICH: Never?

COMEY: No.

HEINRICH: Do you find it odd that the president seemed unconcerned by Russia’s actions in our election?

COMEY: I — I can’t answer that, because I don’t know what other conversations he had with other advisers or other intelligence community leaders. So I — I — I just don’t know, sitting here.

BURR: Senator King.

KING: In his press conference on May 18th, the president was asked whether he had urged you to shut down the investigation into Michael Flynn. The president responded, quote, “No, no. Next question.” Is that an accurate statement?

COMEY:

KING: Thank you.

With regard to the question of him being under personal — personally under investigation, does that mean that the dossier is not being reviewed or investigated or followed up on in any way?

COMEY: I obviously can’t — I can’t comment either way. I can’t talk in an open setting about the investigation as it was when I was the head of the FBI. And obviously it’s — it’s Director Mueller’s — Bob Mueller’s responsibility now, so I just — I don’t know.

KING: So clearly your statements to the president back in those — these various times when you assured him he wasn’t under investigation were as of that moment. That — that correct, is it not?

COMEY: Correct — correct.

KING: Back to Mr. Flynn. Would the — would closing out the Flynn investigation have impeded the overall Russian investigation?

COMEY: No. Well, unlikely, except to the extent — there is always a possibility if you have a criminal case against someone and squeeze them, flip them and they give you information about something else.

BURR: Senator Lankford?

LANKFORD: Let me — let me walk through a couple things with you. Your notes were obviously exceptionally important, because they give a very rapid account of what you — what you wrote down and what you perceived to happen in those different meetings.

Have you had the opportunity to be able to reference those notes when you were preparing the written statement that you put — for us today?

COMEY: Yes, I — yes. I think nearly all of my written recordings of my conversations — had a chance to review them before filing my statement.

LANKFORD: Do you have a copy of any those notes, personally?

COMEY: I don’t. I turned them over to Bob Mueller’s investigators.

BURR: Senator Manchin.

MANCHIN: Do you believe there were any tapes or recordings of your conversations with the president?

COMEY: It never occurred to me until the president’s tweet. I — I’m not being facetious, I hope there are, and I’ll consent to the release of them.

(CROSSTALK)

MANCHIN: So both of you — both of you are in the same findings here — you both hope there’s tapes and recordings?

COMEY: Well, I mean, all I can do is hope. The president surely knows whether he taped me, and if he did, my feelings aren’t hurt. Release the entire — release all the tapes, I’m good with it.

MANCHIN: You’ve been asked a wide variety of — of questions today and we’re going to be hearing more, I’m sure, in our classified hearing. Something I’ll often ask folks when they come here — what details of this saga would be — should we be focusing on, and what would you recommend us do differently? Or to adjust our perspective on this?

COMEY: I don’t know. I — and one of the reasons that I’m pleased to be here is I think this committee has shown the American people, although we have two parties and we disagree about important things, we can work together when it involves the core interests of the country.

So I would hope you’ll just keep doing what you’re doing. It’s — it’s good in and of itself, but it’s also a model, especially for kids, that we — we are a functioning, adult democracy.

MANCHIN: Do you believe this will rise to obstruction of justice?

COMEY: I don’t know. That — that’s Bob Mueller’s job to sort that out.

BURR: Senator Cotton.

COTTON: Mr. Comey, you encouraged the president to release the tapes. Will you encourage the Department of Justice or your friend at Columbia or Mr. Mueller to release your memos?

COMEY: Sure.

COTTON: Let’s turn our attention to the underlying activity at issue here: Russia’s hacking into those e-mails and releasing them, and the allegations of collusion. Do you believe Donald Trump colluded with Russia?

COMEY: That’s a question I don’t think I should answer in an open setting. As I said, that — we didn’t — that when I left, we did not have an investigation focused on President Trump. But that’s a question that’ll be answered by the investigation, I think.

COTTON: Let me turn to a couple of statements by one of my colleagues, Senator Feinstein.

BURR: Senator Harris.

HARRIS: Director Comey, I want to thank you. You are now a private citizen, and you are enduring a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, and each of us get seven minutes instead of five, as yesterday, to ask you questions. So thank you.

COMEY: Now I’m — I’m between opportunities now, so…

HARRIS: Well, you’re — you are… (LAUGHTER)

… I’m sure you’ll have future opportunities.

COMEY:

HARRIS: You know, you and I are both former prosecutors. Not going to require you to answer, I just want make a statement that, in — in my — my experience of prosecuting cases, when a robber held a gun to somebody’s head, and — and said, “I hope you will give me your wallet,” the word “hope” was not the most operative word at that moment. But you don’t have to respond to that point.

[EVERYONE:]

HARRIS:

COMEY:

HARRIS:

BURR: Senator Cornyn.

CORNYN: And let me ask you as a general proposition, if you’re trying to make an investigation go away, is firing an FBI director a good way to make that happen? By that, I mean…

COMEY: Yeah.

CORNYN: … doesn’t…

COMEY: It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but I’m — I’m obviously hopelessly biased, given that I was the one fired.(LAUGHTER)

CORNYN: I understand it’s personal.

COMEY: No , given the nature of the FBI, I meant what I said. There’s no indispensable people in the world, including at the FBI. That — there’s lots of bad things about me not being at the FBI. Most of them are for me. But the work’s going to go on as before.

CORNYN: So nothing that’s happened that you’ve testified to here today has impeded the investigation of the FBI or Director Mueller’s commitment to get to the bottom of this, from the standpoint of the FBI and the Department of Justice. Would you agree with that?

COMEY: Correct, especially — the appointment of Director — Former Director Mueller is a critical part of that equation.

BURR: Senator Reed.

REED: Part of the underlying logic was that we’ve — we’ve discussed many times throughout this morning — is the duty to correct. That is one of — a theoretical issue, but also a very practical issue. It — was there — your feeling that the direction of the investigation could in fact include the president?

COMEY: Well, in theory. I mean, as I explained, the concern of one of my senior leader colleagues was, if you’re looking at potential coordination between the campaign and Russia, the person at the head of the campaign is the candidate. So, logically, this person argued, the — the candidate’s knowledge, understanding, will logically become a part of your inquiry if it proceeds.

REED: At the culmination of all these events, you’re summarily fired, without any explanation or anything else?

COMEY: Well, there was an explanation. I just don’t buy it.

REED: Well, yes. So you’re fired. So do you believe that you were fired because you — you refused to — to take the president’s direction? Is that the ultimate reason?

COMEY: I don’t know for sure. I know I was fired. Again, I take the president’s words. I know I was fired because of something about the way I was conducting the Russia investigation was, in some way, putting pressure on him, in some way, irritating him. And he decided to fire me because of that.

REED: Finally, the president tweeted that James Comey better hope that there are no tapes of our conversation before he starts leaking to the press. Was that a rather unsubtle attempt to intimidate you from testifying, and intimidate anyone else who seriously crosses his path — of not doing it?

COMEY: I — I’m not going to sit here and try and interpret the president’s tweets.

BURR: Senator McCain?

MCCAIN: In the case of — Hillary Clinton, you made the statement that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to bring a suit against her, although it had been very careless — in their behavior. But you did reach a conclusion in that case that it was not necessary to further pursue her.

Yet, at the same time, in the case of Mr. Comey, you said that there was not enough information to make a conclusion. Tell me the different between your conclusion as far as former Secretary Clinton is concerned and — and Mr. — Mr. Trump.

COMEY: The Clinton investigation was a completed investigation that the FBI been deeply involved in. And so I had an opportunity to understand all the facts and apply those facts against the law as I understood them. This investigation was underway, still going when I was fired. So it’s nowhere near in the same place. At least, it wasn’t when I was…

MCCAIN: But it’s still ongoing?

COMEY: … correct, so far as I know. It was when I left.

MCCAIN: That investigation was going on. This investigation is going on. You reached separate conclusions.

COMEY: No, that one was done. The…

MCCAIN: That investigation of any involvement of Secretary Clinton or any of her associates is completed?

COMEY: Yes, as of July the 5th, the FBI completed its investigative work, and that’s what I was announcing — what we had done and what we had found.

MCCAIN: Well, at least in the minds of this member, there’s a whole lot of questions remaining about what went on, particularly considering the fact that, as you mention, it’s a, quote, “big deal” as to what went on during the campaign.

So I’m glad you concluded that part of the investigation, but I — I think that the American people have a whole lot of questions out there, particularly since you just emphasized the role that Russia played.

And, obviously, she was a candidate for president at the time, so she was clearly involved in this whole situation where fake news — as you just described it, “big deal,” took place.

And you’re going to have to help me out here.

COMEY:

MCCAIN: In other words, we’re complete — the investigation of anything that former Secretary Clinton had to do with the campaign is over and we don’t have to worry about it anymore?

COMEY: With respect to Secretary — I’m not — I’m a little confused, Senator. With respect to Secretary Clinton…

MCCAIN: Yeah.

COMEY: … we investigated criminal investigation in connection with her use of a personal e-mail server…

MCCAIN: I understand.

COMEY: … and that’s the investigation I announced the conclusion of on July 5th.

MCCAIN:

So — but, at the same time, you made the announcement there would be no charges brought against then Secretary Clinton for any activities involved in the Russia involvement in our — engagement in our election.

I — I don’t quite understand how you could be done with that, but not complete — done with the whole investigation of their attempt to affect the outcome of our election.

COMEY: No. I’m sorry, we’re not — at least, when I left — when I was fired on May the 9th, there was still an open, active investigation to understand the Russian effort, and whether any Americans work with them.

MCCAIN: But you reached the conclusion that there was no reason to bring charges again Secretary Clinton. So you reached a conclusion.

In the case of Mr. Comey, you — President Comey (sic)…

COMEY: No, sir.

MCCAIN: … I mean — excuse me — case of President Trump, you have an ongoing investigation.

So you got one candidate who you’re done with and another candidate that you have a long way to go. Is that correct?

COMEY: I don’t know how far the — the FBI has to go, but yes, that — the Clinton e-mail investigation was completed. The investigation of Russia’s efforts in connection with the election, and whether there was any coordination, and, if so, with whom, between Russia and the campaign…

(CROSSTALK)

MCCAIN:

BURR: Senator’s time has expired.

(UNKNOWN): Thank you.

BURR: All time’s expired for the hearing.

[EVERYONE:]

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