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EXECUTIVE SESSION

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY,

JOINT WITH THE

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT, 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

WASHINGTON, D.C.

INTERVIEW OF: JAMES COMEY

Friday, December 7, 2018

Washington, D.C.

The interview in the above matter was held in Room 2141, 

Rayburn House Office Building, commencing at 10:12 a.m.

Members Present: Representatives Goodlatte, Issa, King, 

Gohmert, Jordan, Buck, Ratcliffe, Gaetz, Biggs, Nadler, Jackson 

Lee, Cohen, Deutch, Bass, Gowdy, Sanford, Meadows, Hurd, 
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Cummings, Cooper, Krishnamoorthi, Gomez, and Plaskett.
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Chairman Goodlatte. This is a transcribed interview of 

James Comey. Chairman Gowdy and I requested this interview as 

part of a joint investigation by the House Committee on the 

Judiciary and the House Committee on Oversight and Government 

Reform into decisions made and not made by the Department of 

Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding the 

2016 Presidential election. 

Would the witness please state his name and the last 

position he held at the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the 

record? 

Mr. Comey. Certainly, Mr. Chairman. My name is James 

Brien Comey, Jr., and my last position was Director until May 

9th of 2017. 

Chairman Goodlatte. I want to thank you for appearing 

today. My name is Bob Goodlatte. I am chairman of the Judiciary 

Committee, and I will now ask everyone else who is here in the 

room, other than Mr. Comey's personal counsel, who we will get 

to in a moment, to introduce themselves for the record. 

Mr. Gowdy. Trey Gowdy, South Carolina.

Mr. Ratcliffe. John Ratcliffe, Texas. 

Mr. Meadows. Mark Meadows, North Carolina.

Mr. Jordan. Jim Jordan, Ohio. 

Mr. Biggs. Andy Biggs, Arizona. 

Mr. Buck. Ken Buck, Colorado.
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Mr. Don. Ethan Don, FBI.

Ms. Bessee. Cecilia Bessee, FBI. 

Mr. Parmiter. Robert Parmiter, House Judiciary Committee 

staff. 

Mr. Baker. Arthur Baker, House Judiciary Committee staff.

Mr. Somers. Zach Somers, House Judiciary Committee, 

majority. 

Mr. Nadler. Jerrold Nadler, New York. 

Mr. King. Steve King, Iowa, Four.

Mr. Gomez. Jimmy Gomez, California. 

Mr. Cooper. Jim Cooper, Fifth District of Tennessee.

Mr. Cohen. Steve Cohen, Memphis.

Ms. Bass. Karen Bass, California. 

Mr. Cummings. Elijah Cummings, Maryland.

Ms. Jackson Lee. Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas. 

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois. 

Mr. Breitenbach. Ryan Breitenbach, House Judiciary 

Committee staff. 

Mr. Ventura. Chris Ventura, House Judiciary Committee 

staff.

Ms. Husband. Shelley Husband, House Judiciary, majority.

Mr. Castor. Steve Castor, Oversight and Government 

Reform.

Mr. Buddharaju. Anudeep Buddharaju, Oversight and 

Government Reform. 
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Ms. Doocy. Mary Doocy.

Ms. Greene. Emily Greene.

Mr. Gaetz. Matt Gaetz, Florida, House Judiciary 

Committee.

Mr. Ritchie. Branden Ritchie, House Judiciary, majority.

Mr. Dalton. Jason Dalton, FBI Congressional Affairs. 

Ms. Hariharan. Arya Hariharan, House Judiciary, minority 

Ms. Shen. Valerie Shen, House Oversight and Government 

Reform.

Ms. Sachsman Grooms. Susanne Sachsman Grooms, House 

Oversight. 

Mr. Thadani. Akhil Thadani, House Judiciary, Democrat.

Mr. Gohmert. Louie Gohmert.

Mr. Sanford. Mark Sanford, House Judiciary.

Mr. Apelbaum. Perry Apelbaum. 

Mr. Hiller. Aaron Hiller, House Judiciary, minority. 

Chairman Goodlatte. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 

do not apply in this setting, but there are some guidelines that 

we follow that I'd like to go over. Our questioning will proceed 

in rounds. The majority will ask questions first for an hour, 

and then the minority will have an opportunity to ask questions 

for an equal period of time. We will go back and forth in this 

manner until there are no more questions and the interview is 

over. 

Typically, we take a short break at the end of each hour 
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of questioning, but if you would like to take a break apart from 

that, please let us know. We also may take a break for lunch 

at the appropriate point. 

As I noted earlier, you are appearing today voluntarily. 

Accordingly, we anticipate that our questions will receive 

complete responses. To the extent that you decline to answer 

our questions or if counsel instructs you not to answer, we will 

consider whether a subpoena is necessary. 

As you can see, there is an official reporter taking down 

everything that is said to make a written record, so we ask that 

you give verbal responses to all questions, and I know you 

understand that. 

Mr. Comey. Yes, sir. 

Chairman Goodlatte. So that the reporter can take down a 

clear record, it is important that we don't talk over one another 

or interrupt each other if we can help it. Both committees 

encourage witnesses who appear for transcribed interviews to 

freely consult with counsel if they so choose, and you are 

appearing today with counsel. 

Could counsel for Mr. Comey please state their names for 

the record? 

Mr. Kelley. Yes, Mr. Chairman. It is David N. Kelley from 

Dechert LLP. 

Chairman Goodlatte. We want you to answer our questions 

in the most complete and truthful manner possible, so we will 
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take our time. If you have any questions or if you do not 

understand one of our questions, please let us know. If you 

honestly do not know the answer to a question or do not remember 

it, it is best not to guess. Please give us your best 

recollection. It is okay to tell us if you learned information 

from someone else. If there are things you don't know or can't 

remember, just say so, and please inform us who, to the best of 

your knowledge, might be able to provide a more complete answer 

to the question. 

Mr. Comey, you should also understand that, although this 

interview is not under oath, you are required by law to answer 

questions from Congress truthfully. 

Do you understand that? 

Mr. Comey. Yes, I do, sir. 

Chairman Goodlatte. This also applies to questions posed 

by congressional staff in an interview. Do you understand this? 

Mr. Comey. Yes, sir. 

Chairman Goodlatte. Witnesses who knowingly provide false 

testimony could be subject to criminal prosecution for perjury 

or for making false statements. 

Do you understand this? 

Mr. Comey. Yes, I do. 

Chairman Goodlatte. Is there any reason you are unable to 

provide truthful answers to today's questions? 

Mr. Comey. No, sir. 
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Chairman Goodlatte. Finally, I'd like to just note that, 

as was discussed last weekend with your attorneys with regard 

to withdrawing your motion to quash our subpoena, we anticipate, 

after speaking with the Clerk's Office, that we will be able to 

provide a copy of the transcript of today's interview sometime 

tomorrow. 

In the meantime, as we also discussed with your attorneys, 

you are free to discuss today's interview publicly once it is 

concluded. Chairman Gowdy and I ask that everyone else here in 

the room also refrain from speaking publicly about today's 

interview until it has concluded. 

That is the end of my preamble. Do you have any questions 

before we begin? 

Mr. Gaetz. Matt Gaetz from Florida. I wanted to state 

that I was not a party to any such agreement and don't consider 

myself bound by it. I also don't know of any provision in the 

Constitution, the rules of the House, or any Federal law that 

would prohibit members of the committee from engaging in free 

speech, debate, and opining at any time. 

Mr. Gowdy. Mr. Chairman, I think -- I do intend to comply 

with the representations we made to this witness. I would 

encourage all of my colleagues to do so. There's a reason that 

we have something called the rule of completeness. It is 

manifestly unfair to take part of what someone says and disregard 

the whole. I also think there's an argument to be made that when 
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the chairman of a committee makes a representation to a witness, 

that it should not only bind the members of the committee, but 

it also reflects poorly on the House as an institution to not 

abide by what the chairman represented. 

So I will abide by what the chairman agreed to with this 

and other witnesses, and I would encourage all of my colleagues 

to do so, if, for no other reason, to protect the integrity of 

the House and because that's what serious investigations do. 

Mr. Nadler. Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman Goodlatte. The gentleman from New York, the 

ranking member. 

Mr. Nadler. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I find myself in 

rare but happy agreement with Mr. Gowdy. I think 

representations were made to the witness. I think we ought to 

be bound by it. 

And I think that if Mr. Gaetz does not consider himself 

bound by it, he should perhaps be asked to leave at this point, 

as should anybody else who tells us upfront they will not feel 

bound by what this committee has represented to the witnesses. 

Chairman Goodlatte. I will not ask him to leave since he 

hasn't violated the commitment we have made. However, I would 

ask him to respect that this is a representation made by all of 

the members of these two committees by the chairmen of the 

committees. And, yes, you did not make the representation 

yourself; I understand that. But it is important that we respect 
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the integrity of this interview. 

And, with that, the time --

Mr. Gohmert. Mr. Chairman, may I ask a question? Wasn't 

the terms that you just dictated part of an agreement that was 

in lieu of litigation, sort of a settlement agreement rather than

litigate the subpoena? 

Chairman Goodlatte. It is correct that, in the proceedings 

that were ongoing last weekend with regard to Mr. Comey's motion 

to quash the subpoena that I issued, that an understanding was 

reached that he would appear voluntarily for a private 

transcribed interview with the conditions that I read a moment 

earlier. 

Mr. Gohmert. So it is actually an agreement between the 

parties that ended litigation, which normally is enforceable. 

Chairman Goodlatte. I think that is correct. 

The time is now 10:20. We will get started with the first 

round of questions. 

Mr. Kelley. If I may, Mr. Chairman, before we start, I 

appreciate very much you having read the terms of the agreement, 

which you did so accurately, and we appreciate that. And given 

the comments of Mr. Gaetz, we appreciate and will be sure that 

the chairmen of both committees will do the best they can to 

ensure that the terms of the agreement are abided. 

Mr. Comey is here voluntarily, as you said, for the 

interview. He looks forward to answering your questions 
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concerning the subject matter that you laid out. We are getting 

a little bit late start, but we have a hard stop at 4:15, and 

we think we can get a lot done until that time. Should there 

be any additional questions thereafter, we can certainly talk 

about how to accomplish that best, should there be a need to 

schedule a subsequent opportunity to interview him. We also 

would like your indulgence for maybe a short 30-minute, if less, 

break for lunch. 

Chairman Goodlatte. We definitely will take that into 

account. 

And, with that, the chair recognizes the chairman of the 

Oversight Committee, Mr. Gowdy. 

Mr. Gowdy. Good morning, Director Comey. I'm going to go 

through the first series of questions in an unusually leading 

way, but that is in the interest of time and --

Chairman Goodlatte. I think we have to say that if we do 

have a hard stop today at 4:15, we're going to have to agree that 

we will continue it at another time, because we, I think, run 

the risk that we'll not ask all the questions that need to be 

asked by that time. 

Mr. Kelley. And as I said, Mr. Chairman, if there are 

additional questions and a compelling need to have another 

opportunity, we can talk about how to schedule that. 

Mr. Meadows. Mr. Chairman, I guess what I would rather do 

is have -- before we get into questioning, let's have an 
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understanding that the 4:15 hard stop is new information right 

now. And I think in a spirit of being here voluntarily, we need 

to have an understanding that if all the questions are not asked 

and answered, that an agreement to agree in the future is 

certainly a problem, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Kelley. What I agreed to do in the future, sir, is to 

schedule another time. 

Mr. Meadows. That's fine. As long as we're agreeing to 

schedule another time, that's fine. 

Mr. Gowdy. Director Comey, Peter Strzok was an FBI agent 

who was assigned to the Clinton Espionage Act investigation. Do 

I have that right? 

Mr. Comey. That is correct. 

Mr. Gowdy. What was his title? 

Mr. Comey. His title was special agent. I think he had 

a variety of different supervisory assignments during the 

pendency of that investigation from mid-2015 to the end of '16. 

I don't remember exactly what those were. 

Mr. Gowdy. Did he interview witnesses? 

Mr. Comey. Did he interview witnesses? Yes, he did during 

the Clinton investigation, is my understanding. 

Mr. Gowdy. Did he review documents? 

Mr. Comey. My understanding is, yes, he did review 

documents.

Mr. Gowdy. Did he provide advice, counsel, insight to you 
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in your role as the Director? 

Mr. Comey. I don't -- I'm just hesitating over the 

description of advice, counsel. He was a supervisory special 

agent of some role who would periodically brief me on the status 

of the investigation, was his primary responsibility as it 

related to me. 

Mr. Gowdy. Let me see if I can ask the question more 

artfully. Did he help you prepare or edit your July 5th press 

statement? 

Mr. Comey. July 5th press statement? Yes, he did help 

edit that. 

Mr. Gowdy. Lisa Page, she was an attorney with the FBI in 

2016. Is that right? 

Mr. Comey. Lisa Page, yes, that is correct. Lisa Page was 

an attorney I think before 2016, but certainly during 2016 

assigned to the Office of General Counsel. 

Mr. Gowdy. What role did she have with the Clinton 

Espionage Act investigation? 

Mr. Comey. Lisa Page's role in the investigation into 

whether Hillary Clinton had mishandled classified information 

was in her capacity as a lawyer assigned to support the Deputy 

Director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe.

Mr. Gowdy. Did she assist you in drafting or editing your 

July 5th press statement? 

Mr. Comey. I believe she did assist in drafting -- or 
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editing the statement of July 2016. 

Mr. Gowdy. So, from January 2016 up until your July 5th 

press statement, it is fair to say that both Special Agent Peter 

Strzok and FBI Attorney Lisa Page were working on the Clinton 

Espionage Act or mishandling of classified information 

investigation? 

Mr. Comey. The reason I'm hesitating, Mr. Gowdy, is I've 

never applied the label of Espionage Act investigation. It was 

an investigation into the mishandling of classified information. 

I don't mean to quibble, but that's how I thought of it and talked 

about it. 

Yes, they each participated in some respect in that 

investigation or in our public statement about the investigation 

and things like that. 

Mr. Gowdy. February of 2016, Lisa Page wrote: Trump simply 

cannot be President. 

February of 2016, Peter Strzok wrote: Trump's abysmal,

hoping people will just dump him. 

February of 2016, Lisa Page wrote: She might be our next 

President. The last thing you need us going in there loaded for 

bear. 

March 2016, Lisa Page wrote: Trump is a loathsome human. 

March of 2016, Strzok wrote: Trump's an idiot. 

March of 2016, Strzok wrote: Hillary should win 100 

million to zero. 
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Do you recall whether the Democrat primary was still ongoing 

in March of 2016? 

Mr. Comey. I'm not in a position to answer -- you gave a 

long preamble to that about things that I don't know from my own 

knowledge. So I'm going to exclude that part of your preamble 

and just answer the question at the end. 

Do I know whether the Democratic primary was ongoing in 

March of 2016? I think so, yes. 

Mr. Gowdy. Well, let me back up, in fairness to you, and 

ask whether or not you've had a chance to read any of the text 

exchanges between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page? 

Mr. Comey. I've seen some of them in the open source, in 

the media, obviously, since I was fired as Director. 

Mr. Gowdy. Did you read any of them in preparation for 

today? 

Mr. Comey. No, I did not. 

Mr. Gowdy. So, if you are correct that the Democratic 

primary was still open in March of 2016, I read that as Special 

Agent Peter Strzok commenting that she should win the primary 

100 million to zero. 

And I guess an alternative reading of that would be that 

he already had her as the nominee and she should win the general 

100 million to zero. 

Is there another reading other than those two, winning the 

primary or winning the general? 
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Mr. Comey. I'm not in a position to interpret their text 

exchanges, so I can't answer that. 

Mr. Gowdy. In the course of human history, has anyone won 

an election 100 million to zero, to your knowledge? 

Mr. Comey. In the United States? 

Mr. Gowdy. Anywhere. 

Mr. Comey. I don't mean to be facetious. I can't speak 

to Stalin's reelection or Mao Tse-tung reelection campaigns. 

In --

Mr. Gowdy. 100 million to zero is a lot. 

Mr. Comey. Sure. I'm not trying to be facetious, but I 

remember as a student the vote in Soviet Russia was 99.9 percent 

to --

Mr. Gowdy. We are going to get to Russia in a little bit. 

We'll get to Russia in a little bit. 

Mr. Comey. So in the -- I can answer your question, 

Mr. Gowdy. In the United States, I'm not aware of any such 

lopsided vote. 

Mr. Gowdy. So, in March of 2016, Peter Strzok is 

investigating Secretary Clinton -- we'll use your phrase -- for 

the alleged mishandling of classified information. And at least 

according to this text, he has her winning the primary and/or 

the general election. Is that fair? 

Mr. Comey. I can't answer that because I don't know the 

text or what the intention was. So I'm just not the witness to 
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answer that.

Mr. Gowdy. How about the plain language of the text, what 

do you interpret that to mean? 

Mr. Comey. I really can't without knowing them and knowing 

the context of them. I'm just not your best witness to answer 

that. 

Mr. Gowdy. July of 2016, do you know which agent 

interviewed Secretary Clinton? 

Mr. Comey. I believe two FBI agents participated in the 

July interview of Secretary Clinton, one of which was Peter 

Strzok, and the other was another veteran special agent. 

Mr. Gowdy. Do you know the other veteran special agent's 

name? 

Mr. Comey. I think so. I'm hesitating only because I may 

butcher his name, and I don't know whether the FBI wants the names 

of special agents on a public record. So I think I know his name. 

Ms. Bessee. If the agent is not at the SES level and above,

you probably cannot state the name.

Mr. Gowdy. When you say "probably cannot," is that a legal 

prohibition, or is that an FBI policy prohibition? 

Ms. Bessee. An FBI policy and a DOJ policy prohibition. 

Mr. Gowdy. Does the FBI take the position that that's 

binding on Congress? 

Ms. Bessee. Based on my direction from the FBI Director 

and from the Deputy Attorney General's Office, that is our 
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direction. We can go back and ask the question if we can reveal 

the name. 

Mr. Gowdy. Well, how about do that for me. For the 

meantime, we'll just refer to that person as FBI Agent 1. 

Director Comey, after the Clinton interview on July 2nd, 

if memory serves, 2016, FBI Agent 1 wrote: "I'm done 

interviewing the President," dash, and then typed 302. 

Another FBI employee responded: You interviewed the 

President, question mark. 

And FBI Agent 1 wrote back: You know, HRC. 

A couple days later, you were before Congress, and you said, 

among other things, "The decision was made and the recommendation 

was made the way you would want it to be, by people who didn't 

give a hoot about politics." 

Now, Representative Ratcliffe is going to go into how that 

decision was made. My question to you is, had you known about 

these texts, would you have kept Peter Strzok and Lisa Page on 

the Espionage Act/mishandling of classified information case? 

Mr. Comey. In your question, Mr. Gowdy, you talked about 

texts that I'm not aware of that involve an agent other than Peter 

Strzok or FBI employee other than Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, 

so I can't answer that part of it. 

To the extent you're asking about communications of Page 

and Strzok, if I had known about those things that they were 

communicating that I've seen in open source, I would not have 
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had them stay on the -- playing any role in connection with that 

investigation. 

Mr. Gowdy. Would you have fired them? 

Mr. Comey. That I can't answer in the abstract. I'd 

certainly want the FBI disciplinary process to work and to look 

at it, to decide whether discipline was appropriate and what that 

would be. But I can't answer the ultimate question. 

Mr. Gowdy. But if I understood your answer to the first 

part of that correct, you would not have allowed them to remain 

on the Clinton investigation had you been aware of those texts. 

Mr. Comey. My judgment would have been -- and based -- the 

challenge for me is I haven't read all the texts, but based on 

what I saw -- have seen in the media since I left the FBI, that 

unless there was some explanation for that that I was missing, 

in my judgment, they wouldn't have remained part of the 

investigation. 

Mr. Gowdy. Well, I don't want you to answer that question 

in the abstract. Peter Strzok did offer a justification. He 

said that he was not biased for Clinton or against Trump. Not

that his bias didn't impact his work, he got around to that later. 

He just said he wasn't biased. 

So, if you had brought him in and he had said, "Oh, but, 

Director Comey, I know I said he was a loathsome human being and 

I know I said that she should win 100 million to zero, but that 

doesn't mean I can't do my job," because that is certainly what 
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he told my Democrat colleagues, which they bought, so my question 

is, would you have bought that? Would you have left him on the 

investigation had you known about these texts? 

Mr. Comey. I would have certainly been open to listening 

to any explanation, but when you're the leader of a justice 

agency, the appearance of bias is as important as the existence 

of actual bias. 

And although I have seen no evidence of any bias in any of 

the participants in that effort, the appearance of bias would 

have been very important to me. So I -- again, it's hard to go 

back and live a life you didn't live, but I would imagine my 

judgment would have been you can't remain on the case. 

Mr. Gowdy. When Special Counsel Mueller was made aware of 

the texts, he did immediately kick Strzok off of his team. Do 

you have any reason to disagree with his decision? 

Mr. Comey. No. I don't know the details of his decision, 

but, again, I've seen the open source reporting to that. And 

if that's true, it's a reasonable decision by a reasonable 

leader. 

Mr. Gowdy. And you believe, as we sit here today, that had 

you been aware of the texts contemporaneously, you too would have 

kicked Strzok off of the Midyear Exam investigation? 

Mr. Comey. I think I answered that one already. I would 

certainly be open to an explanation that I don't know, can't 

imagine sitting here. But absent an explanation, the appearance 
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issue would have been very important to me, and it's unlikely 

I would have left him on the case.

Mr. Gowdy. Why is the appearance of bias as insidious as 

actual bias? 

Mr. Comey. The appearance of bias is as important. I 

don't know exactly what the word "insidious" means, so I'm not 

saying that one. It's as important as actual bias because the 

faith and confidence of the American people that your work is 

done in an independent, fair, and competent way matters 

enormously. And so a reasonable appearance of bias can corrupt 

that faith in your work as much as actual bias can. 

Mr. Gowdy. Had you known about the texts 

contemporaneously, would you have allowed Peter Strzok and Lisa 

Page to move from the Espionage Act or mishandling investigation 

to the Russia investigation? 

Mr. Comey. I would have thought of it the same way, in that 

if either bias or appearance of bias, political bias, is very 

important to not have as part of your investigative work. So 

I would have thought that way about any investigation that was 

likely to touch the public interest in the way that that 

investigation did. So most likely I would think about it the 

same way.

Mr. Gowdy. Well, I don't want to put words in your mouth, 

but I do want to gain as much clarity as I can into this. 

You -- if I understand you correctly, you believe you would have 
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not kept them on either investigation, but you would be open to 

an explanation, but you can't think of what that explanation 

could have been that would have persuaded you to keep them? 

Mr. Comey. That's right. I try as a leader always to be 

open to things I might be missing, but absent something like that, 

I think it's likely -- again, it's hard to live a life you didn't 

live. But it's likely I wouldn't have kept them on the case for 

that reason, the reasons I said. 

Mr. Gowdy. If you had gained familiarity with a text from 

Lisa Page where she said, "Please tell me Trump won't ever be 

President," and Strzok responded, "No, no, he won't, we'll stop 

it," do you think you would have kept them on the investigation? 

Mr. Comey. I think of -- again, assuming you're recounting 

actual texts, I would think of it in the same way I thought of 

the ones you recounted earlier. I'd be concerned about bias or 

the perception of bias, and -- so I think about it the same way 

I thought about the earlier text you laid out. 

Mr. Gowdy. Well, I want to remain open-minded to any other 

interpretations of that text, but what other interpretation 

could there be: Please tell me he won't be President. No, 

period, no, comma, He won't. We'll stop it. 

What explanation could there be that was benign enough to 

leave them on the very investigation they were commenting on? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know. And that -- I think that's what 

it means to be open-minded, to give people a chance to explain 
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something and then to think about their explanation. I don't 

know what it would be, and maybe there's none, but -- yeah, that's 

how I would think about it. 

Is there some explanation for this? If there is, tell me 

what it is, and then I'll make a judgment based on that. I can't 

get inside the head of people writing texts that I never saw, 

so that's why it's a little tricky for me to answer. 

Mr. Gowdy. What was the Russia investigation? When you 

hear the phrase "Russia investigation," what do you think? 

Mr. Comey. To my mind, the term "Russia investigation" 

often refers to two different things: First, the investigation 

to understand what are the Russians doing to interfere in our 

election during the 2015-16 period; and then, second, it's often 

used to refer to the counterintelligence investigations that the 

FBI opened in late July. 

And so I hear it used interchangeably there, and those two 

things obviously connect, but I've always thought of it in two 

separate elements. 

Mr. Gowdy. Okay. We'll go with that. Late July of 2016, 

the FBI did, in fact, open a counterintelligence investigation 

into, is it fair to say the Trump campaign or Donald Trump 

himself? 

Mr. Comey. It's not fair to say either of those things, 

in my recollection. We opened investigations on four Americans 

to see if there was any connection between those four Americans 
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and the Russian interference effort. And those four Americans 

did not include the candidate. 

Mr. Gowdy. Do you recall who drafted the FBI's initiation 

document for that late July 2016 Russia investigation? 

Mr. Comey. I do not. 

Mr. Gowdy. Would you disagree that it was Peter Strzok? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know one way or the other. 

Mr. Gowdy. Do you know who approved that draft of an 

initial plan for the Russia investigation in late July 2016? 

Mr. Comey. I don't. 

Mr. Gowdy. Would you disagree that it was Peter Strzok? 

Mr. Comey. That Peter Strzok approved? I don't know one 

way or the other.

Mr. Gowdy. Drafted and approved it. 

Mr. Comey. I don't know one way or the other. 

Mr. Gowdy. Have you read that initiation document? 

Mr. Comey. I don't think so. I don't remember ever seeing 

it. 

Mr. Comey. Do you recall seeing the phrase "Trump 

campaign" in that initiation document? 

Mr. Comey. Well, I don't remember seeing it, ever seeing 

it, so certainly don't remember any portion of it, because I don't 

remember ever seeing it.

Mr. Gowdy. If it said Trump campaign, do you still have 

the same answer you had when I asked you whether or not it involved 
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the Trump campaign? 

Mr. Comey. That's a question, Mr. Gowdy, I can't answer 

without having seen the document. So I'd be speculating about 

a document I don't think I've ever seen. 

Mr. Gowdy. Well, I want to be fair to you and make sure 

I understand your testimony. You have not, did not read the FBI 

initiation document that launched the Russia investigation, or 

you read it and do not recall what it said? 

Mr. Comey. I don't remember ever seeing it. 

Mr. Gowdy. How does the FBI launch counterintelligence 

investigations? What documents are required? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know for sure because it's opened far 

below the Director's level. But there's documentation in 

criminal investigations and in counterintelligence 

investigations to explain the predication for the opening of a 

file, that is, the basis for the opening of a file. 

Mr. Gowdy. Who at the FBI has the authority to launch a 

counterintelligence investigation into a major political 

campaign, and would that eventually have to be approved by you? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know for a variety of reasons. I've 

never encountered a circumstance where an investigation into a 

political campaign was launched, and so I don't know how that 

would be done. And -- so that's my best answer to that question. 

Mr. Gowdy. When did you learn there was a 

counterintelligence investigation into potential Russian ties 
26

with the Trump campaign? 

Mr. Comey. I was briefed sometime at the end of July that 

the FBI had opened counterintelligence investigations of four 

individuals to see if there was a connection between those -- any 

of those four and the Russian effort. 

Mr. Gowdy. And who were those four individuals? 

Mr. Comey. I don't think that the Bureau has said that 

publicly, and so I'm not going to answer that unless it's okay 

with the government. 

Mr. Gowdy. Well, lucky for us we have the Bureau right here 

with us. 

Ms. Bessee. Mr. Chairman, my understanding, this is an 

unclassified setting, and also anything that goes to the special 

counsel's ongoing investigation would be off limits for this 

witness to be able to respond to if they are individuals that 

are currently being looked at or investigated as part of the 

Russian investigation, the ongoing Russian investigation. 

Mr. Gowdy. Let me make sure I understand the Bureau's 

position. The former Director, actually the Director at the 

time, can confirm publicly that there is a counterintelligence 

investigation, but he cannot now tell us who that 

counterintelligence investigation involved? 

Ms. Bessee. That is correct. 

Mr. Gowdy. Director Comey, can you tell us the factual 

predicate that may have led to the launching of that 
27

counterintelligence investigation?

Mr. Comey. I don't think that I can describe the factual 

predicate for two reasons: I don't remember precisely; and to 

the extent I remember, I think those are classified facts that 

implicate the concern the Bureau just expressed. 

Mr. Gowdy. Some of our friends in the media use the word 

"collusion" from time to time. What is the crime of collusion? 

Mr. Comey. What is the crime of collusion? I do not know. 

I've never heard the term "collusion" used in the way it's been 

used in our world over the last couple years before that. I don't 

know of a crime that involves collusion. I think in terms of 

conspiracy or aiding and abetting. 

Mr. Gowdy. With counterintelligence investigations, is 

there always a criminal component or sometimes a criminal 

component? 

Mr. Comey. Counterintelligence investigations involve an 

effort to understand the plans and intentions and activities of 

a foreign adversary. Sometimes that leads to the use of criminal 

tools to disrupt. Sometimes it involves other tools to disrupt. 

So criminal is an element of counterintelligence investigations 

always because it's a potential tool to disrupt. 

Mr. Gowdy. Do you recall your March 2017 testimony in an 

open setting before the House Intelligence Committee? 

Mr. Comey. In a general way. 

Mr. Gowdy. It was when I believe the Bureau first confirmed 
28

the existence of a counterintelligence investigation. 

Mr. Comey. Okay. I remember that. I remember generally 

it was in March, but sure. 

Mr. Gowdy. Do you recall in what way you used the word 

"criminal" and at what point in your testimony? 

Mr. Comey. Without looking at the testimony, I don't. 

Mr. Gowdy. Do you recall Rod Rosenstein's memo appointing 

special counsel? 

Mr. Comey. No, I don't. 

Mr. Gowdy. What is the difference between collusion and 

conspiracy? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know because I don't know what collusion 

means. It's a term I haven't heard in my career in the Justice 

Department, so I don't know. 

Mr. Gowdy. Let's assume that collusion and conspiracy are 

synonyms, and we'll just use the word "conspiracy" because the 

word "collusion," despite its nonstop use, has no criminal 

consequences. 

Would it be a crime to access the DNC server or Podesta's 

email without permission or in an unlawful way? 

Mr. Comey. That's a hard one to answer in the abstract. 

It's potentially a crime whenever someone either, without 

authorization, enters a computer system or conspires to enter 

a computer system without authorization. 

Mr. Gowdy. Did the FBI, in July of 2016, have any evidence 
29

anyone in the Trump campaign conspired to hack the DNC server? 

Mr. Comey. Did we have evidence in July of '16 that anyone 

in the Trump campaign conspired to hack the DNC server? The 

challenge in answering that is -- and please don't take this 

nonanswer to imply that there is such information. 

I just -- I don't think that the FBI and special counsel 

want me answering questions that may relate to their 

investigation of Russian interference during 2016. And I worry 

that that would cross that line, Mr. Gowdy.

Mr. Gowdy. All right. Well, I'm not asking you what 

happened after the initiation. July 2016, when this was 

launched, when Peter Strzok drafted the initiation documents, 

did the FBI have evidence at the time that any member of the Trump 

campaign conspired to access the DNC server? 

Mr. Comey. And, again, the challenge with answering that 

is it's a slope to answering questions about what we did or didn't 

know about Russian activity and the connection of any Americans 

to it during 2016, and I think that implicates the same problem 

I just talked about. 

Mr. Gowdy. Well, Director, we're trying to understand what 

the factual predicate for launching a counterintelligence 

investigation was. 

Mr. Comey. Sure. I understand the gravamen of your 

question. 

Mr. Gowdy. You can't tell us, or you won't tell us? 
30

Mr. Comey. Probably a combination of both; that is, as I 

said in response to your earlier question, I don't remember 

seeing the opening memos on counterintelligence cases opened in 

late July, so I can't recall exactly what the predication was. 

But, to the extent I recall facts developed during our 

investigation of Russian interference and the potential 

connection of Americans, I think that's a question that the FBI 

doesn't want me answering. So it's both a can't and a won't. 

Mr. Gowdy. Do you believe your firing is evidence of 

obstruction of justice? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know that I can answer that question 

because I'm not -- because I'm a witness, in a sense. I don't 

know the universe of facts that would reflect on that, so I can't 

answer it. 

Mr. Gowdy. Have you ever had conversations with Rod 

Rosenstein where he indicated that he did not believe the 

contents of the memo he drafted? 

Mr. Comey. I've never had any conversation with Rod 

Rosenstein about the memo he drafted, assuming you mean the memo 

that related to my firing. 

Mr. Gowdy. Yes. 

Mr. Comey. I've never had any conversation with him about 

that at all.

Mr. Gowdy. Have you read the memo? 

Mr. Comey. Yes.
31

Mr. Gowdy. Do you think it lays out a defensible case for 

terminating you as the FBI Director? 

Ms. Bessee. Mr. Chairman, to the extent that question 

goes -- again, goes to the special counsel's investigation into 

obstruction, the witness will not be able to answer. 

Mr. Gowdy. I think the whole world has read the memo 

and -- or most of the world. My question is whether or not 

Director Comey -- I think he's already answered he had no 

conversations with Rod Rosenstein. 

My question is, whether or not -- and he's entitled to his 

opinion -- whether or not he believes that that framed a 

sufficient factual basis for his termination as the FBI Director. 

Ms. Bessee. He is entitled to his opinion, but to the 

extent -- because he also stated that he is also a witness in 

the investigation. 

Mr. Gowdy. Which investigation is he a witness in? 

Ms. Bessee. To the special counsel. He said he is a 

potential witness. 

Mr. Gowdy. Well, you just said witness. Is there an 

obstruction of justice investigation? 

Ms. Bessee. I believe there is an investigation that the 

special counsel is looking into. 

Mr. Gowdy. Well, we all know that. Is it an obstruction 

of justice investigation? 

Ms. Bessee. Mr. Chairman, can you rephrase the question, 
32

please? 

Mr. Gowdy. Yes. We all know that. Is it an obstruction 

of justice investigation? 

Ms. Bessee. Can you rephrase the question for the witness? 

Mr. Gowdy. Yes. Director Comey, you're familiar with the 

memo drafted by Rod Rosenstein. You have not talked to Rod 

Rosenstein, as I understand your testimony. Do you believe the

memo, just on the cold four pages of the memo, four corners of 

that document, do you believe it provides sufficient basis for 

your termination? Even if you would have done it differently, 

is it a basis for your termination? 

Mr. Comey. I can't answer that, Mr. Chairman, because it 

requires me to get into the mind of the decisionmaker, who is 

the President, and I'm not in a position to do that. 

Mr. Gowdy. Do you have any evidence the memo was subterfuge 

to fire you, but not for the -- but for a different reason? 

Mr. Comey. I have no evidence at all about how the memo 

came to be created. I know that it was part of the documentation 

that was attached, what was sent to me, delivered to the FBI on 

the day I was fired. That's the only thing I have personal 

knowledge of. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Director Comey, I'd like to ask you some 

questions about the events surrounding your July 5th, 2016, press 

conference to announce your decision not to charge Hillary 

Clinton for the mishandling of classified information. 
33

One of the things that happened the week before that press 

conference was, on June 27th of 2016, a meeting between Attorney 

General Lynch and former President Bill Clinton, a meeting that 

got a lot of attention. Do you recall that? 

Mr. Comey. I do recall press coverage of a meeting on June 

27th. Mr. Ratcliffe, one thing I have to make sure is clear. 

You said my decision not to prosecute Hillary Clinton. I made 

a recommendation on behalf of the FBI to the Department of 

Justice. I just want to make sure that's precise. I do recall 

the coverage around that meeting. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. And that is a meeting that took place on 

a tarmac in Phoenix, Arizona? 

Mr. Comey. That's my recollection, yes, sir. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Do you agree that any discussion about the 

Hillary Clinton mishandling classified information 

investigation, as you called it today, between the Attorney 

General and the spouse of the subject of the investigation would 

have been inappropriate? 

Mr. Comey. Any discussion of the substance of the 

investigation? Potentially inappropriate. Again, I'd have to 

understand whether there was some other appropriate basis for 

the communication, but it would be concerning. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Potentially inappropriate is your answer. 

Also potentially illegal? 

Mr. Comey. Well, that one's a hard one to answer. Any 
34

conversation is potentially illegal, depending on what people 

talk about. And so it would be potentially inappropriate, 

absent some explanation that would move it into the range of 

appropriate. That's why I'm giving you that answer because I 

don't know what was talked about. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Highly unusual for an Attorney General to 

meet with the spouse of the subject of one of her investigations. 

Do you agree with that? 

Mr. Comey. I would agree with that. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. And important to find out as much detail 

as possible about that conversation. Would you agree with that? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know that I would agree with that 

because the fact of the communication is in some ways more 

important than the substance of it. So I don't think I'd agree 

with that in the abstract. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Did you recall that Attorney General Lynch 

subsequently admitted that her actions in meeting with former 

President Clinton cast a shadow over the Department of Justice? 

Mr. Comey. I actually don't remember that. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Do you remember what you said about the 

meeting on the tarmac? 

Mr. Comey. I don't. I mean, if you give me more context, 

maybe I'd remember. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Do you recall saying it was part of your 

decision, one of the factors in your decision to take the, I 
35

think, unprecedented step of holding the press conference on July 

5th of 2016? 

Mr. Comey. Yes. I remember it being a factor, an 

important factor in my decision to step away from the Attorney 

General. I think I've talked about it in a variety of different 

contexts. But I was very concerned by the appearance of that 

interaction. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. You mentioned it was one of a number of 

things that caused you to take that action, correct? 

Mr. Comey. Correct. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. One of those I believe you've testified 

previously was the fact that the Attorney General had asked you 

to refer to this investigation as a matter, correct? 

Mr. Comey. That is correct. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. One of the other things that you were 

concerned about was material or documentation, as yet 

unverified, indicating some possible agreement between Attorney 

General Lynch and the Clinton campaign about the investigation, 

correct? 

Mr. Comey. Not that second piece because I've been 

very -- tried to be very careful in public comments about this. 

There was material that had not been verified that I believed 

if it became public would be used to cast doubt on whether the 

Attorney General had acted appropriately with respect to the 

investigation. I haven't gone -- I don't think I'm allowed to 
36

go beyond that in characterizing that material. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. It was information that would, you believe, 

if released, have caused some to question the objectivity of the 

Department of Justice? 

Mr. Comey. Correct. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Was there anything in that information that 

also would have raised questions about your objectivity or 

ability? 

Mr. Comey. Not to my knowledge. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Did you share with the Attorney General or 

the Deputy Attorney General or anyone at Main Justice your 

concerns that this information raised about the Attorney 

General's either real objectivity or the perception of her 

objectivity? 

Mr. Comey. Yes. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Who? Who did you raise that with? 

Mr. Comey. My recollection is that, at some point in the 

first half of 2016, both the Deputy -- that the Deputy Attorney 

General was briefed on the nature of that material, and at some 

time after that, the Attorney General was briefed and interviewed 

about the nature of that material. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Do you know who the Attorney General was 

interviewed by? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know for sure. I believe one of the 

participants in the conversation was the Deputy Director. At 
37

that point, it was Andrew McCabe. But there were others present 

as well, is my recollection. I was not there. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Was there a discussion about the Attorney 

General needing to recuse herself as a result of that 

information? 

Mr. Comey. Not to my knowledge. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. In the event of an Attorney General 

recusal, what does the Department of Justice policy say about 

a succession order of authority? 

Mr. Comey. My recollection is that the Department of

Justice policy then makes the Deputy Attorney General the Acting 

Attorney General for purpose of that matter, that case. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. So, at that point, in the days leading up 

to the July 5th press conference, had you concluded or did you 

think that Attorney General Loretta Lynch should not be able to 

make a decision about whether to prosecute Hillary Clinton for 

the mishandling of classified information? 

Mr. Comey. I don't remember reaching that conclusion. I 

remember being concerned about whether she should remain 

involved, especially after the tarmac visit, tarmac 

conversation. But before I had an opportunity to discuss that 

with anyone at DOJ, the Attorney General announced that she would 

not recuse but would accept my recommendation and that of the 

career prosecutors. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. And 5 days after that tarmac incident, the 
38

FBI and prosecutors from the Department of Justice did, in fact, 

interview Secretary -- former Secretary Clinton, correct? 

Mr. Comey. I think it was 5 days. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. It was on July 2nd. 

Mr. Comey. It was the Saturday after that tarmac meeting. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. You mentioned some of the agents earlier. 

Do you know how many folks combined, from the FBI and the 

Department of Justice, were present for the interview of 

Secretary Clinton? 

Mr. Comey. The DOJ team for the interview of Secretary 

Clinton I think -- I could be wrong, but I think was five people: 

two special agents from the FBI and three lawyers from the 

Department of Justice. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. You did not participate in the interview? 

Mr. Comey. No, sir. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Who drafted the questions that Secretary 

Clinton was going to be asked? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Did you participate at all in the 

questions? 

Mr. Comey. No, I did not. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Why wasn't that interview recorded? 

Mr. Comey. The interview wasn't recorded because the FBI 

does not record noncustodial, voluntary interviews. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Why wasn't that interview conducted before 
39

a grand jury? 

Mr. Comey. I don't recall exactly. I think for a number 

of strategic reasons. You'll know, as an experienced person, 

that the grand jury is often a limiting way to conduct a 

wide-ranging interview, but I don't remember for sure. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Let me see if I can refresh your 

recollection. I think you had a conversation with Inspector 

General Horowitz about that. On page 141 of the inspector 

general's report --

Mr. Kelley. Can we have a copy of that so we can follow 

along? 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Does someone have an extra copy? 

Page 141, the top of the page. See where it says: "Comey 

told us"? 

Mr. Comey. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. So I'm reading for the record: Comey told 

us that he did not remember discussing with anyone the 

possibility of subpoenaing Clinton before the grand jury. 

However, he stated: At that point, I really didn't think there 

was a there there. And the question was, is she going to lie 

to us? 

Did I read that correctly? 

Mr. Comey. Yes, you read it correctly. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Does that refresh your recollection? 

Mr. Comey. It really doesn't. I'm sure I said this 
40

because it's a transcript from the IG interview, but I don't -- I 

honestly don't remember saying that. It seems reasonable, 

though. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Well, as you read that, if it's 

accurately -- if you're accurately quoted, it sounds like you 

had your mind made up about whether or not Hillary Clinton was 

going to be prosecuted for the mishandling of classified 

information before her interview. 

Mr. Comey. I don't think that's exactly right. My 

judgment going into the interview was that we had not found 

sufficient evidence to recommend prosecution for any substantive 

offenses related to the mishandling of classified information. 

Still a possibility that she would lie to us and give us an opening 

to prosecute her or that there would be further investigation. 

But going into it, based on almost a year of investigation, I 

didn't see a substantive case there. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Do you recall, Director Comey, an exchange 

that you and I had? You appeared before the House Judiciary 

Committee on September 28th of 2016, and I asked you a question. 

I said: Did you make the decision not to prosecute or not to 

charge Hillary Clinton for the mishandling of classified

information before or after her July 2nd, 2016, interview? And 

your answer was: After. 

Do you recall that? 

Mr. Comey. Yep. 
41

Mr. Ratcliffe. When I asked you how that could possibly 

be the case, your response was: If colleagues of ours think I'm 

lying, please have them contact me privately. 

Now, I will tell you, Director, when I asked you that 

question and you gave me that answer, there were a number of 

things that I was not aware of. One of the things that I didn't 

know was that the day before the interview, the Hillary Clinton 

interview on July 1st, Lisa Page texted Peter Strzok about 

Loretta Lynch and her decision to follow your recommendation, 

and said, quote: Yeah, it's a real profile in courage, since 

she -- meaning Lynch -- knows no charges will be brought. 

Do you recall reading that text anywhere, or hearing about 

it? 

Mr. Comey. I don't remember I read it. I think I've heard 

about it in the media. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. It's also in the inspector general report. 

Did you read the inspector general report? 

Mr. Comey. I did, so I must have seen it there. Yes, I 

read it, so I must have seen it there. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Well, the text doesn't -- doesn't say that 

Hillary Clinton might not be charged or that charges probably 

won't be brought. It says that the Attorney General knows that 

charges won't be brought. 

Do you have any explanation for why Lisa Page, Peter Strzok, 

and Attorney General Loretta Lynch might have known that Hillary 
42

Clinton wasn't going to be charged before her July 2nd, 2016, 

interview if you hadn't made the decision yet? 

Mr. Comey. I don't. I don't know what she means in there 

or what the nature of the communication was. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Could it be based on one of the other things 

that I didn't know when you and I had that exchange, and that 

was the fact that I didn't know that 2 months before that July 

2nd interview, on May the 2nd, you had actually circulated a draft 

memo of a public announcement stating that neither you nor any 

reasonable prosecutor would charge Hillary Clinton with the 

mishandling of classified information. Do you recall that? 

Mr. Comey. I'm sorry. Recall what, Mr. Ratcliffe? 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Recall that memo? 

Mr. Comey. Sure. I recall a variety of drafts in May of 

that memo. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Would you agree with me that that draft of 

that memo certainly would be or its contents would appear to be 

inconsistent with the testimony that I just related that you and 

I had in September of 2016? 

Mr. Comey. No, I don't agree. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Who's Jim Rybicki? 

Mr. Comey. Jim Rybicki was my chief of staff. As -- I'm 

sorry. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. One of the things that I didn't know when 

you and I had that exchange was how Mr. Rybicki was going to 
43

testify. And he has testified that the only charges that could 

have come out of her interview would have been false statements 

to an FBI agent, not any violations of the Espionage Act. 

Would you agree with Mr. Rybicki's testimony? 

Mr. Comey. No, I would not. I'm not familiar with it, but 

assuming it's what you just summarized, I would not. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Well, I think I've related to you that at 

least a number of folks -- Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Loretta 

Lynch, Jim Rybicki -- all seem to have the idea that Hillary 

Clinton wasn't going to be charged for the mishandling of 

classified information -- she might be charged for lying to the 

FBI -- but that she wasn't going to be charged for the mishandling 

of classified information. 

Do you still think that the answer that you gave me on 

September 28 of 2016 was an accurate statement? 

Mr. Comey. I do. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Do you think that that statement was at all 

misleading to me or other Members of Congress? 

Mr. Comey. I guess I can't speak to your mental state. It 

wasn't intended to be misleading. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. You didn't answer my question when I asked 

it by saying: Well, I had pretty much made the decision that 

she wasn't going to be charged because everyone knew I had 

circulated a draft memo. 

You didn't say to me what you said to the inspector general, 
44

that you really didn't think there was no there there. You just 

said no. 

Do you think that's a candid statement? 

Mr. Comey. I do. I do. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. So your testimony then is the same as it 

is today, that when you went into the Hillary Clinton -- or when 

the FBI and the Department of Justice went in to interview Hillary 

Clinton, a decision had not been made about whether or not to 

prosecute her for anything and all charges were still on the table 

at that point? 

Mr. Comey. Correct. The final decision of what our 

recommendation would be had not been made. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. The final decision. 

Mr. Comey. Well, sure. You'd be incompetent if you didn't 

have a view of the case after a year. And, as I said, as I said 

to the inspector general, it didn't look to me like there was 

a substantive case there. But you're about to interview the 

subject, and so you want to keep your mind open to the possibility 

that you will develop something that needs to be pursued. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Well, that's a great explanation. Why 

didn't you give me that explanation in September of 2016 when 

I asked you that question? 

Mr. Comey. It's an explanation, Mr. Ratcliffe, that's 

entirely consistent with the answer I gave you. I don't remember 

you asking me to explain why I say that. If you did, I'm sorry 
45

if I didn't answer that question, but they're consistent. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. So it was a serious interview with Hillary 

Clinton that was about to take place intended at getting at the 

truth of everything that was troubling you? 

Mr. Comey. That's not how I thought about it. It was about 

interviewing the subject near the close of a year-long 

investigation. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. So, when the team of FBI agents and 

lawyers interviewed Hillary Clinton, what questions did they ask 

Secretary Clinton about the tarmac meeting? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Would that be reflected in the 302 or in 

the FBI summary of the interview? 

Mr. Comey. I would expect so. You're asking about whether 

they asked Hillary Clinton about the meeting that Bill Clinton 

had with Loretta Lynch. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Yes. 

Mr. Comey. I don't know whether they asked that. I would 

expect if it was asked, it would likely be reflected in the 302. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Would you like to review those? 

Mr. Comey. Not unless you really want me to. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Well, I've read them, and I've asked folks 

about them. There's no mention of the word "tarmac" or "Loretta 

Lynch" anywhere that appears in the 302 or the summary that the 

FBI has made publicly available. 
46

So my question is, do you know whether or not any questions 

were asked about that tarmac meeting? 

Mr. Comey. It's the same answer; I don't know. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. So 5 days after the Attorney General meets 

with the spouse of a subject on a tarmac, the meeting that a lot 

of folks are talking about and that raised concerns enough to 

be one of the reasons that caused you to take the actions that 

you took in holding the press conference, none of those folks 

in the room thought about asking Hillary Clinton any questions 

about that? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know what they thought. And, as I said 

earlier, I don't know whether she was asked about that. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Would that have been a reasonable question 

to Secretary Clinton, what did your husband discuss about this 

case, if anything, 5 days ago with the Attorney General? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know the answer to that. As it relates 

to her mishandling of classified information as Secretary of 

State, I don't know. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Well, I thought you were looking for any 

crimes, not just the mishandling of information. 

Mr. Comey. The FBI doesn't investigate people to find any 

crimes. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. I didn't say investigate people, but in the 

course of investigating if you become aware of things that cause 

concern to investigators, like you've expressed you had, isn't 
47

there an obligation to pursue that? 

Mr. Comey. Hard to answer in the abstract. Depends upon 

what the facts were that you had. But sure, if you develop facts 

in the course of an investigation of the possible commission of 

another crime, in almost all circumstances, you follow up on it. 

I don't know what that would drive, in terms of the interview 

of Hillary Clinton. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. So do you know what questions the agents 

or prosecutors asked Hillary Clinton about that troubling 

information that we talked before about potential compromise of 

Attorney General Lynch with respect to her objectivity? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know whether they asked any questions 

that related to Loretta Lynch of Hillary Clinton. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. If they did, it should be reflected in the 

302 or the FBI summary of the interview, correct? 

Mr. Comey. You would expect that in the ordinary course. 

The only reason I'm hesitating is that I don't know whether 

questions were asked about that, but if questions are asked and 

the answer may implicate -- may be considered classified, 

sometimes that's not put in the 302. But I don't know whether 

that's the case here. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Weren't those questions that you wanted 

answered? 

Mr. Comey. Of Hillary Clinton? 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Of anyone that could answer a question 
48

about whether or not there was any problem with the objectivity 

of the Attorney General, based on contacts with the Clinton 

campaign. 

Mr. Comey. I did not see anything that led me to conclude 

that Loretta Lynch was acting inappropriately in supervising the 

Department of Justice in that investigation. The appearance of 

conflict or the appearance that she was compromised in some 

fashion was what drove me to separate myself from her in July. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. So, as you've already mentioned, one of the 

things you thought might happen or you wanted to find out was 

whether or not Hillary Clinton might lie during that interview. 

Knowingly making a false statement to the FBI is a crime, correct? 

Mr. Comey. That is correct. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Making a false public statement ordinarily 

is not a crime, correct? 

Mr. Comey. That is correct. Thank goodness, for a lot of 

people. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. But false statements made in public can be 

evidence of knowledge or intent, absence of mistake, or provide 

all kinds of other evidentiary context, correct? 

Mr. Comey. Potentially, yes. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. In fact, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't 

David Petraeus' comments, false comments in public a basis for 

why you argued that he had knowledge or intent to commit the crime 

of mishandling classified information? 
49

Mr. Comey. I don't remember that about the Petraeus case, 

that public statements figured in it. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. You don't recall, or it didn't happen? 

Mr. Comey. Well, I don't remember it being a feature, so 

it's possible I'm just not remembering or that it didn't happen. 

It just -- as I think about that case, I don't remember anything 

about public statements as a factor in that case. I remember 

a lot about lying to the agents during an interview, but not 

public statements. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. All right. So let me ask you about Hillary 

Clinton's public statements. Do you recall Secretary Clinton 

publicly stating that she neither sent nor received classified 

information? 

Mr. Comey. I don't specifically in her public statements, 

so I don't specifically. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. If there were those public statements, 

would you have expected the agents to ask her about that during 

her interview? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know. I would expect them to ask about 

what she was thinking when she communicated in the way she did, 

but whether to ask her, "Did you say on the campaign trail X or 

Y," I don't know. That would be up to their judgment. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Do you recall Secretary Clinton making that 

same statement under oath before Congress? 

Mr. Comey. I don't. 
50

Mr. Ratcliffe. Do you recall -- maybe I can refresh your 

recollection. I think, on October 22nd of 2015, in response to 

a question from Congressman Jordan, Secretary Clinton said, 

quote, "There was nothing marked classified in my emails either 

sent or received," end quote. 

Does that refresh your recollection about Secretary Clinton 

making that statement? 

Mr. Comey. I don't -- it doesn't help me with her 

testimony, but I actually do remember being asked, maybe by 

Mr. Jordan, when I testified about whether that was accurate or 

not. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Is it accurate? 

Mr. Comey. My recollection is there were -- I hope I don't 

get this wrong. In some email, there was a letter C deep in the 

email to mark some of the paragraphs that looked to us like 

portion markings, as I recall. And I'm sorry if I'm misrecalling 

that, but I have the recollection of that. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Well, I have your public statement on July 

5th. I think you mentioned the fact that there were actually 

three emails that were marked classified. 

Mr. Comey. When I talked on July the 5th? 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Yes. 

Mr. Comey. Okay. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Any reason to --

Mr. Kelley. Do you have a copy of that statement we can 
51

take a look at? 

Mr. Ratcliffe. I do. 

Do you have -- as you review that, do you independently have 

a recollection about Hillary Clinton's July 2nd interview where 

agents asked her questions about those classification markings, 

whether it appeared on one document or multiple documents? 

Mr. Comey. I don't. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. You don't have any recollection? 

Mr. Comey. No, I don't have an independent recollection, 

sitting here, of what they asked her about that. I have some 

recollection that the topic came up, but I don't remember what 

was asked or said about that. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. What do you recall about -- you mentioned 

the letter C coming up during that interview and what that might 

mean? 

Mr. Comey. I don't -- I'm sorry. Do you want me to still 

look at the statement? So far, I haven't found the thing about 

the C, so I'll pause there for a second. 

I don't remember what came up in her interview about that. 

What I was referring to earlier is I remember some member I think 

of the Judiciary Committee asking me about that portion marking 

that appeared -- I was thinking in one email, but it sounds like 

you think there's more than one. 

I don't see anything, sir, in my statement -- I could be 

missing it -- about the portion marking. 
52

Mr. Ratcliffe. I will resume with that when we resume our 

questioning. 

Mr. Comey. Okay. 

Chairman Goodlatte. I think, in the interest of 

expediency, we'll proceed with the Democrats right now, and then 

we'll take a 30-minute lunch break after the Democrats.
53

[11:32 a.m.] 

Ms. Chen. Okay. The time is 11:32, and we're back on the 

record for the Democrat's first round.

Mr. Cohen, if you would like to ask a few questions. 

Mr. Cohen. Are we ready? 

Mr. Comey. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Cohen. Thank you. I'm Steve Cohen from Tennessee.

First thing I'd like to ask you, Mr. Comey, is, Mr. Trump 

asked you once to lay off the Flynn investigation, and I was just 

wondering what your reaction was to his having pled guilty and 

him having, according to Mr. Mueller, provided much truthful 

information that is apparently going to be a part of the 

investigation that Mr. Mueller is pursuing. 

What was your reaction? Did you feel kind of good that you 

didn't tell Mr. Trump that you would be loyal and drop that 

investigation? How did it make you feel?

Mr. Comey. Well, there was no chance at all that I was going 

to abide that direction to let that go. When I saw the public 

accounts of his plea and cooperation, I felt, as a citizen, glad 

that he was held accountable for his crimes and that he was 

assisting the United States. So it seemed to me like a just 

outcome.

Mr. Cohen. Did Mr. Trump or anybody else in the 

administration ever ask you anything about specifics about the 

Russia involvement in the 2016 election? 
54

Ms. Bessee. Congressman, to the extent it goes into the 

purview of the special counsel, the witness will not be able to 

answer that question. 

Mr. Cohen. Let me ask you this, Mr. Comey: There was a 

memo that some had said had something to do -- and you maybe even 

said -- had something to do with your going forth on July 5 to 

announce that you and not the Attorney General was going to not 

investigate and go further with the Clinton email investigation, 

and that that memo was something that the FBI had in their 

possession for some time concerning, allegedly, Attorney General 

Lynch communicating to Ms. Renteria that this was going to be 

kind of not going to be pursued and not to worry about it. And 

then later, I think, many think that that was really a Russian 

operative that got somehow some information that wasn't true and 

got it into the Justice Department.

Do you know what I'm talking about? 

Mr. Comey. I know generally, and I have to tread carefully 

here, because I think the underlying material is still 

classified. So there was material -- this is what I've said 

publicly, and so I'll say it again, there was material that was 

classified that if unclassified, released, would open the 

Attorney General up to the accusation -- whether it was true or 

not -- the accusation that she had not been acting fairly and 

impartially in overseeing the investigation.

So far as I knew at the time, and still think, the material 
55

itself was genuine, which is a separate question, though, from 

whether it was what it said was accurate.

Mr. Cohen. When you say it was genuine, I mean, did you 

not think that at this point that it was conjured up by the 

Russians to try to maybe influence actions at the Justice 

Department or at the FBI? 

Mr. Comey. We didn't think that at the time. I don't know 

whether that view has changed.

Mr. Cohen. Okay. Was Peter Strzok considered the top 

counterintelligence FBI agent? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know whether Peter Strzok was 

considered the top. He was very highly regarded as a 

counterintelligence professional, and I saw that borne out in 

the nature and quality of his work with me. But whether he's 

the top or not, I don't know, but certainly among the best.

Mr. Cohen. In the past, had his work not resulted in the 

outing of some Russian spies and their being returned to Russian, 

expelled from this country? 

Mr. Comey. I don't remember specifically. I just 

remember his reputation was very, very strong in the 

counterintelligence world.

Mr. Cohen. So it would make sense that he would be assigned 

to this investigation? 

Mr. Comey. It would make sense that he'd be assigned to 

the investigation into the potential mishandling of classified 
56

information by Secretary Clinton. It would also make sense he'd 

be assigned to the Russia investigations.

Mr. Cohen. And what was Ms. Page's reputation as an 

attorney and as a public servant? 

Mr. Comey. Ms. Page was less well-known. She was a more 

junior attorney assigned to the deputy attorney -- excuse me, 

the deputy director, so I knew less about her. In my 

interactions with her, what I liked about her is she would be 

candid and blunt and often disruptive in a meeting, which I kind 

of liked. The FBI can be very hierarchal. She would tend to 

speak up even when, in a normal FBI meeting, it wasn't her turn, 

and I found that very helpful.

Mr. Cohen. The attacks that Mr. Trump has made on the FBI 

and the Justice Department, and particularly Mr. Strzok and Ms. 

Page and you and others, can you tell us how that's affected the 

morale of the FBI? 

Mr. Comey. It's hard for me to give you a high-confidence 

answer because I'm not there any longer, so I'll give you my 

sense, which I think is right but I don't have high confidence 

in it, is that it has hurt morale in some senses, and in other 

senses, has redoubled the commitment of the people of the FBI 

to its mission and its apolitical nature. So I think it's 

actually a tale of two cities in that way.

Mr. Cohen. When you were at the FBI, did you have any reason 

to investigate the people who propagated stories that Seth Rich 
57

was murdered by folks within the DNC or other democratic 

operatives or any of the people that talked about this pizza 

operation, the pizzagate thing? Did you ever investigate the 

people that started those conspiratorial stories? 

Mr. Comey. I don't remember. I don't remember 

investigations on those topics. I remember at one point 

receiving an email from someone, a private citizen, to my 

personal account, raising issues about the -- is it Ping Pong? 

Whatever the pizza place was that was involved in some conspiracy 

theories. I remember sending it to my staff saying, make sure 

this gets to the appropriate place, but I don't know whether there 

were investigations.

Mr. Cohen. If Mr. Mueller were fired, how would that 

affect further investigations of crime that are ongoing now? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know at this point. I don't know. And 

as an informed outsider, I think that it would -- you'd almost 

have to fire everyone in the FBI and the Justice Department to 

derail the relevant investigations, but I don't know exactly what 

the effect would be.

Mr. Cohen. Mr. Trump has said that the folks that work for 

him are 12 angry Democrats. Do you know those 12 or so people --

Mr. Comey. I don't. 

Mr. Cohen. -- who they are? 

Mr. Comey. I know by name some of them, and I think I've 

met some of them personally, but I don't know them well. 
58

Mr. Cohen. Do you know if any of them are angry? 

Mr. Comey. Not to my knowledge, but I'm sure they're like 

all normal humans; sometimes they're happy, sometimes they're 

sad, sometimes they're angry, but I can't comment on that 

characterization beyond that.

Mr. Cohen. All right. Despite the emails between 

Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page, was there anything you ever saw that 

you believe caused the FBI or the Justice Department, 

particularly the FBI, to not operate and investigate in an 

unbiased fashion? 

Mr. Comey. No, I never saw -- and in those two people's 

cases -- I never saw any indication at all of bias by Mr. Strzok 

or Ms. Page. And, in fact, Peter Strzok helped draft my letter 

to Congress on October 28th that Hillary Clinton blames for her 

defeat. So it's hard for me to see how he was on Team Clinton 

secretly at that point in time. And he also was one of the 

handful of people in the entire world who knew we were 

investigating four Americans who had some connection to 

Mr. Trump during the summer of 2016, and he didn't tell a soul. 

So it's hard to reconcile that with his being on Team Clinton. 

And so all of that is consistent with my view, I never saw 

any indication of anything but the facts and the law from those 

people.

Mr. Cohen. Thank you for your testimony. And thank you 

for your service to our country. 
59

I yield. 

Mr. Nadler. Thank you. 

Mr. Comey, I've been troubled by escalating attacks against 

the Department of Justice, the Special Counsel's Office, and the 

FBI, attacks against the independence of the institutions, the 

integrity of their employees, and the legitimacy of the 

Department of Justice and FBI investigations. 

As I'm sure you're aware, President Trump and his allies 

have repeatedly described Special Counsel Mueller and his 

investigation as illegitimate and politically biased.

On November 27th, President Trump tweeted in reference to 

the special counsel, quote: The fake news media builds Bob 

Mueller up as a saint, when in actuality, he's the exact opposite. 

He is doing tremendous damage to our criminal justice system 

where he's only looking at one side and not the other. Heroes 

will come of this and it won't be Mueller and his terrible gang 

of angry Democrats. Look at their past and look where they come 

from. And now a $30 million witch hunt continues and they have 

got nothing but ruined lives. Where is the server? Let these 

terrible people go back to the Clinton Foundation and Justice 

Department, close quote.

On December 3rd, President Trump tweeted, quote: Bob 

Mueller, who is a much different man than people think, and his 

out-of-control band of angry Democrats don't want the truth, they 

only want lies. The truth is very bad for their mission, close 
60

quote.

I'll note that Robert Mueller is well-known to be a lifelong 

Republican.

Now, generally speaking, does being identified as a 

Democrat mean a prosecutor would be too conflicted to conduct 

a fair investigation of a Republican or vice versa? 

Mr. Comey. No, it does not.

Mr. Nadler. Are you aware of any, quote, "conflicted" 

people on the special counsel's team? 

Mr. Comey. I am not.

Mr. Nadler. Do you agree with the characterization that 

the special counsel's investigation is a witch hunt? 

Mr. Comey. I do not.

Mr. Nadler. What is your general impression of the 

individuals on the special counsel's team? 

Mr. Comey. I know them by reputation, and it's an all-star 

team of people whose names I've known for years as great Federal 

prosecutors. Others are unknown to me. But I know the 

reputation and substance of the person leading them, the best. 

Although we're not friends, I admire Bob Mueller. He is more 

than people realize.

Mr. Nadler. Do you agree with the characterization that 

the special counsel's team is out of control and are not seeking 

the truth? 

Mr. Comey. I don't have any reason to believe that's true.
61

Mr. Nadler. And how confident are you that the members of 

the special counsel team are conducting the investigation based 

solely on the facts and the law and not on their political 

affiliation? 

Mr. Comey. I've seen no indication. Again, all I follow 

it through is the public media. I've seen no indication of that 

in the media. And, again, I also know the person who leads them 

and the kind of culture he creates, and it's one of integrity.

Mr. Nadler. Why do you think the President publicly 

attacks Robert Mueller and his investigators as frequently as 

he does? Is it to undermine public confidence in their findings 

or some other reason? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know.

Mr. Nadler. Do you agree with the President's

characterization that Robert Mueller is damaging the criminal 

justice system? 

Mr. Comey. I do not.

Mr. Nadler. How would you characterize the special counsel 

investigation and its importance, not only to our national 

security, but as a means of restoring public confidence in our 

elections and law enforcement agencies? 

Mr. Comey. Watching it from the outside, my judgment as 

an experienced prosecutor and investigator is it's been 

conducted with extraordinary speed, with extraordinary 

professionalism, and zero disclosure outside of public court 
62

filings. It represents the way our criminal justice system is 

supposed to work in investigating, and I believe it's incredibly 

important to the rule of law in this country that the work be 

allowed to finish.

Mr. Nadler. Now, you may have answered this already, but 

one specific assertion is that you and Special Counsel Mueller 

are, quote, "best friends." 

On September 5th, President Trump brought up Special 

Counsel Mueller in an interview with The Daily Caller stating, 

quote: And he's Comey's best friend, and I could give you a 

hundred pictures of him and Comey hugging and kissing each other. 

You know he's Comey's best friend, close quote.

Are you best friends with Robert Mueller? 

Mr. Comey. I am not. I admire the heck out of the man, 

but I don't know his phone number, I've never been to his house, 

I don't know his children's names. I think I had a meal once 

alone with him in a restaurant. I like him. I am not a -- I'm 

an associate of his who admires him greatly. We're not friends 

in any social sense.

Mr. Nadler. Thank you. I will not ask whether you've ever 

hugged and kissed him. 

Mr. Comey. A relief to my wife.

Mr. Nadler. On page 88 of your book, A Higher Loyalty: 

Truth, Lies in Leadership, you recount a hospital scene during 

the Bush administration with then-FBI Director Robert Mueller.
63

In the first full paragraph you wrote, quote: Mueller and 

I were not particularly close and had never seen each other 

outside of work, but I knew Bob understood and respected our legal 

position and cared deeply about the rule of law. His whole life 

was about doing things the right way, close quote.

How do you know Robert Mueller cares deeply about the rule 

of law and doing things the right way? 

Mr. Comey. Well, from watching him work. I was his 

supervisor when I was deputy attorney general and he was the FBI 

director. But most importantly, through that incident, 

watching him be prepared to resign, to end his career, because 

he thought the Bush administration was doing things inconsistent 

with the law, and he wasn't going to be any part of it, wasn't 

going to have it. And that strength bolstered me during that 

difficult period but was just typical of the way he approached 

things.

Mr. Nadler. And he was at that point part of the Bush 

administration. Is that correct?

Mr. Comey. Correct. He was the FBI director.

Mr. Nadler. And how confident are you that he will do 

things the right way with respect to the special counsel 

investigation? 

Mr. Comey. There are not many things I would bet my life 

on. I would bet my life that Bob Mueller will do things the right 

way, the way we would all want, whether we're Republicans or 
64

Democrats, the way Americans should want.

Mr. Nadler. And is it fair to say that there are no facts 

that you know of to support the notion that Special Counsel 

Mueller is politically motivated or biased? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know of any. I'm smiling at this moment 

because I can't imagine any, given the nature of that person and 

his life.

Mr. Nadler. And it's still accurate that you're not 

particularly close to Robert Mueller? 

Mr. Comey. It is accurate.

Mr. Nadler. On October 17th, the FBI responded to a 

Freedom of Information Act request for, quote, "photographs of 

former FBI Director James Comey and Robert Mueller hugging and 

kissing each other," by saying "no responsive records were 

located."

I assume you're not aware of any such photographs? 

Mr. Comey. I'm not aware of any such photograph. I have 

never hugged or kissed the man. Again, I'm an admirer but not 

that kind of admirer. 

Mr. Nadler. The FBI and the Department of Justice have been 

more broadly accused of conducting investigations driven by 

political bias instead of just by the facts and the rule of law.

During your tenure at the FBI and the Department of Justice, 

were you aware of any FBI investigation motivated by political 

bias? 
65

Mr. Comey. None. Never.

Mr. Nadler. Were you aware of any Justice Department 

investigations that were motivated by political bias? 

Mr. Comey. Never. None. 

Mr. Nadler. On May 22nd, Republican Members of Congress 

introduced House Resolution 907 requesting that the Attorney 

General appoint a second special counsel to investigate 

misconduct at the Department of Justice and the FBI.

That resolution alleged, quote, "Whereas, there is an 

urgent need for the appointment of a second special counsel in 

light of evidence that raises critical concerns about decisions, 

activities, and inherent bias displayed at the highest levels 

of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of 

Investigation regarding FISA abuse, how and why the Hillary 

Clinton email probe ended, and how and why the Donald 

Trump-Russia probe began," close quote.

Is there any evidence of inherent bias displayed at the 

highest levels of the DOJ and the FBI regarding how and why the 

Hillary Clinton email probe ended? 

Mr. Comey. Not that I'm aware of.

Mr. Nadler. Are you aware of any evidence of inherent bias 

displayed at the highest levels of the DOJ and the FBI against 

Donald Trump as part of the Trump-Russia investigation? 

Mr. Comey. I am not.

Mr. Nadler. Are you aware of any actions ever taken to 
66

damage the Trump campaign at the highest levels of the Department 

of Justice or the FBI? 

Mr. Comey. I am not.

Mr. Nadler. Are you aware of any actions ever taken to 

personally target Donald Trump at the highest levels of the 

Department of Justice or the FBI? 

Mr. Comey. I am not.

Mr. Nadler. And you have previously noted, I believe, that 

if Agent Strzok, who had expressed his personal political 

opinions negatively about then-candidate Trump, had wanted to 

misuse his office to damage the Trump campaign, he could easily 

have done so by leaking information about the fact that there 

was an ongoing investigation. Is that not correct? 

Mr. Comey. Certainly, yes.

Mr. Nadler. And he could have done that, but he did not 

do that? 

Mr. Comey. He did not.

Mr. Nadler. That would be evidence that he was not doing 

anything to bring his political opinions into making judgments 

at the FBI? 

Mr. Comey. Certainly inconsistent with the conspiracy 

theory that he was trying to hurt Donald Trump. If you're going 

to have a conspiracy theory, you've got to explain all the facts. 

And it's hard to reconcile his not leaking that Trump associates 

were under investigation and his drafting of a letter to Congress 
67

on October 28th that Secretary Clinton believed hurt her chances 

of being elected.

Mr. Nadler. At a campaign rally in August, President Trump 

said, quote, "Our Justice Department and our FBI have to start 

doing their jobs and doing it right and doing it now because 

people are angry. People are angry," close quote.

In another rally in September, the President said, quote, 

"Look what's being exposed at the Department of Justice and the 

FBI. You have some real bad ones. You see what's happening at 

the FBI. They're all gone. They're all gone. But there's a 

lingering stench and we're going to get rid of that too," close 

quote.

Do you agree with the President's characterization that the 

Department of Justice and the FBI are not doing their jobs? 

Mr. Comey. I do not.

Mr. Nadler. Do you believe there are some "real bad ones" 

at the FBI or DOJ? 

Mr. Comey. I do not.

Mr. Nadler. Are you at all concerned that the President 

of the United States is trying to smear and undermine the 

credibility of his investigators at the Justice Department? 

Mr. Comey. Deeply concerned. I think the part of that 

that's right is that people are angry. Some people are angry 

because they've been lied to for so long about the nature and 

quality of the FBI and the Department of Justice.
68

Mr. Nadler. I'm sorry. Lied to --

Mr. Comey. Lied to by the President and his supporters 

about the nature and quality of the Department of Justice and 

the FBI. It's shortsighted, and anybody who knows those 

organizations, knows it's not true.

Mr. Nadler. And what implications might there be under the 

Justice Department and the rule of law? 

Mr. Comey. Those kind of lies hurt the ability of the FBI 

to be believed at a doorway or in a courtroom. That makes all 

of us less safe. These are honest institutions made up of normal 

flawed human beings, but people committed to doing things the 

right way. When they're lied about constantly, it hurts the 

faith and confidence of the American people in them, and that 

is bad for all of us. I don't care what your political stripe 

is.

Mr. Nadler. And how does that impact our national 

security? 

Mr. Comey. Our national security turns upon the ability 

of an FBI agent to convince the girlfriend of a jihadi that we 

will protect her if she cooperates with us. If we're seen as 

a political group of one kind or another, an untrustworthy group, 

that trust is eroded and the agent loses the ability to make that 

case. If a jury doesn't believe an FBI agent when he or she says, 

I found this or I heard this in the course of this case, we're 

less safe because the case can't be made.
69

Mr. Nadler. Okay. And these are direct consequences of 

statements made, such as I've quoted, by the President and by 

other people who go along with him? 

Mr. Comey. I believe they are.

Mr. Nadler. And what impact do you believe that actions 

of this Congress' resolutions, such as H.R. 907 that I quoted 

a few minutes ago, and investigations, frankly, such as this one, 

have on the ability of the Justice Department to conduct fair 

and thorough investigations and prosecutions? 

Mr. Comey. To the extent it echoes the lies and the smears 

from the President, it simply increases the chances that the 

Department of Justice and the FBI's credibility will be 

undermined.

I'm a big fan of oversight and truth-seeking, but when 

people veer from truth-seeking into trying to find any excuse 

to bad-mouth an organization that's investigating the President, 

we've lost our way.

Mr. Nadler. Would you be surprised to know that criminal 

defendants are using attacks similar to those levied by the 

President and Republicans? 

Mr. Comey. No. 

[Comey Exhibit No. 1

Was marked for identification.] 

Mr. Nadler. And I want to introduce an exhibit. It's an 

article from the Huffington Post. The headline, Trump's FBI 
70

Attacks Are Helping Accused Terrorists Defend Themselves in 

Court.

This article details the defense of three alleged domestic 

terrorists in Kansas. They are anti-Muslim militia members 

accused of planning to bomb an apartment complex with 

predominantly Somali immigrant residents.

Defense counsel argued the men were targeted by, quote, "a 

biased FBI conspired against them in the lead up to the 2016 

election due to their political beliefs," close quote.

What is your reaction to that?

Mr. Comey. Well, again, I don't know the particular case, 

but taking the news article at face value, it's an example of 

the kind of thing that I worry about. When corrosive attacks 

are directed at our institutions of justice, we will all pay a 

price for that.

Mr. Nadler. And, therefore, you'd believe that the current 

political rhetoric endorsed by the President and his allies, such 

as I've quoted, is potentially damaging to law enforcement's 

ability to keep Americans safe?

Mr. Comey. I do. I'm not against criticizing law 

enforcement organizations or law enforcement leaders. I've 

been criticized, I think, reasonably. But when you attack the 

fiber of the institution and say it's corrupt and untrustworthy 

and aiming at political enemies, you do lasting damage to an 

institution this country relies upon, and everybody should 
71

realize that's a mistake.

Mr. Nadler. Thank you. I have no further questions. 

Ms. Jackson Lee. 

Ms. Jackson Lee. Good morning, moving into good afternoon. 

Thank you for your presence here.

I want to put on the record that Democrats never received 

a copy of the agreement. So I hope that, in short order, the 

majority will provide us with the agreement regarding the 

quashing of the subpoena. 

Mr. Kelley. I will be more than happy to, and its merely 

an email correspondence.

Ms. Jackson Lee. I appreciate getting something in 

writing. Thank you so very much.

Let me thank you, Mr. Comey, for your service to the Nation. 

I share your view that the American people would have been better 

served if the lame duck House Republican majority of this 

committee had scheduled a public hearing instead of a private 

interview behind closed doors to discuss matters that are vital 

to the health of our democracy.

I fully expect that to be a standard practice for this 

committee in the 116th Congress under a new Democratic majority. 

So I have several questions, which I'd like to lay the predicate 

for.

Dealing with the FBI investigation of Secretary Clinton's 

emails, the investigation was an outgrowth of the House 
72

Republican Benghazi investigation. A sad investigation, which 

we now know, because it was confirmed by House Majority Leader 

McCarthy that it was for one purpose. It had at its principal 

aim was to undermine and damage the public image and standing 

of Secretary Hillary Clinton, whom House Republicans feared 

would be the 2016 Democratic Presidential nominee.

You'll recall that House Republicans relentlessly 

questioned, second-guessed, and attacked her integrity and that 

of career FBI agents when you announced at your famous July 5th, 

2016, press conference that the FBI concluded that there was no 

evidence to support a finding Secretary Clinton had violated the 

law. House Republicans bitterly criticized you and questioned 

the integrity and legitimacy of the investigation. 

For your part, you were confident enough in the 

determination reached by the FBI that you've stated under oath 

the case itself was not a cliffhanger and that no reasonable 

prosecutor would ever bring such a case on these facts. House 

Republicans disagreed with you extensively. They wanted you to 

prosecute Secretary Clinton regardless of the facts.

And from July 2016 through October 2016, House Republicans 

engaged in an almost daily ritual of holding hearings, 

desperately trying to tear down your investigation and your 

recommendation. They did not stop attacking you until 

October 28th, the day you sent your letter to the congressional 

leaders announcing that, in an unrelated investigation, the FBI 
73

had learned of the existence of emails that appeared to be 

pertinent to an investigation of Secretary Clinton's email 

server.

House Republicans promptly leaked your update, according 

to the media, characterizing your action as a decision by the 

FBI to reopen its investigation, even though the FBI had not at 

that time reviewed any of the emails in question and 

notwithstanding the fact that you advised them the FBI was not 

then in a position to assess whether or not this material may 

be significant.

For the next 8 days, a period in which millions of Americans 

were casting their ballots during early voting, the baseless 

claims of House Republicans were repeated ad nauseam by them and 

candidate, Mr. Trump, dominating media coverage in the final 

days, and did not stop even after your announcement 2 days before 

the election on November 5th, 2016. That upon further review, 

that the FBI had again found no basis to believe that Secretary 

Clinton had committed a crime.

Given this chronology and the benefit of hindsight, do you 

regret not following the Justice Department's policy and 

practice of refraining from taking investigatory or prosecutory 

actions that could affect the outcome of an election to be held 

within the ensuing 60 days of an election? 

Mr. Comey. I don't. I regret being involved at all, but 

even in hindsight, I think that that was the decision I had to 
74

take. And I don't want to quibble, but there's no policy around 

taking action in a runup to an election, but there's a really 

important norm that I believe in. If you can avoid it, you take 

no action in the runup to an election. It might have an impact 

on the election, I believe in that, even today. 

Ms. Jackson Lee. Well, I can't put words in your mouth, 

but you were, in essence, engaged or interfering or participating 

in an election of the known and documented leaders of the free 

world.

I would consider the elections of the President of the 

United States in a world context as one of the most significant 

elections that we would ever have in the world.

Again, would you not consider that maybe in that context 

that the timing was very difficult? 

Mr. Comey. Oh, excruciating. Causes me great pain even 

to sit here and talk about it today, but the two alternatives 

I saw, I chose the least bad. I still think the other alternative 

was worse. And as between bad and worse, I had to choose bad. 

I wish we weren't involved, but given that we were involved, we 

tried to make the right decision for the right reasons.

Ms. Jackson Lee. You sent a letter dated October 28th, 

2016, to indicate that there was a reopening of the 

investigation. I count the numbers of addressees as 16. 

Why would you need to send -- did you send this classified? 

Did you send this with an indication that this was not to be 
75

exposed to the media? Did you make the point or have your 

liaisons make the point to the Members of Congress that this 

should not have been exposed? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know for sure. It wasn't classified. 

It was a private communication to the eight chairs and rankings 

of the committees that had received information from the FBI. 

And the Congressional Affairs staff of the FBI thought those were 

the people it ought to go to. It was not, as you said earlier, 

we didn't release anything to the public, but it wasn't 

classified. 

Ms. Jackson Lee. But I think you can -- would you pretty 

well agree that 16 addressees is almost inevitably going to be 

released? 

Mr. Comey. Yes.

Ms. Jackson Lee. Do you think that the FBI could have been 

more cautious, whether you did government affairs, 8 days out 

or how many days out before the election? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know, is the honest answer. The staff 

that works Congressional Affairs thought we had to inform these 

eight committee chairs and rankings. And so I think about it 

the way you do, that raised the serious prospect it would be 

released to the public, and -- but that was a risk we thought 

we had to run.

Ms. Jackson Lee. Why did not Attorney General Lynch or 

Deputy Attorney General Yates not make the announcements of 
76

July 5th, October 28th, or November -- 2016? 

Were they consulted? Did they concur in your judgment?

Mr. Comey. Separate incidents. July 5th, I informed them 

that I was going to make an announcement, and so they weren't 

consulted on the substance of the announcement. 

The October 28th letter, I informed them the day before that 

I thought I had to inform Congress but would be happy to discuss 

it with them. And they said they didn't wish to discuss it with 

me. 

And so in the first instance, I don't think they had much 

opportunity to engage with me on it because I said I think I need 

to do this separately. In October, they did but chose not to 

take the chance -- take the opportunity.

Ms. Jackson Lee. Why wouldn't you yield to Deputy Attorney 

General Yates to make that announcement? Is that not the normal 

protocol in any structured law enforcement versus prosecutor 

from the low level -- let me not call local district attorneys 

low level -- but from the level of local government all the way 

up to the Federal Government, that the district attorney, the 

prosecutor, the attorney general, the attorney general of the 

State of whatever, makes the announcement regarding any 

prosecutorial stance? 

Mr. Comey. Definitely.

Ms. Jackson Lee. And then why was that not done here? 

Mr. Comey. First of all, to agree with the first part of 
77

your question, yeah, the normal circumstances, the Attorney 

General would make that announcement with the FBI director --

Ms. Jackson Lee. Absolutely.

Mr. Comey. -- standing next to her. Absolutely. And so 

I had never even actually heard of a circumstance where the FBI 

made an announcement separate from the -- without coordinating 

it with the Attorney General. I thought we had to do that if 

the American people are going to have confidence that the result 

was apolitical.

Now, it would have been great if Loretta Lynch had recused 

herself and made Sally Yates the acting attorney general. I 

think what I would have done in that circumstance is hand it to 

Sally, who did not have the issues that Loretta had -- I like 

them both -- but didn't have the issues that Loretta had with 

potential appearance of bias, but Loretta announced that she 

would not recuse herself. She would just accept my 

recommendation and that of the career prosecutors. 

And so I felt like I didn't have the option to hand it to 

Sally because Loretta had stayed in charge. That makes sense. 

And so I called each of them and said, I'm going to make an 

announcement this morning. I'm not going to coordinate it with 

you. I hope when you see it, you'll understand why. 

And the goal was to make sure the American people knew, this 

wasn't the Obama administration. This wasn't some political 

fix. There was no case there because apolitical professionals 
78

thought so.

Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me move on.

It is true, is it not, that Secretary Clinton's campaign 

was not the subject of a Federal counterintelligence 

investigation by our Nation's law enforcement? 

Mr. Comey. To my knowledge, it was not. 

You're saying the Clinton campaign? 

Ms. Jackson Lee. Yes.

Mr. Comey. To my knowledge, it was not.

Ms. Jackson Lee. But the same is not true with respect to 

the Trump campaign, which was under investigation for colluding 

with a hostile foreign power to influence the outcome of the 2016 

election? 

Mr. Comey. The Trump campaign was not under 

investigation. The FBI, in late July, opened 

counterintelligence investigations of four Americans to see if 

they were working in any way with the Russians to influence our 

elections. 

Ms. Jackson Lee. Those individuals were affiliated with 

the campaign? I believe they were in some form.

Mr. Comey. At least some of them were. The FBI and the 

Department of Justice have not confirmed the names of those folks 

publicly, which is why I'm not going into the specifics.

Ms. Jackson Lee. However, during the discovery of that 

investigation, which was comparable to an investigation of 
79

another candidate, that information was not announced or 

presented to the American people or asked of the Attorney General 

to make a statement based upon the facts that the FBI had. No 

announcement was made about that. Is that correct? 

Mr. Comey. That's correct. And it was treated the way the 

Clinton investigation had been treated. We said nothing during 

the beginning of it. It wasn't until the following spring that 

we confirmed to Congress that there even was an investigation 

of any sort without naming the people. So the rule actually was 

consistently applied.

Ms. Jackson Lee. But you never ever came to the American 

people during the election to indicate that there were 

investigations of principals that may have been involved in the 

Trump campaign on any matter? 

Mr. Comey. That's correct, because of our policies and 

approach to those investigations, all investigations.

Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me offer to say, I don't know if the 

American people could decipher between the distinction. What 

is left in the minds is you announced one, you didn't announce 

the other.

Mr. Comey. Yeah, I agree with that --

Ms. Jackson Lee. When you met with the President at the 

White House on January 27th, 2017, the meeting during which he 

asked you to let Flynn go, did the President know at the time 

that the FBI was investigating Russia's interference in the 2016 
80

elections? 

Mr. Comey. The meeting you're referring to was Valentine's 

Day, February 14th of 2017, not the 27th. And I don't know --

Ms. Jackson Lee. I stand corrected. Thank you.

Mr. Comey. I don't know what the President knew at that 

point.

Ms. Jackson Lee. What did you understand the President to 

be asking for when he requested that you let Flynn go? To stop 

investigating Michael Flynn's conduct or stopping investigating 

Russian interference of the 2016 election? 

Mr. Comey. The first. As I've testified, I understood him 

to be directing me -- asking, but I took it as a direction -- to 

drop an investigation of Flynn's interaction with the FBI over 

his conversations with the Russians in the transition.

Ms. Jackson Lee. What was your impression of that request? 

Mr. Comey. That it was improper and that I was not going 

to abide by it.

Ms. Jackson Lee. Were you silent at that time or did you 

indicate that to the President? 

Mr. Comey. My recollection is he said something about 

Flynn being a good guy and that he hoped I would let it go. And 

I answered, "I agree he's a good guy," or words to that effect, 

but I didn't agree to his request. I actually just commented 

on part of what he had said.

Ms. Jackson Lee. And did you pursue responding back to him 
81

or was there silence after that? Meaning, did you engage 

subsequent to that of his point? Because, obviously, when the 

President of the United States speaks, and though you're in an 

independent agency, he might believe that work should begin on 

responding to his request.

Mr. Comey. I don't know what he believed. I never spoke 

to him about it again.

Ms. Jackson Lee. Did you feel a certain pressure? 

Mr. Comey. I felt that he was asking me, directing me to 

drop a criminal investigation, which I thought was improper, so 

I went back, wrote a memo about it, briefed the leadership of 

the FBI so we could figure out what to do about it. 

[Comey Exhibit No. 2

Was marked for identification.] 

Ms. Jackson Lee. This is my last question, and it requires 

an exhibit. Pages 68, 69 of the transcript from former FBI 

General Counsel James Baker.

The question was: "You had said that the President's 

firing of Director Comey, you considered to be a threat to 

national security. And my question was, in what way was it a 

threat to national security?" 

The answer was: "So the investigation at a high level was 

about Russia, period, full stop. And it was trying to assess, 

in this particular instance, what the Russians were doing or had 

done with respect to the 2016 Presidential election. We are 
82

trying to investigate what the Russians did and what any -- and 

whether there were any Americans or others who had done things 

in support of those efforts, either knowingly or unknowingly, 

so that we could understand the full nature and scope of what 

the Russians had attempted to do. 

And so to the extent that this action of firing Director 

Comey may have been caused by or was the result of a decision 

to shut down that investigation, which I thought was a legitimate 

investigation, then that would frustrate our ability to some 

degree to ascertain what the Russians as well as any other 

Americans or others had done in furtherance of the objectives 

of the Russian Federation.

So not only -- I guess the point is not only would it be 

an issue about obstructing the investigation, but the 

obstruction itself would hurt our ability to figure out what the 

Russians had done and what is and what would be the threat to 

the national security. Our inability or our -- the inability 

or the delays, the difficulties that we might have with respect 

to trying to figure out what the Russians were doing, because 

our main objective was to thwart them."

Director Comey, do you agree with Mr. Baker's assessment 

that President Trump's firing you was a threat to national 

security? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know enough to say to the -- if it's 

true that the firing was designed to thwart the Russian 
83

investigation, then I would agree, understanding of what Russia 

was doing. But I don't know enough about the reasons -- what 

the real reasons were for the firing to give you a definitive 

answer.

Ms. Jackson Lee. Well, Mr. Comey, didn't you write memos 

about the conversation? Wasn't it important enough to you as 

a law enforcement officer who deals with national security to 

solidify or to cement your memory in a memo? 

Mr. Comey. Sure.

Ms. Jackson Lee. So wouldn't that lead to a conclusion that 

this was really a dangerous posture to be in and it might 

jeopardize national security? 

Mr. Comey. Sure, it might. I just can't answer the 

ultimate question as to whether it did because I don't know for 

certain what the motivation was in firing me.

Ms. Jackson Lee. In hindsight as well? 

Mr. Comey. Well, I've heard President Trump say on 

television that he fired me because of the Russia thing.

Ms. Jackson Lee. So with that in mind, would you say that 

was a threat to national security? 

Mr. Comey. If that was the reason for the firing. But I've 

also heard him say other things at other times that that wasn't 

the reason, and so it's really not -- I'm not able to answer it 

because I can't see enough of the facts. I'm sure that's 

something the special counsel is examining.
84

Ms. Jackson Lee. Do you agree that your firing could have 

threatened the ability of the FBI to learn what the Russians as 

well as any other Americans or others had done in the furtherance 

of the objectives of the Russian Federation? 

Mr. Comey. Potentially.

Ms. Jackson Lee. In the past 18 months since that 

testimony, do you feel more certain that you were fired because 

of the Russian investigation? If so, why?

Mr. Comey. I'm still in the same place, that I've heard 

the President say that, but I've also heard him say different 

things. So I can't answer the question.

Ms. Jackson Lee. Is there any need to further investigate 

Hillary Clinton's emails based upon the decision that you made 

not to prosecute? 

Mr. Comey. Not that I can possibly see.

Ms. Jackson Lee. You consider this case closed? 

Mr. Comey. Yes. There's no serious person who thinks 

there's a prosecutable case there. And so, not that can I see.

Ms. Jackson Lee. I yield. Thank you. 

Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much.

Director Comey, Elijah Cummings, the ranking member of the 

Oversight Committee.

You've already testified to Congress about the Russia 

investigation a number of times. The last time was June 2017 

during the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, so that was 
85

about 18 months ago. 

During your June 2017 testimony before the Senate 

Intelligence Committee, you stated, and I quote, "The Russia 

investigation itself is vital because of the threat, and I know 

I should have said this earlier, but it's obvious if any Americans 

were part of helping the Russians do that to us, that is a very 

big deal," end of quote.

Director Comey, can you elaborate on what, quote, "the 

threat," unquote, is that makes the Russia investigation so 

vital? 

Mr. Comey. The aim of the Russian effort in 2016 was to 

destabilize, undermine, damage our democracy. That was their 

overwhelming goal. And so you have a foreign nation that is 

attacking the United States of America in an effort to undermine 

that which is essentially us, our democratic process. So that's 

a very serious threat. And understanding whether any Americans 

were part of that effort is incredibly important because the 

threat of those Americans by virtue of their alliance with the 

Russians would pose to our country.

Mr. Cummings. Can you describe for us the magnitude of the 

national security threat the FBI was investigating? 

Mr. Comey. Well, I don't know that I can say it better than 

I just said it. We saw, as did the rest of the intelligence 

community, in 2016, the Russians engaged in a widespread, 

sophisticated effort to undermine this democracy, to hurt one 
86

of the candidates, Secretary Clinton, and to help the other 

candidate, Donald Trump. Given the stakes of the election and 

the nature that we are a democracy, it is hard to imagine anything 

more important than understanding and thwarting that threat. 

Mr. Cummings. If someone were to impede or prematurely 

halt the special counsel's Russia investigation, how severe 

would the implications be to our national security, in your 

opinion? 

Mr. Comey. Well, in my opinion, it would undermine our 

national security by not holding accountable people who might 

have been involved in either the Russians or people who worked 

with them, first. And second, it would send an absolutely 

appalling message about the rule of law in this country of ours. 

Mr. Cummings. And would there also be severe implications 

for our democracy and the rule of law? 

Mr. Comey. Yes. The Russians' goal was for everyone in 

the world to have doubt about the nature and credibility of the 

American democracy, to dirty it up so it's not a shining city 

on the hill. So their attack had implications for that, the role 

of the American democratic experiment. And if someone were to 

order it stopped, the investigation into that, it would have a 

similar effect. 

Mr. Cummings. You stated it was, quote, "obvious," end 

quote, that any Americans helping the Russians interfere with 

our election is a big deal. And I agree. 
87

Can I ask you to spell out in as basic terms as possible 

why that would be a very big deal? I also think it is a big deal 

that the President's campaign chairman and his national security 

advisor both pleaded guilty to committing crimes. Michael Flynn 

and the President's national security advisor pleaded guilty to 

having lied to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian 

Government, about sanctions. So the national security advisory 

lied about his contacts with the foreign government over a 

national security issue.

How serious of a national security risk is it to have the 

national security advisor lying about his contacts with a foreign 

government adversary to the FBI and the American people? 

Mr. Comey. Mr. Cummings, I don't think I can answer the 

last part of that question because it touches on the work of the 

special counsel. 

I can answer the first part, which is, the reason it's a 

big deal is you have an adversary nation attacking America. If 

Americans in our country are assisting them, it's aiding and 

abetting the enemy in attacking our country. 

We take it seriously when people were helping German 

saboteurs infiltrate Long Island during World War II. We take 

it seriously when scientists are selling secrets to the Soviets 

about our nuclear capabilities. I take it just as seriously if 

there are Americans who were -- and I'm not saying that there 

were -- but if there were Americans who were assisting this 
88

attack on our democracy, it's of the same type, which is why I 

said it's so obvious. 

Mr. Cummings. The President's national security advisor 

has access to our country's most closely held secrets. The 

Russians knew that, and they had talked to Flynn and what he 

talked about, and they knew that Flynn and others in the White 

House were lying about those communications. 

Does that create the concern that the national security 

advisor had been compromised by a foreign adversary? 

Mr. Comey. I think I have to give you the same answer about 

the particular, that even though the man has pled guilty, it's 

still something I think is within the purview of the special 

counsel, so I ought not to be opining on it.

Mr. Cummings. All right. What is the risk to our country 

of having the person with access to our most closely held secrets 

be compromised or potentially compromised by a foreign 

adversary? And I'm not saying that you're concluding that it 

happened. I am just asking, what's the risk, if that were the 

case? 

Mr. Comey. Thank you for that. 

Mr. Cummings. You follow me?

Mr. Comey. Yeah, I follow you, and I'd like to take it to 

one more level of abstraction. 

Mr. Cummings. Sure.

Mr. Comey. Not talk about any particular person.
89

A big part of the FBI's counterintelligence work in the 

United States is trying to understand whether foreign 

adversaries have gained any leverage over anyone in a position 

to influence a policy of the United States Government or to reveal 

its secrets. And so it's at the heart of our counterintelligence 

work, because that's how the bad guys overseas hurt us. One of 

the ways is they co-opt people, recruit them, or coerce them into 

giving up information that's inconsistent with American 

interest. And so it's a critical issue without regard to the 

person. 

Mr. Cummings. Okay. When Deputy Attorney General Sally 

Yates learned of the significant national security risk, she went 

over and warned the White House counsel, who was Don McGahn.

Proper protocol when the White House learned about that 

potential national security risk would have been for the White 

House to suspend General Flynn's access to classified 

information while they looked into the matter, but they didn't 

do that. So we've been told that General Flynn held his active 

clearance until he was fired by the White House about 18 days 

later.

In your experience at the FBI, when the FBI learned that 

an individual who had an active security clearance might be a 

risk to our national security, did the FBI follow the standard 

procedure I described and suspend that individual's security 

clearance pending an investigation? 
90

Mr. Comey. Well, obviously I can't comment on the 

particulars of the Flynn case. 

Mr. Cummings. Right.

Mr. Comey. But in general --

Mr. Cummings. Would that be -- no, you go ahead.

Mr. Comey. A normal response would be to suspend their 

clearance, but there may be operational reasons why you wouldn't 

do that. Say you have somebody inside the FBI you think might 

be a spy. You don't want to alert them to the fact that you're 

on to them. Suspending their clearance might alert them that 

you're on to them. So you might instead just try to put them 

in a bit of a box and restrict the information there without them 

knowing. 

Mr. Cummings. Assuming -- so the question then becomes, 

in your opinion, why would a suspension of a clearance be 

significant there, assuming you don't have that history that you 

just stated? 

Mr. Comey. Well, if we had someone in the FBI that we 

thought might be working for a foreign power, you want to stop 

the damage. And so that's why the normal practice, absent 

operational concerns, would be to stop the damage by cutting off 

their access to information that they might give to the 

adversary. 

Mr. Cummings. Just a few more questions.

You have decades of dedicated service to our country and 
91

have served in senior roles at the Department of Justice and as 

the head of the FBI, and so I want to get your views about national 

security.

Do you think that President Trump's actions pose a treat 

to our national security? Can you explain? 

Mr. Comey. Well, I think -- maybe the best answer I can 

give is, I think the relentless attacks on the institutions of 

justice are something we will all be sorry we stood silent, if 

we stood silent and watched that happened. Because those 

institutions, the Justice Department and the FBI, and the rest 

of the intelligence community, are essential to our national 

security, that they are credited and believed, which they should 

be. And when you run them down for political reasons, you may 

see a short-term gain; you see a long-term damage to our country 

and its security.

Mr. Cummings. Where do we go from here, Mr. Comey, and how 

do we rebuild after the attacks on our democratic institutions 

and the constant breaching of our ethical norms? 

Mr. Comey. Well, our consolation should be the depth and 

strength of America's values. The FBI will be fine. It will 

snap back, as will the rest of our institutions. There will be 

short-term damage, which worries me a great deal, but in the long 

run, no politician, no president can, in a lasting way, damage 

those institutions, because their values are too strong. The 

American military, the intelligence community, the law 
92

enforcement community, it would take generations to screw them 

up in a permanent way. So we're going to be okay. 

What falls to all of us is to speak up so that we reduce 

the damage in the short run and don't become numb to something 

that, frankly, we should all be ashamed of. And I think a whole 

lot of people will be ashamed of some day that they stood silent 

while this happened. 

Mr. Cummings. Well, thank you for your service, sir. 

Mr. Gomez. Thank you. 

Mr. Comey, Congressman Jimmy Gomez from California.

A few questions. There have been a lot of discussion about 

bias here. I wanted to bring up the potential nominee for the 

next Attorney General of the United States, Bill Barr. 

Bill Barr has stated that he sees more reason for the 

Department of Justice to investigate Hillary Clinton's tenure 

as Secretary of State than investigate conspiracy between the 

Trump campaign and Russia. Do you think this is a useful and 

reasonable allocation of DOJ or FBI resources? 

Mr. Comey. I don't. So it's hard for me to react, 

Congressman, to a statement. I don't know what he meant by that 

or what the full context was. Unless there are facts that I 

didn't see when I was Director of the FBI, I don't see a basis 

for continued investigation on the email front. I don't know 

what he -- I can't imagine he saw something as a private citizen, 

so I don't know what to think of that. And I think very highly 
93

of him. I mean, I used to work for him. I probably know him 

better than I know Bob Mueller. I probably just damned him by 

saying he's a friend of mine, but I respect him. I just don't 

know what he meant by that.

Mr. Gomez. Do you think Bill Barr may be acting out of 

political motivation when suggesting a new Clinton probe? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know.

Mr. Gomez. Bill Barr supported Trump during the campaign. 

And then during the campaign, he also publicly supported your 

decision to disclose the Clinton investigation had been 

reopened. Later, however, he supported President Trump's 

decision to fire you on the basis that you, quote/unquote, 

sandbagged the Department of Justice with your unilateral action 

on the Clinton probe.

Do you think that Bill Barr is fit to oversee the FBI and 

the special counsel investigation in a nonpartisan manner if he 

were to return to serve as Attorney General? 

Mr. Comey. I think he's certainly fit to be Attorney 

General. As I said, I think very highly of him. Whether he 

should be involved in those particular cases or not is a question 

I can't answer. I'm sure he'll reflect on it carefully, he's 

a very smart guy, and get expert advice on it. I just can't 

answer it without knowing more.

Mr. Gomez. What factors would he take into consideration 

if he were to be involved in overseeing the special counsel 
94

investigation? 

Mr. Comey. Well, most importantly you want to consider, 

any time you are a leader of an institution of justice, whether 

there's a reasonable appearance that you lack the impartiality 

necessary to be involved in a particular case. And so you'd want 

to look at prior statements, prior engagement in litigation, 

those kinds of things to see whether reasonable folks could have 

a doubt about whether you are calling it as you see it or on one 

team or the other. And given the things you just laid out, it 

raises a question with respect to him, so I'm sure he's going 

to want to look at it, as will the Senate, very closely.

Mr. Gomez. What do you think may be the factors that led 

President Trump to nominate or will nominate Bill Barr as 

Attorney General? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know. I know Bill for years and his 

record as a lawyer and as the Attorney General, and I think 

they're impressive. But I don't know what the President was 

thinking.

Mr. Gomez. I do believe that Congress has a role in the 

oversight of the executive branch. My concern is what are the 

lines of that oversight. What factors could you take into 

account that oversight leads to interference with an ongoing 

investigation? Or is there anything in your mind that would be 

off limits? 

Mr. Comey. Well, hard to answer in the abstract. I mean, 
95

I can say this: I'm a big fan of oversight. My staff used to 

think I was kidding when I said I want to come here and answer 

every question when I was Director of the FBI. 

I think it's important that this branch of government 

exercise its power. I think one of the really bad things about 

the drift of American history, in my lifetime, is this 

organization, this institution has given up a lot of its power. 

And so I like the idea of oversight. 

That said, investigations have to be done with a Lady 

Justice with a blindfold on, and so you really can't have 

oversight by a political branch of ongoing investigations and 

still credibly claim that the Lady Justice is wearing the 

blindfold. So what I would suggest is you do oversight after 

investigations are completed to see if the institution was acting 

in an appropriate way.

As I said, when I moved to quash the subpoena, I support 

oversight of the executive branch. I just have concerns about 

interference with ongoing investigations, and when oversight 

moves from seeking truth to seeking something else, it concerns 

me.

Mr. Gomez. Some of the questions that have been brought 

up to me from my constituents relate to the decision to reveal 

the Hillary Clinton investigation 11 days before an election but 

not regarding the individuals that were being investigated in 

regards to any potential conspiracy with the Trump 
96

administration or the Russian Government.

Can you get into that a little bit? I know you did earlier, 

but there is still -- you're getting shots from both sides of 

the aisle and on some of the decisionmaking. And my constituents 

are really interested in that response.

Mr. Comey. Yes. It's a reasonable question, yes. 

Everybody seems to think I'm on somebody else's side, but the 

treatment of the two cases illustrates the rule. 

In the Clinton investigation, we didn't say anything about 

that investigation for a year, except simply 3 months in to 

confirm that we had an investigation. And that was an 

investigation that began publicly, with a public referral. So 

the whole world knew we had it. We formally confirmed it after 

investigating for 3 months, then we said nothing until it was 

done. 

That's the way we treated the Russian counterintelligence 

investigations. We opened them in late July, didn't know 

whether we had anything. In fact, when I was fired as director, 

I still didn't know whether there was anything to it. And so 

we would never consider making a statement about classified 

investigations that were just beginning. 

The problem in late October was we -- me and Loretta 

Lynch -- had told the world, "We're done with the Clinton email 

investigation. Move on." And I got hammered in this room by 

Republicans, and in many other rooms. And I stood my ground and 
97

said, "No, there's no there, there. Move on." 

On October 27th, I learned that that was no longer true. 

And I had my team telling me, not only is it no longer true, but 

the result may change from our review of these hundreds of

thousands of emails, and we can't finish it before the election. 

And so what do I do? Do I stay silent and leave the Congress 

and the American people relying on something I now know is a lie 

or do I speak? And those are two really bad options. And my

choice was to take the least bad. Tell Congress what I told you 

repeatedly is no longer true and try to make sure it's, "we don't 

know," "we're not sure," but to speak. Because to conceal would 

be to destroy the FBI and the Department of Justice. 

Forget Hillary Clinton's Presidency, although that would 

be severely damaged if she became President on that basis. I 

made the judgement that the Department of Justice and the FBI 

will be ruined if I concealed a lie from this Congress. 

Reasonable people can disagree about that, but it illustrates 

that we treated the two consistently. And what trapped us in 

October was we had told everybody it was over in the summertime.

Mr. Gomez. Thank you. 

Ms. Sachsman Grooms. We're out of time. 

We'll go off the record.
98

[1:00 p.m.] 

Mr. Gowdy. We'll go back on the record. 

Director Comey, I'm going to summarize from a portion of 

what we refer to as the Comey memos. This one is from February 

of 2017. I don't know whether or not you have a copy of your 

memos or whether or not you have recollection of what's in them. 

Mr. Kelley. We don't have copies with us. If you want to 

give them to us, it might expedite things. 

Mr. Gowdy. And, again, this is one from February of 2017. 

Mr. Comey. Which date in February? 

Mr. Gowdy. I want to say it's the 14th, but I could be 

wrong -- 14th. 

Mr. Comey. Okay. Got it. 

Mr. Gowdy. And at the top, it says, "I attended an Oval 

Office" -- you got that one? 

Mr. Comey. I got it. 

Mr. Gowdy. Fourth paragraph, and just tell me whether or 

not I'm fairly summarizing this. I'm not going to read it all, 

but: He -- and I assume "he" is the President, President 

Trump -- began by saying he wanted want to talk about Mike Flynn. 

That's in quotes. He said that, although Flynn hadn't done 

anything wrong in his call with the Russians, he had to let him 

go because he misled the Vice President, whom he described as 

a good guy. Now, was the "he" -- is the "he" modifying Vice 

President Pence or Mike Flynn, when you say whom he described 
99

as a, quote, good guy? 

Mr. Comey. I took him to be meaning Mr. Flynn is a good 

guy. 

Mr. Gowdy. Okay. He explained that he just couldn't have 

Flynn misleading the Vice President. In any event, he had other 

concerns about Flynn; he had a great guy coming in, so he had 

to let Flynn go. Have I fairly summarized that paragraph? 

Mr. Comey. Yes. 

Mr. Gowdy. All right. Next page, second full paragraph, 

I think. Yeah, second full paragraph, it begins: He then. 

You got it? 

Mr. Comey. Got it. 

Mr. Gowdy. He then returned to the topic of Mike Flynn, 

saying: Flynn's a good guy and has been through a lot. He 

misled the Vice President, but he didn't do anything wrong in 

the call. Said: I hope you can see your way clear of letting 

this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can 

let this go. I replied by saying I agree he is a good guy, but 

said no more. 

Have I fairly described that paragraph? 

Mr. Comey. Yes. In fact, I think you read it. 

Mr. Gowdy. Do the contents of that paragraph, are they 

sufficient to launch an obstruction of justice investigation? 

Mr. Comey. Potentially. 

Mr. Gowdy. What part of it potentially could lead to the 
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initiation of an obstruction of justice investigation? 

Mr. Comey. The President asking -- one interpretation of 

it is the President asking the FBI to drop a criminal 

investigation. 

Mr. Gowdy. Did you act or fail to act in any way in the 

Flynn matter because of what the President said to you? 

Mr. Comey. Act or fail to act? I didn't abide this 

direction. In fact, kept it to a fairly small group in FBI 

headquarters so it would not have any impact on the 

investigation. 

Mr. Gowdy. But I'm asking you specifically --

Mr. Comey. I took acts -- the reason I'm hesitating is I 

took acts to make sure it had no impact on the investigation. 

Mr. Gowdy. I'm with you, but it did not -- did his comments 

prevent you from following the leads that you thought should have 

been followed? 

Mr. Comey. No. 

Mr. Gowdy. Did his comments prevent you from taking any 

act as the Director of the FBI that you thought were warranted 

by the other fact pattern? 

Mr. Comey. No. This had -- I did not abide this. And it 

did not affect the investigation, so far as I'm aware, in any 

way. 

Mr. Gowdy. Did you initiate an obstruction of justice 

investigation based on what the President said? 
101

Mr. Comey. I don't think so. I don't recall doing that, 

so I don't think so. 

Mr. Gowdy. Would you recall initiating a criminal 

investigation into the President of the United States? 

Mr. Comey. Yes, I'm sorry. I didn't personally, but I 

took it also to mean, did anyone else in the FBI open a file with 

an obstruction heading or something? Not to my knowledge is the 

answer. 

Mr. Gowdy. Did you talk to Andy McCabe the day you were 

fired? 

Mr. Comey. I don't think so. I don't think -- it's 

possible, but I don't think so. 

Mr. Gowdy. Did you talk to Lisa Page the day you were fired? 

Mr. Comey. That I'm sure of. No. 

Mr. Gowdy. Did you talk to Peter Strzok the day you were 

fired? 

Mr. Comey. No. 

Mr. Gowdy. Do you know whether or not an obstruction of 

justice investigation was launched the day you were fired? 

Mr. Comey. I don't. 

Mr. Gowdy. If Flynn had said, "Director Comey" -- I'm 

sorry. 

If President Trump had said, "Director Comey, General Flynn 

made a mistake, and he didn't have the intent to violate the law," 

would you have viewed that as obstruction? 
102

Mr. Comey. I can't answer that hypothetical. 

Mr. Gowdy. Well, we're going to have to get our way through 

it a little bit. Is someone saying, "Look, he just made a 

mistake" -- mistake is a defense to certain crimes, right? So 

that could be interpreted as didn't commit a criminal offense. 

Mr. Comey. The reason I don't feel comfortable going into 

hypotheticals is obstruction is a crime that turns on intent, 

and I can't speak in -- either in fact or in hypotheticals to 

intent here. 

Mr. Gowdy. Well, what was the President's intent 

when -- in your opinion, when he said, "I hope you can see your 

way clear to letting this go"? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know for sure. 

Mr. Gowdy. So it would be the failure of an essential 

element of an obstruction of justice case if the person who 

received that information did not view it as an attempt to impact 

his decisionmaking? 

Mr. Comey. I don't think that's right as a matter of law. 

I don't think the reaction of the object of the obstructive 

effort, their perception, is dispositive. 

Mr. Gowdy. Were you obstructed? 

Mr. Comey. Because I think I could have -- I could endeavor 

to obstruct something and you not realize what I'm doing.

Mr. Gowdy. Were you obstructed? 

Mr. Comey. Well, I don't know -- there was no impact, so 
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far as I'm aware, on the investigation, from this conversation. 

Mr. Gowdy. If he had said, "Look, General Flynn doesn't 

have the intent to commit a crime," how would you have viewed 

that? 

Mr. Kelley. Do you understand the question? 

Mr. Comey. Yeah, I still would not offer an opinion as to 

what his intention was in doing that. I would find it very 

concerning, just as I found this very concerning, but I didn't 

then, and I don't now, have an opinion on the ultimate question 

about whether it was obstruction. 

Mr. Gowdy. Well, the reason I ask general -- Director 

Comey, is, there was another Chief Executive who referred to an 

ongoing criminal matter by saying she made a mistake, and she 

lacked criminal intent. Did you view that as potentially 

obstruction of justice? 

Mr. Comey. Talking about President Obama now? 

Mr. Gowdy. Yes. 

Mr. Comey. I didn't see it as -- through the lens of 

obstruction of justice. I saw it as threatening our ability to 

credibly complete the investigation. 

Mr. Gowdy. In what way? 

Mr. Comey. The President of the United States offering a

view on a matter or a case that's under investigation, when that 

President is of the same party as the subject of the investigation 

and working for her election, would tend to cast doubt in 
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reasonable people's minds about whether the investigation had 

been conducted and completed fairly, competently, and 

independently. 

Mr. Gowdy. So, if it doesn't rise to the level of 

obstruction, how would you characterize the Chief Executive 

saying that the target of an investigation that was ongoing 

simply made a mistake and lacked the requisite criminal intent? 

Mr. Comey. It would concern me. It concerns me whenever 

the Chief Executive comments on pending criminal investigations, 

something we see a lot today, which is why it concerned me when 

President Obama did it. 

Mr. Gowdy. Well, it concerns me too, Director Comey. I'm 

also concerned that people treat similarly situated people the 

same. And did you make a memo after President Obama said she 

made a mistake and lacked the requisite criminal intent? 

Mr. Comey. He said that on FOX News.

Mr. Gowdy. Right. 

Mr. Comey. I did not make a memo about the FOX News 

broadcast.

Mr. Gowdy. Did you have a meeting with your investigative 

team to make sure that they were not in any way impacted by what 

he said?

Mr. Comey. No. 

Mr. Gowdy. Who is Christopher Steele? Well, before I go 

to that, let me ask you this. 
105

At any -- who interviewed General Flynn, which FBI agents? 

Mr. Comey. My recollection is two agents, one of whom was 

Pete Strzok and the other of whom is a career line agent, not 

a supervisor. 

Mr. Gowdy. Did either of those agents, or both, ever tell 

you that they did not adduce an intent to deceive from their 

interview with General Flynn? 

Mr. Comey. No. 

Mr. Gowdy. Have you ever testified differently? 

Mr. Comey. No. 

Mr. Gowdy. Do you recall being asked that question in a 

HPSCI hearing? 

Mr. Comey. No. I recall -- I don't remember what question 

I was asked. I recall saying the agents observed no indicia of 

deception, physical manifestations, shiftiness, that sort of 

thing. 

Mr. Gowdy. Who would you have gotten that from if you were 

not present for the interview? 

Mr. Comey. From someone at the FBI, who either spoke to -- I 

don't think I spoke to the interviewing agents but got the report 

from the interviewing agents. 

Mr. Gowdy. All right. So you would have, what, read the 

302 or had a conversation with someone who read the 302? 

Mr. Comey. I don't remember for sure. I think I may have 

done both, that is, read the 302 and then spoke to people who 
106

had spoken to the investigators themselves. It's possible I 

spoke to the investigators directly. I just don't remember 

that. 

Mr. Gowdy. And, again, what was communicated on the issue 

of an intent to deceive? What's your recollection on what those 

agents relayed back? 

Mr. Comey. My recollection was he was -- the conclusion 

of the investigators was he was obviously lying, but they saw 

none of the normal common indicia of deception: that is, 

hesitancy to answer, shifting in seat, sweating, all the things 

that you might associate with someone who is conscious and 

manifesting that they are being -- they're telling falsehoods. 

There's no doubt he was lying, but that those indicators weren't 

there.

Mr. Gowdy. When you say "lying," I generally think of an 

intent to deceive as opposed to someone just uttering a false 

statement. 

Mr. Comey. Sure. 

Mr. Gowdy. Is it possible to utter a false statement 

without it being lying? 

Mr. Comey. I can't answer -- that's a philosophical 

question I can't answer. 

Mr. Gowdy. No, I mean, if I said, "Hey, look, I hope you 

had a great day yesterday on Tuesday," that's demonstrably false. 

Mr. Comey. That's an expression of opinion. 
107

Mr. Gowdy. No, it's a fact that yesterday was --

Mr. Comey. You hope I have a great day -- 

Mr. Gowdy. No, no, no, yesterday was not Tuesday. 

Mr. Comey. Oh, see, I didn't even know that. Yeah. 

Mr. Gowdy. So is it possible to make a false statement 

without having the intent to deceive? 

Mr. Comey. Yes. 

Mr. Gowdy. All right. Is making a false statement without 

the intent to deceive a crime? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know. I can't answer that without 

thinking better about it. 

Mr. Gowdy. So would it, therefore, be relevant, whether 

or -- I'll let you finish talking to your lawyer. 

Mr. Comey. Sorry, go ahead. 

Mr. Gowdy. Would it, therefore, be relevant whether or not 

General Flynn had an intent to deceive? 

Mr. Comey. Let me step away from the case. In 

investigating any false statement case, you want to understand, 

did the defendant, the subject, know they were making a false 

statement? Because you aren't prosecuted for accidents, slips 

of memory, things like that. So, in any false-statement case, 

it's important to understand, what's the proof that they knew 

what they were saying was false? 

Mr. Gowdy. And, again -- because I'm afraid I may have 

interrupted you, which I didn't mean to do -- your agents, it 
108

was relayed to you that your agents' perspective on that 

interview with General Flynn was what? Because where I stopped 

you was, you said: He was lying. They knew he was lying, but 

he didn't have the indicia of lying. 

Mr. Comey. Correct. All I was doing was answering your 

question, which I understood to be your question, about whether 

I had previously testified that he -- the agents did not believe 

he was lying. I was trying to clarify. I think that reporting 

that you've seen is the product of a garble. What I recall 

telling the House Intelligence Committee is that the agents 

observed none of the common indicia of lying -- physical 

manifestations, changes in tone, changes in pace -- that would 

indicate the person I'm interviewing knows they're telling me 

stuff that ain't true. They didn't see that here. It was a 

natural conversation, answered fully their questions, didn't 

avoid. That notwithstanding, they concluded he was lying. 

Mr. Gowdy. Would that be considered Brady material and 

hypothetically a subsequent prosecution for false statement? 

Mr. Comey. That's too hypothetical for me. I mean, 

interesting law school question: Is the absence of 

incriminating evidence exculpatory evidence? But I can't 

answer that question. 

Mr. Gowdy. Well, you used to be the United States Attorney 

for the Southern District of New York. Would you have turned 

over that information? 
109

Mr. Comey. I can't answer that in the abstract. I just 

can't. It depends upon too many unique circumstances to a case. 

Mr. Gowdy. Who is Christopher Steele? 

Mr. Comey. My understanding is that Christopher Steele is 

a former intelligence officer of an allied nation who prepared 

a series of reports in the summer of 2016 that have become known 

as the Steele dossier. 

Mr. Gowdy. How long did he have a relationship with the 

FBI? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know.

Mr. Gowdy. Did you ever meet him? 

Mr. Comey. No. 

Mr. Gowdy. Never met him, never talked to him? 

Mr. Comey. Sorry. 

Okay. No, I never met him, never spoken to the man. 

Mr. Gowdy. When did you learn he was working for Fusion 

GPS? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know that I ever knew that -- certainly 

while I worked at the FBI. I think I've read that in open source, 

but I didn't know that while I was FBI. 

Mr. Gowdy. Who did you think he was working for? 

Mr. Comey. I thought he was retained as part of a 

Republican-financed effort -- retained by Republicans adverse 

to Mr. Trump during the primary season, and then his work was 

underwritten after that by Democrats opposed to Mr. Trump during 
110

the general election season. 

Mr. Gowdy. When did you learn that his work went from being 

financed by what you described as Republicans to what you 

described as Democrats? 

Mr. Comey. Sometime in September, October, is my best 

guess. I don't remember for sure, when I was briefed on the 

materials that had been provided to the FBI. 

Mr. Gowdy. Well, ordinarily, it wouldn't be important 

whether it was December or October, but --

Mr. Comey. September or October. 

Mr. Gowdy. Right. Ordinarily, it wouldn't be important. 

Just so happens, in this fact pattern, it might be. 

Pardon me? 

Mr. Kelley. I thought you said "December or October." 

Mr. Gowdy. Oh, December -- or September? 

Mr. Kelley. You said September first; he said --

Mr. Gowdy. Ordinarily -- let me correct it then. 

Ordinarily, it wouldn't be important whether it was 

September or October. In this fact pattern, it may be. Do you 

have any recollection, did anything else happen in September or 

October that may refresh your recollection on when you learned 

it? 

Mr. Comey. No. It was either September/October, is my 

best recollection. If I had to say, which I will, more likely 

September than October, but I'm really not certain. 
111

Mr. Gowdy. Do you know whether you learned it before there 

were any court filings or pleadings filed in connection with the 

Russia investigation? 

Mr. Comey. Court filings? I don't remember court 

filings. Oh, you're talking about FISA? Sorry. 

Mr. Gowdy. I was trying to avoid use of the word, but that's 

okay. 

Mr. Comey. I think it's been used publicly, which is why I 

just used it. 

Mr. Gowdy. I think it has too, but that doesn't mean it 

should have been. 

Mr. Comey. Yeah. 

I certainly learned of it before the end of October. And 

I think the filing that you're referring to obliquely was at the 

end of October sometime. So it was before that. 

Mr. Gowdy. When did you learn that Fusion GPS was hired 

by Perkins Coie? 

Mr. Comey. I never learned that, certainly not while I was 

Director. 

Mr. Gowdy. Well, when did you learn the DNC had hired 

Perkins Coie? 

Mr. Comey. I never learned that. Again, while I was 

Director. I think I've read it in the media, but, yeah, even 

today, I don't know whether it's true. 

Mr. Gowdy. Now, when you say you never learned it but may 
112

have read it in the media --

Mr. Comey. After I left as Director. 

Mr. Gowdy. While you were the Director, you never knew that 

the DNC hired a law firm that hired an oppo research firm that 

hired Christopher Steele? 

Mr. Comey. No, I don't think so. I don't have any 

recollection of being told that or reading that or learning that 

while I was Director. 

Mr. Gowdy. Is it relevant to you who was paying Chris 

Steele? 

Mr. Comey. Yes, in the sense that I thought it was 

important to understand that it was politically motivated 

effort, first by Republicans, then by Democrats. 

Mr. Gowdy. Whose obligation in the Bureau would it have 

been to bring it to your attention? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know about your use of the word 

"obligation." I'd have to think that through more carefully, 

but I do know that I was told about it, I think, by the general 

counsel, but I'm not sure. And I don't know whether that stemmed 

from an obligation. 

Mr. Gowdy. All right. We'll get at that another way. The 

word "obligation" stemmed from the fact that this is a 

counterintelligence investigation into a political campaign. 

I think you testified -- and I hope you agree -- the source who 

was paying for that information would be relevant. 
113

Mr. Comey. First of all, I have to disagree with your

assertion that it was a counterintelligence investigation into 

a political campaign. I've said that earlier, that it wasn't. 

It was four counterintelligence files on four Americans. The --

Mr. Gowdy. I know you said that, Director Comey, but I 

think you --

Mr. Kelley. Let him finish his answer, please. 

Mr. Comey. Who -- who paid and the particulars of who paid 

would be important to people working the case, but the level of 

specificity that the Director needed to know is, to my mind, a 

different question. 

Mr. Gowdy. If the Director were signing a court filing that 

had a representation in it, the Director would want to know 

whether or not those representations were accurate. 

Mr. Comey. The Director would want to know that the 

process -- carefully constructed process of the FBI had been 

followed, that the right people had reviewed things, that the 

right signoffs had been held, before I would sign the 

certification that came with it. That's probably the most I can 

say about the role of the Director in a FISA. 

Mr. Gowdy. Was Christopher Steele also working with or for 

the Bureau while he was working for Fusion GPS? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know. 

Mr. Gowdy. Do you know whether the FBI was paying 

Christopher Steele for any of his work in the fall -- summer or 
114

fall of 2016? 

Mr. Comey. My recollection is that the FBI was not paying 

him, that the FBI had reimbursed him for some travel expenses 

and had raised the prospect that if there was fruitful further 

work, he could be paid for it. But my recollection is that he 

was not paid. These are the things I remember learning when I 

was Director. Could be wrong, but I think that's what I was told. 

Mr. Gowdy. I think you have answered the next question 

then. Assuming that you are incorrect and the FBI was paying 

him, you don't recall how much the FBI paid him? 

Mr. Comey. Well, as I said, my recollection is that he was 

reimbursed for expenses and that he was not paid for his work 

in connection with the Russia subject, but that the prospect was 

raised. So, of course, given that I don't recall that he was 

paid for his work, the answer would be I don't recall how much 

he was paid because he wasn't paid, in my recollection. 

Mr. Gowdy. When the Bureau uses sources or informants, are 

there agreements signed? Are there certain obligations on 

behalf of the source or the informant? 

Mr. Comey. Yeah, I'm not expert enough to answer that. 

I'm sure that there are, but I don't know the particulars. 

Mr. Gowdy. Is it -- would it be unusual for the FBI to tell 

a source or an informant, you can't commit any other crimes while 

you're working for the Bureau? 

Mr. Comey. I believe that's the case. 
115

Mr. Gowdy. Would it be unusual for the Bureau to tell a 

source or an informant, you can't have media contacts while 

you're working for the Bureau? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know whether that's part of the standard 

warnings or directions to a source. 

Mr. Gowdy. And you're not familiar --

Mr. Kelley. Excuse me. One second, please. 

Mr. Comey. Okay, thank you. 

I'm sorry. Go ahead. 

Mr. Gowdy. How did Chris Steele's information reach the 

FBI? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know for sure. I have some 

recollection that he passed it to an agent that he knew and that 

that agent sent it on to headquarters. I think that's the way 

in which it reached the Counterintelligence Division, but I don't 

remember the specifics of that. 

Mr. Gowdy. How did the Bureau investigate whatever 

information Steele provided? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know in particular. I know that the

Counterintelligence Division was investigating various aspects 

of the reports he had supplied, and that investigation was 

ongoing when I was fired. 

Mr. Gowdy. Do you know whether the Bureau endeavored to 

either contradict or corroborate factual assertions made in what 

has later been described as the Steele dossier?
116

Mr. Comey. My understanding is that that effort -- that 

an effort was under way to try to replicate, either rule in or 

rule out, as much of that collection of reports that's commonly 

now called the Steele dossier as possible, and that that work 

was ongoing when I was fired. 

Mr. Gowdy. When did that work begin? 

Mr. Comey. My recollection is sometime in '16, but I don't 

know when. 

Mr. Gowdy. Before or after it was used in a court filing? 

Mr. Comey. I think before that. I think -- I think when 

it was received, there was an effort immediately to try and 

evaluate it to understand it, and that continued over the next 

6 months. 

Mr. Gowdy. What is the basis of your belief that there was 

an immediate attempt to corroborate or contradict the underlying 

factual assertions? 

Mr. Comey. I have some recollection, vague, of being told 

we're trying to assess this to understand what we can make of 

it, what parts we can rely on, what parts we can't. But I 

don't -- I don't remember more than that. 

Mr. Gowdy. Was Steele the original source of the 

information, or did he himself have sources and subsources? 

Ms. Bessee. Mr. Chairman, to the extent that it 

goes -- your line of questioning goes beyond Christopher Steele 

in particular and into other sources that may impact special 
117

counsel's investigation, I will have to instruct the witness not 

to answer the questions. 

Mr. Gowdy. He can't answer whether Chris Steele was the 

original source for all of the information in the Steele dossier? 

Ms. Bessee. To the extent it goes into --

Mr. Gowdy. I didn't mention the phrase "special counsel." 

Ms. Bessee. I know you have not, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Gowdy. I'm just asking the former Director of the FBI, 

who received information from a source, whether that source had 

knowledge of the underlying accuracy of that information or 

whether the source was relying on other sources. I don't know 

how that implicates anything Bob Mueller's doing. 

Ms. Bessee. If the source relies on other information, 

because this is all part of an ongoing investigation, it may 

impact --

Mr. Gowdy. How? 

Ms. Bessee. Why don't we have the witness -- if it impacts 

the investigation, because the witness has knowledge as to 

whether it would or not, he may not be able to answer the question. 

So I will have the witness --

Mr. Gowdy. That's a different answer if he doesn't -- if 

he doesn't have recollection. 

Do you know whether Chris Steele relied on sources and 

subsources to compile the information that ultimately made it 

to the FBI? 
118

Mr. Comey. My recollection is he did have a source network 

of sources and subsources and that this collection of reports 

reflected reporting by those, that source network. 

Mr. Gowdy. Did the FBI make any effort to identify those 

sources and subsources that Steele would have relied upon? 

Mr. Comey. Yes. 

Mr. Gowdy. With success? 

Mr. Comey. I don't remember, and I think I don't remember 

because the work was not finished before I left. 

Mr. Gowdy. I'm not asking you for names, but I'm asking 

you for a sense of scope. How many sources and subsources did 

Steele rely upon? 

Ms. Bessee. Mr. Chairman, again, the number or the how 

many sources or subsources would go to things involved in the 

special counsel investigation. So the witness will not be able 

to answer that. 

Mr. Gowdy. For the life of me, I don't understand how that 

could possibly be so. What I do know to be so is I need -- and 

think I have a right -- to ask the former Director of the FBI, 

given the fact that we've already established Steele had sources 

and subsources, whether or not the Bureau made an effort to 

contact and corroborate or contradict the information provided 

by those sources. Is it the Bureau's position that I'm 

incorrect? 

Ms. Bessee. Could we have a minute to talk to the witness? 
119

Mr. Gowdy. Well, if it's -- yeah, if we can toll the clock. 

I mean, I'm already running out of time. 

Mr. Comey. Can I have your question again, Mr. Gowdy?

Mr. Gowdy. Pardon me? 

Mr. Comey. What's the question again? 

Mr. Gowdy. God, if I remember. I think it was whether or 

not the Bureau made any effort -- oh, I think what I asked is 

whether or not you had an idea the scope, the breadth, of the 

number of sources or subsources Steele relied upon. 

Mr. Comey. I don't. I have a recollection that there were 

a variety of sources and subsources, but I don't have a sense 

of the scope. 

Mr. Gowdy. Do you have a sense that the Bureau was able 

to identify every source and subsource Steele relied upon? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know one way or another. 

Mr. Gowdy. I'm going to let Mr. Ratcliffe take over from 

here, other than I'm going to ask you whether hearsay is 

ordinarily admissible in court or not. 

Mr. Comey. Is this a quiz? 

Mr. Gowdy. No. Well, if I didn't think you could answer 

it, I wouldn't have asked you. I know you know the answer. 

Mr. Comey. It depends upon whether it fits within one of 

the exceptions to the hearsay rule. 

Mr. Gowdy. Assuming -- what's the general rule? We won't 

get to the exceptions. The general rule, is hearsay admissible 
120

or not admissible? 

Mr. Comey. Well, the general rule is that hearsay is not 

admissible unless it falls within one of the exceptions to the 

hearsay rule. 

Mr. Gowdy. Right. And we're going to assume for the sake 

of argument that there's no exception unless you can identify 

one. What is the definition of -- well, is it an out-of-court 

statement offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted? 

Mr. Comey. Yes, that's my recollection.

Mr. Gowdy. All right. 

Mr. Kelley. You know, Mr. Gowdy, we've agreed to be here 

to talk about the questions and decisions made and not made in 

connection with the investigation of Russia and Clinton's 

emails. 

Mr. Gowdy. Yes. 

Mr. Kelley. And we've been very patient, but why don't we 

get to the point instead of asking ridiculous questions about 

the definition --

Mr. Gowdy. The fact that you think it's ridiculous is of 

no consequence to me whatsoever, Mr. Kelley. 

Mr. Kelley. I'm sure it's not.

Mr. Gowdy. It's not. And I've asked almost every other 

witness, none of whom had an attorney that didn't understand the 

relevance of that question. So that's between you and 

Mr. Comey. But the reason that I want to ask about hearsay is 
121

the ability to rely upon information that cannot be 

cross-examined. That's why I want to ask about it. And if you 

can't see that, then y'all can discuss that on the next break, 

but I'm going to go back into it, and for now, it will be 

Mr. Ratcliffe's turn. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Mr. Comey, do you recall that you signed 

a FISA application on October 21st, 2016, relating to Carter 

Page? 

Mr. Comey. I don't recall the date. I do remember signing 

such a FISA in October. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Would you have reviewed the FISA 

application before you signed it? 

Mr. Comey. Yes. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Do you recall that the FISA application 

would have been titled -- or was titled "verified application"? 

Mr. Comey. No, I don't recall that. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Don't all FISA applications state that they 

are verified applications? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know. I don't -- sitting here today, 

I can't remember the word "verified." 

Mr. Ratcliffe. What did the FISA application that you 

signed on October 21st of 2016, aver in terms of probable cause 

for a warrant on Carter Page? 

Ms. Bessee. Congressman, he can only respond to 

information that's not classified or that's been put out there 
122

in the public. If there is something that he can look at, 

because, as you know, part of that -- parts of that application 

is classified. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. I was told that -- that the Director didn't 

want to review any classified information today and that he came 

here without any provisional clearances because he didn't want 

them, but yet he was prepared to answer any questions that may 

pertain to classified information. Is that incorrect? 

Mr. Kelley. That is incorrect. We were told in advance 

that this would not deal with anything law enforcement sensitive 

or classified information. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Who told you that? 

Mr. Kelley. House counsel. Not so much who told me, so 

much as a representation made before a United States district 

judge. 

Mr. Meadows. So, Mr. Chairman, I would recommend that 

there are two different statements that the attorney just made. 

One was classified; the other was law enforcement sensitive. I 

can't imagine that House counsel would have inadvertently agreed 

to that. We need to check with Mr. Hungar and make sure that 

we're consistent with that. 

Chairman Goodlatte. We'll do that. The House counsel's 

position is very clear, that the Congress does not recognize an 

ongoing investigation prohibition on answering questions. We 

do obviously recognize a classified, and we're prepared to create 
123

that environment, if necessary, to ask that question in that 

environment. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Did the FISA application that you 

certified, or verified, allege that there was probable cause to 

believe that Carter Page was working for or with the Russian 

Government? 

Mr. Comey. I don't remember specifically. My 

recollection is it was -- it was submitted to the court as part 

of an application where the Department of Justice was alleging 

that he was an agent of a foreign power, namely, the Russian 

Federation, but I can't remember what it said about probable 

cause. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Would it have averred that there was 

probable cause to believe that he was in a position to influence 

the Trump campaign or Trump campaign officials? 

Mr. Comey. I don't remember that. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. But you did review it? 

Mr. Comey. Yes. I remember reading it for the purpose of 

signing the certification that the FBI Director has to sign.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Do you recall that part of the probable 

cause submitted to the court was the -- what you've referred to 

as the Steele dossier? 

Mr. Comey. I don't. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Following up on Mr. Gowdy's question about 

Christopher Steele, do you know whether he had any direct 
124

knowledge about collusion, coordination, or conspiracy between 

anyone associated with the Trump campaign, or was it based on 

other sources and subsources? 

Mr. Comey. My recollection is that it was the latter, that 

he didn't have personal knowledge of most, maybe all, of the 

things that were in the reports, but they were reported to him 

by sources and that the, sort of, the core allegation of the 

dossier, as I recall, was that there was an effort to coordinate 

with the Russian interference campaign, but that was not the 

product of Steele's personal knowledge is my -- I could be wrong 

about that, but that's my recollection. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. All right, so, if there were other sources 

or subsources, would you agree that that information would be 

double and triple hearsay? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know. Could be. I don't know. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Do you know whether each application -- or 

do you know whether the application that you signed states that 

the FBI has reviewed this verified application for accuracy? 

Mr. Comey. I don't remember that specifically. It sounds 

like the kind of thing that would be in there as a matter of 

course, but I don't remember. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. And what would be the purpose of verifying 

to the FISA court that the Department of Justice and the FBI have 

corroborated the allegations? 

Mr. Comey. Well, you're trying to convince a Federal judge 
125

that you have probable cause, and so the better you can present 

your evidence and the way it might overlap or interlock, the 

better the chance you have of convincing the judge you have 

probable cause. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. So I want to relate to you some of the 

testimony that we've already received. FBI Deputy Director Andy 

McCabe testified before Congress that the FBI could provide no 

points of verification to verify the Steele information other 

than the fact that Carter Page had traveled to Russia in July 

of 2016. Were you aware of that when you signed the application 

on October 21st of 2016? 

Mr. Comey. I don't remember any of that right now. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Bill Priestap who -- what does Bill 

Priestap do at the FBI? 

Mr. Comey. I think he's still the Assistant Director in 

charge of the Counterintelligence Division. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. He testified that corroboration of 

the Steele dossier was in its, quote/unquote, infancy, at the 

time of the application that you signed on October 21st, 2016. 

Did you know that? 

Mr. Comey. I don't remember hearing that, but that makes 

sense to me, if my recollection is correct, that we got it in 

September or maybe October. It would, by definition, be in its 

infancy in October. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. All right. And do you know when 
126

Christopher Steele was terminated as a source for the FBI? 

Mr. Comey. I don't. And I don't know for a fact that he 

was terminated. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. So have you reviewed any FBI source 

validation report on Christopher Steele? 

Mr. Comey. I have not. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. So you don't know whether or not such a 

report would reflect that, as of November 1st of 2016, 

Christopher Steele's reporting in the Steele dossier was 

determined by the FBI to be only, quote, minimally corroborated, 

end quote? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know that. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. So those things that I've just related to 

you about testimony as I've represented it from Andy McCabe and 

Bill Priestap, and the report as I've represented it to you from 

the FBI, does that cause you any concern about the fact that you 

signed a verified application for a warrant to surveil Carter 

Page when the Steele dossier was only minimally corroborated or 

in its infancy in its corroboration? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know enough or remember enough 2 years 

later to have a reaction. I don't know their testimony. I 

haven't looked at the thing. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. I'm just asking you to accept what I've 

represented as true, and if it is true, does that cause you 

concern? Should the FISA court have been granting warrants 
127

where the information submitted and verified, in fact, had only 

been minimally corroborated? 

Mr. Comey. Yeah, I can't answer that because I -- look, 

I accept what you're saying, but I don't know what else you're 

not telling me that was in the FISA application and what was done. 

I just don't know enough about what happened to offer a view one 

way or the other. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. Well, do you recall that, on 

numerous occasions subsequent to October 21st of 2016, you, in 

your capacity as the FBI Director, referred to the Steele dossier 

as salacious and unverified? 

Mr. Comey. Yes. I don't know that I was referring to all 

of it. Maybe I was, but I had in mind some particular portions 

of it that were salacious and unverified. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. But, again, your characterization of it was 

that it was unverified, even though you had verified it to the 

court? 

Mr. Comey. Well, it was coming to us from a reliable source 

with a track record, and it's an important thing when you're 

seeking a PC warrant. But what I understand by verified is we 

then try to replicate the source information so that it becomes 

FBI investigation and our conclusions rather than a reliable 

source's. That's what I understand it, the difference to be. 

And that work wasn't completed by the time I left in May of 2017, 

to my knowledge. 
128

Mr. Ratcliffe. Well, when you talk about getting a warrant 

and the PC and the importance there, isn't it important for the 

judge to be able to weigh the reliability and the credibility 

of all the sources for the information, particularly those that 

saw or heard the relevant information that serves as the 

predicate for seeking the warrant? 

Mr. Comey. Not necessarily. I mean, I can imagine -- I 

think I've dealt with warrants where you just identify that your 

primary CI, or primary source, has subsources, and so long as 

the court is aware of that phenomenon and that you're speaking 

to the reliability of the primary source, to my mind, that's a 

totally legit warrant application. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Who is Sally --

Mr. Comey. And I don't remember this one well enough to 

comment on it. I'm thinking about other criminal cases I've 

worked. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Who is Sally Moyer? Sally Moyer? 

Mr. Comey. A lawyer in the General Counsel's Office. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Do you know if she was involved in the 

preparation of the FISA application? 

Mr. Comey. I don't. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. If she testified -- and I'll represent to 

you that she testified that the FISA court -- it was 49-51, maybe 

50-50, that the FISA court would have approved the warrant 

without the Steele dossier. If I represent that to you, does 
129

that cause you concern that the court was relying on a document 

that was largely unverified and minimally corroborated? 

Mr. Comey. No. Because it asked me to assume the truth 

of the last part of your question, and I don't know that to be 

the case. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Who -- you've already said you're not sure 

that Christopher Steele was terminated as a source for the FBI, 

correct? 

Mr. Comey. Correct. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. If he was terminated as a source for the 

FBI, it would be improper for him to continue to do work for the 

FBI. Would you agree with that, as a source? 

Mr. Comey. I guess I don't know what "work" means. I would 

say in general, but I would imagine there would be circumstances 

where someone -- in fact, I know -- sorry, go ahead. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. So let me see if I can break it down. So 

does the FBI -- the FBI has an entire manual, don't they, on 

governing the use of confidential human sources? 

Mr. Comey. Yes. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. All kinds of rules and validations, 

correct? 

Mr. Comey. Correct. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. And if Christopher Steele was, in fact, 

terminated, it would have been for violating those standards or 

rules or validations?
130

Mr. Comey. I don't know for sure. It could be for 

violating them, but -- I don't know for sure whether it could 

be something else too.

Mr. Ratcliffe. As you've sat here today -- as you sit here 

today, have you heard anything about the fact that Christopher 

Steele was terminated for leaking information to the press? 

Mr. Comey. As I sit here today, since I left the FBI, I've 

read stuff in the media about that. I don't believe I had ever 

heard anything about that while I was still at the FBI.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. So, if Christopher Steele -- again, 

I know you don't know whether he had been terminated, but if he 

was and he continued to provide information as a source to the 

FBI, who would have authorized that? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know. And it's too much of a 

hypothetical for me to even begin to answer. I don't know. 

Because I don't know -- I don't know whether any of the -- the 

preamble to your question is true. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Are you aware that Christopher Steele had 

a relationship -- and by "relationship," I mean a working 

relationship -- with Bruce Ohr? 

Mr. Comey. Am I aware that he had a working relationship 

with Bruce Ohr? No. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Are you aware of any communications or 

contact between Christopher Steele and Bruce Ohr? 

Mr. Comey. I am not aware. 
131

Mr. Ratcliffe. Who is Bruce Ohr? 

Mr. Comey. He's a lawyer for the Department of Justice, 

who I don't know exactly what his job was. I remember him from 

the Southern District of New York. But a DOJ lawyer. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Would you expect a DOJ lawyer to be part 

of the chain of custody of evidence relating to the Steele dossier 

or a FISA application? 

Mr. Comey. I'm not sure I know what that means. Chain of 

custody with respect to a FISA application. With respect to 

the -- I just don't understand that question. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Yeah. Should a DOJ lawyer be used as a 

cutout to transfer evidence in connection with a FISA 

application? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Who would have approved that? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know. I keep trying to imagine 

circumstances in which -- I'm not familiar with a circumstance 

in which it's happened, but I don't know enough --

Mr. Meadows. Are you aware of any other time where a DOJ 

attorney actually acted as a conduit to provide information that 

would go into a FISA application? 

Mr. Comey. What do you mean by "conduit"? 

Mr. Meadows. Well, with Mr. Ohr, Mr. Steele, it's been 

widely reported -- I'm sure you've read the reports, Director 

Comey, but in testimony, we would have an interaction between 

133

Mr. Comey. In general, I think that's right. You want to 

present to the judge reviewing your application a complete 

picture of the evidence, both its flaws and its strengths. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. What's a defensive briefing? 

Mr. Comey. In the counterintelligence world, it's a 

mechanism by which the FBI will alert somebody to a 

counterintelligence threat that might tend to defeat the threat. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Are they done for Presidential candidates? 

Mr. Comey. Not routinely. What's routinely done for 

candidates is a general briefing of -- what I meant by "defensive 

briefing" is it's specific to you and threats we see at you. With 

candidates, my recollection is we gave a general 

counterintelligence briefing about the threat coming from 

different nations. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Do you recall doing that for 

Secretary Clinton when she was the nominee? 

Mr. Comey. I don't. But I assume that someone did. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. Do you know if one was done for 

candidate Trump? 

Mr. Comey. Again, I don't know for sure, but I expect it 

was done, just as it was done for Secretary Clinton. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Where would I get that information? Who 

would I ask, since you don't know? 

Mr. Comey. Probably the Director of National 

Intelligence's Office. I have some recollection that they 
134

arranged for briefings of the candidates once they were 

nominated, and then part of that briefing would include a threat 

briefing from the FBI about the counterintelligence threat. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. So you -- you would not have participated 

in that, is what it sounds like. 

Mr. Comey. Yeah, I did not. That's why I don't have any 

recollection of it, but --

Mr. Ratcliffe. But someone from the FBI would have? 

Mr. Comey. Yes. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Do you know who that would have been? 

Mr. Comey. No. And it could have been -- let me just add 

this for clarity as you're looking -- there was an FBI senior 

executive who was assigned to the Director of National 

Intelligence as the National Counterintelligence Executive, 

NCIX or something, it may well have been that executive who works 

for the DNI doing it, but who that person -- sorry. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. So I'm going to ask the question -- I think 

I know the answer based on what you've just said. But at the 

time a defensive briefing was done for candidate Trump, do you 

know if the FBI had any evidence that anyone associated with the 

Trump campaign had colluded or conspired or coordinated with 

Russia in any way? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know the dates, whether -- I don't know 

whether it was before late July when we opened the four 

counterintelligence files, or not. And so, if it was after July 
135

29th, then the answer would be, yes, we had some reason to suspect 

that there were Americans who might have assisted the Russians. 

If it was before then, the answer is no. 

I can't remember when the conventions were and that sort 

of thing. 

Mr. Meadows. So your testimony here today is that, before 

July 31st of 2016, you had no indication that there was someone 

wanting to intrude into the Trump campaign? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know when I learned anyone wanted to 

intrude into the Trump campaign. I knew as of late July that 

the Russians had a massive effort to mess with our democracy 

ongoing. I don't think before the end of July I had any 

information that Americans might be assisting that effort. 

Mr. Meadows. And so at what point did George Papadopoulos 

come on your radar, Director Comey? 

Mr. Comey. Late July, which is what -- oh, sorry. 

Mr. Meadows. So, you're saying late July --

Ms. Bessee. Congressman? 

Mr. Meadows. Well, hold on. Hear me out. Hear the 

question. Because we've had other testimony that would 

indicate, in a nonclassified setting, that goes right to the 

heart of this matter, even from Mr. Papadopoulos himself. So, 

prior to July 31st of 2016, when you opened what is now known 

as, I guess, Crossfire Hurricane, or this investigation, was 

there no effort on part -- on the part of the FBI or no 
136

knowledge -- let me correct that -- no knowledge on the part of 

the FBI of anybody, George Papadopoulos or any others, that 

potentially could have been involved in this Russian narrative? 

Mr. Comey. This -- Counsel, this I've said publicly, and 

it's been cleared, I think, in my book, so I'm going to say it 

again. My recollection is the first information we had, 

certainly the first information that came to my attention that 

Americans might be working with the Russians as part of their 

efforts, came at the end of July -- I think the 31st is too late, 

but the last week of July -- when we received information from 

an allied nation about the conversations their ambassador had 

in England with George Papadopoulos. 

That was the beginning of it, which is the first time we 

turned to trying to figure out whether any Americans were working 

with the Russians. 

Mr. Meadows. So any information that was collected prior 

to that would have been done without the FBI's knowledge, without 

your direct knowledge? Is that what you're telling me? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know what you mean by "any information 

that was collected." 

Mr. Meadows. So any counterintelligence collection that 

was done by the FBI would have been done without your knowledge 

prior to the last week of July 2016? 

Mr. Comey. I'm sorry to keep quibbling, but I don't know 

what you mean by "any information collected." The FBI has lots 
137

of collection going on all the time. 

Mr. Meadows. As it relates to Russian interference and the 

potential use of people within the Trump campaign, was there any 

initiation on the part of the FBI to collect information prior 

to the last week of July of 2016? And if so -- well, answer that 

question. 

Mr. Comey. So I want to make sure I'm getting it right. 

Was there --

Mr. Meadows. I want you to get it right, too, because it's 

at conflict with -- what you're saying is at conflict with what 

we've had in other testimony. 

Mr. Comey. Okay. Well, I mean, I can't help that. I'll 

tell you what I -- what I know, that, if you're asking, was there 

any information that the FBI had that people associated with the 

Trump campaign might be working with the Russians -- if we had 

any such information before the end of July? Is that the 

question? 

Mr. Meadows. Well, you can answer that question. 

Mr. Comey. Yeah, I'm not aware of any information before 

the end of July on that subject --

Mr. Meadows. Right.

Mr. Comey. -- and it was our first information at the end 

of July that prompted the opening of those four files. 

Mr. Meadows. So, prior to the end of July, did you direct 

or did you have knowledge of the FBI trying to collect information 
138

about the possible Russian-Trump campaign -- and I won't use the 

word "collusion" -- but interactions as it relates to the 2016 

Presidential election? 

Mr. Comey. Not that I'm aware of. I'm sure there was lots 

of effort to figure out what the heck was going on with the 

Russians because we saw their effort blossom in the middle of 

June. But I'm not aware of any information before that at the 

end of July about the possibility that Americans were working 

with the Russians. 

Mr. Meadows. So --

Mr. Comey. That's what led to the opening of those --

Mr. Meadows. So, if Mr. Baker or anyone within the FBI had 

actively engaged in that prior to the last week of July of 2016, 

that would have been without your knowledge? 

Mr. Comey. See I don't --

Mr. Meadows. That's what you're testifying --

Mr. Comey. -- it's possible I knew at the time. I don't 

remember any information before the end of July that bore on that 

topic. 

Mr. Gowdy. Director, we only have a couple minutes before 

it's the Democrats' turn. I think during the last time we 

talked -- well, the first time we talked, you said you did not 

talk to Rod Rosenstein after you received word that you had been 

terminated? 

Mr. Comey. That's correct. 
139

Mr. Gowdy. Have you had a conversation with the President 

since you were terminated? 

Mr. Comey. No.

Mr. Gowdy. Have you had a conversation with Jeff Sessions? 

Mr. Comey. No. 

Mr. Gowdy. Did you have a conversation with Bob Mueller 

from the time you were terminated until the time he was appointed 

special counsel? 

Mr. Comey. No. 

Mr. Gowdy. Did you have a conversation with anyone who is 

currently on Special Counsel Mueller's team between the time you 

were terminated and the time special counsel was appointed? 

Mr. Comey. No. 

Mr. Meadows. Let me ask one clarifying question, if you 

don't mind. 

Director Comey, you were saying that you had no knowledge 

that Perkins Coie was actually involved with the Democrat 

National Committee and involved in this particular investigation 

that ultimately was initiated. Is that correct? 

Mr. Comey. I, when I was FBI Director, don't remember ever 

being told anything about Perkins Coie. I think I've since read 

stuff in the media, but not when I was Director. 

Mr. Meadows. So are you saying that James Baker, your 

general counsel, who received direct information from Perkins 

Coie, did so and conveyed that to your team without your 
140

knowledge? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know. 

Mr. Meadows. What do you mean you don't know? I mean, did 

he tell you or not? 

Mr. Comey. Oh, I -- well --

Mr. Meadows. James Baker, we have testimony that would 

indicate that he received information directly from Perkins 

Coie; he had knowledge that they were representing the Democrat 

National Committee and, indeed, collected that information and 

conveyed it to the investigative team. Did he tell you that he 

received that information from them? And I can give you a name 

if you want to know who he received it from. 

Mr. Comey. I don't remember the name Perkins Coie at all. 

Mr. Meadows. What about Michael Sussmann? 

Mr. Comey. I think I've read that name since then. I don't 

remember learning that name when I was FBI Director. 

I was going to ask you a followup, though. When you say 

"that information," what do you mean? 

Mr. Meadows. Well, it was cyber information as it relates 

to the investigation. 

Mr. Comey. Yeah, I have some recollection of Baker 

interacting with -- you said the DNC, which sparked my 

recollection -- with the DNC about our effort to get information 

about the Russian hack of them --

Mr. Meadows. Yeah, that's -- that's not -- that's not what 
141

I'm referring to. 

Mr. Comey. -- but I don't -- I don't remember anything 

beyond that. 

Mr. Meadows. And so I can give you something so that 

you -- your counsel can look at it and refresh your memory, 

perhaps, as we look at that, but I guess my concern is your earlier 

testimony acted like this was news to you that Perkins Coie 

represented the Democratic National Committee, and yet your 

general counsel not only knew that but received information from 

them that was transmitted to other people in the investigative 

team. And I find it interesting that the Director would not know 

about that because it is not normal that your general counsel 

would be a custodian of evidence. Is that correct? Was 

it -- was it normal that people sought out your general counsel 

to make them aware of potential concerns? Is that normal? 

Mr. Comey. I kind of think it is not as uncommon as you're 

suggesting it is. 

Mr. Meadows. Well, Mr. Baker thought it was uncommon. He 

said he couldn't ever recall it ever happening before. 

Mr. Comey. I don't know what the "it" is. What I'm 

struggling with here is --

Mr. Meadows. Where someone reaches out to the general 

counsel to give them evidence to say that they want the FBI to 

look into it. He couldn't recall another time. And you're 

saying it's not uncommon. 
142

Mr. Comey. Used to happen to me all the time. People would 

email me, saying, check this out, check that out, so -- 

Mr. Meadows. It may happen with the Director, but it didn't 

happen with the general counsel. 

Mr. Comey. Okay. That surprises me a little bit, but in 

any event, I don't remember him raising it. I don't think it's 

particularly noteworthy that he wouldn't tell me, but I don't 

know enough to react to it. 

Mr. Meadows. So he says a unique situation that had only, 

in his mind, happened twice in his history with the Bureau, and 

you're saying that it was so unique there that -- yet he did not 

tell you about that? Is that your testimony? 

Mr. Comey. No. 

Mr. Meadows. That's not your testimony? 

Mr. Comey. No. 

Mr. Meadows. Or he didn't tell you? 

Mr. Comey. No. I -- I didn't -- I heard you 

characterizing my testimony as me saying it's so unique. I don't 

remember -- 

Mr. Meadows. I'm saying he said it was unique; did he tell 

you? 

Mr. Comey. I'm struggling because I haven't seen his 

testimony. So maybe you could let me look at it during the break, 

and then I can answer on our next round. 

Mr. Meadows. Yeah, it's -- it's just a two -- two 
143

sentence, and I'll read it to you: It was unusual for me to be 

the recipient of information directly from the public or a lawyer 

or anyone else about an allegation of a crime, close quote. 

Mr. Comey. Okay. I mean, I accept your reading of it. It 

doesn't change my reaction that it doesn't -- I don't remember 

it. Second, it doesn't strike me as extraordinary that, if that 

had happened, he wouldn't give me the particulars. 

Mr. Meadows. We're out of time. 

[Recess.]
144

[2:12 p.m.] 

Ms. Sachsman Grooms. Okay. We'll go back on the 

record. It is 2:12. I just have a little bit of cleanup from 

the last round, and then I'll pass off to the members. 

BY MS. SACHSMAN GROOMS: 

Q In the last round, you were talking about the importance 

of the FBI and DOJ sharing the complete picture of the evidence 

with the FISA court. Is that accurate? 

A Yes. 

Q Okay. Does that require every detail of that 

information or a general picture? 

A No, it doesn't -- look, I don't think there's a Brady 

obligation that applies in the probable cause presentation 

requirement context or you have to turn over your entire file. 

You have a general duty of candor to the court, so you try to 

make them generally aware of the state of the evidence that 

they're relying upon. 

Q And I think this might have gotten a little bit garbled 

through the questions in the last round. I think you said that 

it was relevant to you to provide to the court the information 

regarding who was paying Christopher Steele. Is that accurate? 

A I don't remember whether I focused on it at the time. 

I think it's important that any material issue of bias be 

surfaced for a court about one of your sources, and so I think 

it made sense for the Department of Justice to alert the court 
145

that there was politically motivated financial support for this 

effort. 

Q And so in order to do that, you thought it was important 

to say the sort of general statement that it had been funded or 

politically motivated in the financing by Republicans or 

Democrats in general? 

A Right. And the particulars of which Democrats, which 

Republicans, I wouldn't think would be important to the court. 

They'd want to be aware of the general bias, and that's my 

reaction. 

Q Okay. And I wanted to be really clear on that because, 

in the last round, I think there were a number of questions about 

the particulars of whether you knew or the court knew that the 

DNC had specifically paid Perkins Coie as a law firm and that 

had been the conduit to paying Christopher Steele. 

Did you think the particulars of that were important to 

either your analysis or to the FISA court? 

A No, I wouldn't think so. It actually doesn't even seem 

important to me now, who cares what particular organizations or 

particular people. The court needed to be aware that there's 

a potential for bias because there's a political motivation to 

the support for this effort. 

Q Did you then or do you know have any concerns about the 

process that occurred around the Carter Page FISA? 

A I do not. 
146

Q In the last round, I think you were asked a number of 

questions around the timing of the initiation of the Russia 

investigation as it pertains to the connection to U.S. persons. 

And I think during that you said that was towards the end of July 

that that occurred. Is that right? 

A That's my recollection, yes. 

Q I think the underlying questions that came up have to 

do with some actions that were taken by Peter Strzok and by others 

in the time period before the end of July. They traveled to 

London, they did investigatory work on a number of different 

things. 

If they were doing that work, is it fair to say that that 

work would not have been part of investigating U.S. persons 

connected to the Russians in that time period prior to the end 

of July? 

A I don't know. If my recollection is correct that we 

opened the cases on the U.S. persons at the end of July, then 

it's possible there was work being done immediately before that 

to flesh out and understand the information that would then 

predicate the cases that would be opened at the end of July, but 

I don't know that. I remember the cases being opened at the end 

of July, and I don't know the nature and quality of any work that 

went on before that. 

Q But Peter Strzok and his team were working on larger 

scale Russia things before that, right? 
147

A Right, to try to understand what are the Russians doing, 

what's the scope of it, what's its intention.

Q And without getting into the particulars of what they 

were doing, those things could have included traveling to foreign 

countries or interviewing witnesses, et cetera? 

A Of course. I just don't remember it. 

Q And then I just had one more thing. At the end of the 

last round, there was a long discussion about Mr. Baker and his 

testimony and how he had testified that there was this unique 

instance, and I just wanted to read into the record some of his 

testimony from his second day when he came back, because we saw 

him twice. 

And in that, at the very beginning, he said he wanted to 

bring up this thing that he had not recalled from the previous 

one, and I'm just going to read from the record. He said: So 

I recalled after, just actually a few days ago, that another 

incident when this time an attorney on behalf of a client came 

to me and wanted -- came specifically to me and wanted to make 

information available to the FBI in the form of electronic media 

that he wanted to get into the --

Mr. Jordan asked: Different case or same case? 

Mr. Baker said: Different case. 

Mr. Jordan said: Okay. 

Mr. Baker said: Well, a completely different case, 

different attorney, different client, but insisted on meeting 
148

only with me or the Director, and then he did not have the material 

with him at the time. We had to actually dispatch FBI agents 

to go to a -- from a field office to go to collect this material. 

It was in the -- to the best of my recollection, it was roughly 

in the late summer, fall of 2016 timeframe. 

So I just wanted to clarify that for the record. 

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Director Comey, thank you for coming, 

and thank you for your service to your country. 

In March 2017, you disclosed in public testimony that the 

FBI had begun an investigation into, quote: The Russian 

Government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 Presidential 

election, including, quote, the nature of any links between 

individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian 

Government and whether there was any coordination between the 

campaign and Russia's efforts, close quote. 

When did the FBI first learn of credible evidence that the 

Russian Government was trying to interfere in the 2016 

Presidential election? 

Mr. Comey. I believe it was with the release in mid June 

of the DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 stolen emails.

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Mid June 2016? 

Mr. Comey. Correct. 

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Were you, at that time, aware of the 

meeting at Trump Tower on June 9th, 2016, between Donald Trump, 

Junior, Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, and some Russian 
149

nationals? 

Mr. Comey. I think that's a question that I can't answer 

because it dives into a nonpublic level of detail about the Russia 

investigation. 

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Okay. So in mid June 2016, you first 

learned about the Russian Government's interference or attempt 

to interfere in the 2016 Presidential election. When did the 

FBI first learn of credible evidence that individuals associated 

with the Trump campaign may be coordinating with the Russian 

Government? 

Mr. Comey. The first I'm aware of that was the end of July 

of 2016, which is what led us to open counterintelligence cases 

on four different Americans. 

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Okay. And what was your reaction to 

this? 

Mr. Comey. I don't remember a particular reaction, other 

than that it was going to be very important that we do this in 

a close hold way so that we don't alert the people we're going 

to investigate that we're looking at this and so that the 

investigation is able to be done in a quality way in the middle 

of a political season. I remember being concerned about that. 

And then just open minded about whether there's anything to it 

or not. I couldn't tell at the beginning whether there was.

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Have you ever been affiliated with any 

kind of investigation similar to this where a foreign government 
150

may be coordinating or somehow connecting with a political 

campaign of the United States? 

Mr. Comey. Not -- I don't remember. I've been involved 

with a lot of cases where foreign governments may be connected 

in an illicit way to public figures. That's a big part of the 

FBI's counterintelligence work. I don't remember a campaign 

context. 

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Got it. Has the FBI ever 

investigated the potential coordination between a Presidential 

campaign and a foreign adversary before? 

Ms. Bessee. Congressman, to the extent it goes to 

any -- any investigative activity that the FBI may be 

investigating, the witness will not be able to answer to either 

confirm or deny. Do you want to ask that question in general? 

I don't know how you ask that hypothetically, but --

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. No, this is about past, not the 

current Mueller investigation or any current investigation. 

Mr. Comey. I don't remember being involved in any such 

investigation prior to 2016. 

[Comey Exhibit No. 3

Was marked for identification.] 

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Okay. I would like to introduce the 

following document from the Baker transcript, page 72. This is 

the transcript of former FBI general counsel James Baker's 

October 18th, 2018, interview with the committees. 
151

It begins, question: And what was the initial 

concern/issue raised in the investigation? 

Answer: Well, the initial -- the initial issue was whether 

there had been interactions of an unlawful nature or that were 

a threat to the national security or both in connection with 

the -- at least some people in the now President's campaign with 

the Russian Federation, witting or unwitting. 

Question: And these were related to George Papadopoulos? 

Answer: Yes. Information that he conveyed, yes. 

Question: Can you confirm that the initial allegation that 

started the Russia counterintelligence investigation had 

nothing to do with the Steele dossier?

And there's an interruption by the counsel to caution him 

to answer in an unclassified setting. 

And then he answers, answer: Based on the information that 

I have seen in the public domain, I think I can answer it. And 

I think the answer is it did not have to do with the dossier.

Director Comey, do you agree with Mr. Baker that the initial 

allegation in the FBI's counterintelligence operation into the 

Trump campaign's potential coordination with the Russian 

Government, quote/unquote, had nothing to do with the Steele 

dossier? 

Mr. Comey. Yes. That's correct.

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And do you agree the initial 

allegation was actually related to information that George 
152

Papadopolous conveyed? 

Mr. Comey. That he conveyed to a diplomat that was then 

conveyed to the U.S. several months after he first conveyed it, 

yes.

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Thank you. 

Let me go into another topic. So earlier in these 

proceedings, I had the chance to question Peter Strzok about 

leaks from the FBI, and we had this exchange. 

This is me asking the question: Could you explain to me 

a little bit about Director Comey's fear of leaks from the New 

York field office and how that, in your view, affected the 

revelation of the warrant for Weiner's laptop? 

Answer from Strzok: You have to ask Director Comey that. 

I think there was discussion I remember and particularly some 

of it was in the context of reporting from Mr. Giuliani and others 

about connections to New York. 

So let me just ask you what I asked him. How concerned were 

you about leaks from the New York field office to Rudy Giuliani 

or other media personalities in 2016? 

Mr. Comey. I was concerned that there appeared to be in 

the media a number of stories that might have been based on 

communications reporters or nonreporters like Rudy Giuliani were 

having with people in the New York field office. In particular, 

in I want to say mid October, maybe a little bit later, Mr. 

Giuliani was making statements that appeared to be based on his 
153

knowledge of workings inside the FBI New York. And then my 

recollection is there were other stories that were in the same 

ballpark that gave me a general concern that we may have a leak 

problem -- unauthorized disclosure problem out of New York, and 

so I asked that it be investigated.

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Oh, okay. So the investigation began 

at some point after you asked for the investigation to start? 

Mr. Comey. I think sometime in October, maybe they didn't 

get going on it until November, an effort led by our internal 

affairs component, as I understand it, began to try and 

understand, do we have leaks and what are they? 

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And to your knowledge, has anyone been 

held accountable for these purported leaks? 

Mr. Comey. Not to my knowledge. The investigation 

ultimately led to disciplining of FBI Deputy Director McCabe 

because the investigation turned up communications that he had 

apparently authorized about a pending investigation of the 

Clinton Foundation, but I don't know beyond that.

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. How about anything related to the New 

York field office? 

Mr. Comey. I don't -- I never got a report out on that 

before I was fired.

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. I see. Okay. Here's the concern, 

Director Comey. If no one's been held accountable, especially 

from the New York field office, and if there are leaks from the 
154

New York field office to potentially people like Rudy Giuliani, 

who's the current lawyer for the President, then they have an 

active window into the investigation of them, and that's why I 

think a lot of people are concerned about whether that 

investigation concluded or not. 

Who would we talk to about this particular issue if we wanted 

to learn the status of that investigation? 

Mr. Comey. Well, the FBI, whoever you normally talk to 

there, would be the place to start. I don't know whether they're 

in a position to comment or not. I don't know what its status 

was when I was fired in May.

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Got it. 

Okay. Next topic. The Washington Post reported 

previously and The Atlantic confirmed that former acting FBI 

Director McCabe opened an obstruction of justice investigation 

into the President after your firing. Prior to that, had an 

obstruction of justice investigation been opened into the 

President or other senior officials with regard to Michael Flynn? 

Mr. Comey. Not to my knowledge, no.

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Okay. I was reading in your book that 

on February 14th, 2017, after your conversation with the 

President, you then returned to your car and then emailed your 

colleagues about this particular conversation with regard to Mr. 

Flynn. 

What came of that at that point? Did you hold off on a 
155

potential investigation into obstruction of justice or what was 

your -- what was your thought process there? Because I know that 

you also said in the book that you didn't know who to go to, you 

couldn't go to Sessions and the Deputy Attorney General 

was -- I'll let you answer. 

Mr. Comey. I met with the senior leadership team of the 

FBI, shared with them a memo that I created about the 

February 14th conversation, and we debated what to do. And 

because we didn't feel we could go to Attorney General Sessions 

because he was about to be recused, there was no Deputy Attorney 

General because Mr. Rosenstein had not been confirmed yet, and 

we didn't want to do anything that might chill the investigative 

team. We decided that we would simply hold on to it, keep the 

information close hold until the Department of Justice sorted 

out how they were going to supervise this and then we could bring 

them into it and figure out what should we do to investigate this. 

And so that's why I say, to my knowledge, no investigation was 

opened on the obstruction of justice at that point.

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Okay. 

Mr. Comey. We held it, and we actually never got to the 

chance -- the Department of Justice didn't get to the point of 

figuring out how they were going to supervise the investigation 

until after I was fired.

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Why -- for a layperson who may not 

understand why you even thought about this amounting to potential 
156

obstruction of justice, can you walk us through that? Why is 

this something that might cause the concern about an allegation 

of obstruction of justice? 

Mr. Comey. Well, the President of the United States asked 

me, directed me in my apprehension of it to drop a criminal 

investigation, and so that is an extraordinary use of power and 

could amount to obstruction of justice. That is a corrupt 

endeavor to impede the administration of justice. I don't know 

what the answer is to the ultimate question, but given that, it 

was something that needed to be investigated.

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And is the reason why you say "could" 

because you need to get to the intent behind why the investigation 

is being asked to be dropped? 

Mr. Comey. Correct.

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Okay. You know, we are going to be 

in the majority in the House starting in January, and so one of 

the questions that folks like myself have is, stepping back for 

a second, you know, you were there for quite a while during the 

Russia investigation, from end of July 2016 through the time that 

you were let go in May 2017. So almost 1 year. You learned a 

lot probably during that time. 

What lessons did you learn during that time that would 

inform us as we conduct oversight, not necessarily from the 

standpoint of a forensic criminal investigation, but from the 

standpoint of protecting our democracy? 
157

Mr. Comey. I don't know that I can give you a thoughtful 

enough answer sitting here after 5 hours of questions. I'd have 

to think about that one because it's an important question I would 

not want to answer causally. So I'm going to have to take a rain 

check on that one. Yeah. 

Maybe the one thing is, as you exercise incredibly important 

oversight power, I said earlier, I think this branch of 

government has neglected its authorities and needs to assert its 

authorities, but in doing that, to be sensitive about the need 

to coordinate with ongoing investigations so nothing happens to 

affect or to cast doubt on the credibility of an ongoing 

investigation.

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Very good. Let me just make sure I 

don't have a final question here for you. 

I think that's it for me. Thank you. 

Mr. Comey. Thank you.

Mr. Deutch. Mr. Comey, thanks for being here. Nice to see 

you again. 

Mr. Comey. You too.

Mr. Deutch. Just one quick followup to what you just said 

that this branch that has neglected its responsibilities 

shouldn't act in a way that would cast doubt on any of the 

investigations. You're referring -- are you referring to the 

actions of this branch in recent days or years? 

Mr. Comey. Not in the second part of that sentence; in the 
158

first part, yes, generally. But what I meant by the second one 

is special counsel's investigation is going to be ongoing, I 

would assume, when the majority changes, and I think it's just 

very important for whoever is in the majority to be sure to be 

sensitive to the need to balance oversight with an ongoing 

criminal investigation. That's what I meant by that.

Mr. Deutch. I appreciate that. 

I wanted to pick up on this last line of questions. There 

were press reports that on May 10th, 2017, the day after the 

President fired you, he met with Russia's foreign minister and 

the Russian ambassador in the Oval Office, and told them, quote: 

I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job. 

I face great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off, 

closed quote. 

Then the next day, President Trump stated during a 

nationally televised interview with Lester Holt that, quote, 

"this Russia thing," close quote, was on his mind when he decided 

to fire you. 

And then during your June 2017 Senate Intelligence 

Committee hearing, you were asked why you believe President Trump 

fired you, and you responded, and I quote you: I guess I don't 

know for sure. I believe I take the President at his word that 

I was fired because of the Russia investigation. Something 

about the way I was conducting it the President felt created 

pressure on him that he wanted to relieve, closed quote. 
159

Do you still believe that the President fired you because 

of the Russia investigation? 

Mr. Comey. I think on balance that I do. The only 

hesitation I have is I've seen the President since saying other 

things that it wasn't because of that, and so I'm in a position 

where I can't know for sure.

Mr. Deutch. When you stated, "I take the President at his 

word," were you referring to either his meeting with the Russians 

or his interview with Lester Holt? 

Mr. Comey. Both, but more so to the Holt interview because 

it was on the record. I don't know whether the Washington -- I 

think it was The Washington Post reporting on that encounter with 

the Russian ambassador and foreign minister was accurate, so I 

tend to put more weight on his own words speaking to Lester Holt. 

[Comey Exhibit No. 4

Was marked for identification.] 

Mr. Deutch. I'd like to introduce exhibit 4. It's the 

Baker 10/3/18 transcript, pages 147 to 148. That's the 

transcript of former FBI general counsel James Baker's 

October 3rd interview with the committee. 

It reads, question: Can you explain what the atmosphere 

was like at the FBI after the President fired Comey? 

Answer: I'm not sure that I can reduce it to one or two 

words. It was an, I guess, horrible atmosphere. It was shock, 

dismay, confusion at least initially that night and then -- and 
160

then a sense of resolve that came pretty quickly as well to 

continue the FBI's mission. And as I was saying earlier to the 

Congressman, make sure that we were all adhering to our oaths 

to the constitution and executing our responsibilities. 

Question: Was there concern at the FBI that the President 

had fired Director Comey because he was trying to obstruct the 

FBI's investigation into the Russia matter? 

Answer: Yes. 

Question: Was that the concern you had? 

Answer: Yes. 

Question: Was that concern shared by others? 

Answer: I think so, yes. 

Question: Who? Who else? 

Answer: The leadership of the FBI, so the acting director. 

I can't remember if we appointed an acting deputy director 

immediately. The heads of the national security apparatus, the 

national security folks within the FBI, the people that were 

aware of the underlying investigation and who had been focused 

on it.

And, Director Comey, did you share Mr. Baker's concern that 

the President had fired you because he wanted to obstruct or 

impede the FBI's investigation into the Russia matter? 

Mr. Comey. I did because of his words.

Mr. Deutch. And does it surprise you to hear that the 

leadership, the national security officials at the FBI were 
161

concerned that President Trump fired you in an attempt to 

obstruct the FBI's investigation into the Russia matter? 

Mr. Comey. No, it doesn't surprise me at all.

Mr. Deutch. Turning just for a moment before I wrap up to 

summer -- earlier summer of 2018, July 29th, in fact, the 

President tweeted, and I quote: There is no collusion. The 

Robert Mueller rigged witch hunt headed now by 17, increased from 

13, including an Obama White House lawyer, angry Democrats, was 

started by a fraudulent dossier paid for by crooked Hillary and 

the DNC. Therefore, the witch hunt is an illegal scam. 

Mr. Comey, was the FBI's investigation into Russian 

interference and potential coordination with the Trump campaign 

started by a fraudulent dossier? 

Mr. Comey. It was not.

Mr. Deutch. Can you explain how you know that? 

Mr. Comey. Because I know what the basis was for starting 

the investigation. It was the information we'd received about 

a conversation that a Trump foreign -- campaign foreign policy 

adviser had with an individual in London about stolen emails that 

the Russians had that would be harmful to Hillary Clinton. It 

was weeks or months later that the so-called Steele dossier came 

to our attention.

Mr. Deutch. Was there anything illegal or improper about 

the way the FBI started the Trump-Russia investigation? 

Mr. Comey. No. And, in fact, I would hope that 
162

Republicans and Democrats would agree that we would have been 

derelict not to investigate.

Mr. Deutch. On May 20th, 2018, President Trump tweeted, 

again I quote: I hereby demand, and will do so officially 

tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or 

not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump campaign for 

political purposes, and if any such demands or requests were made 

by people within the Obama administration. 

Director Comey, do you believe the FBI or DOJ ever 

investigated the Trump campaign for political purposes? 

Mr. Comey. I not only don't believe it, I know it not to 

be true.

Mr. Deutch. I'm sorry, would you repeat that? 

Mr. Comey. I know it not to be true. I know that we never 

investigated the Trump campaign for political purposes.

Mr. Deutch. Did President Obama or anyone in his 

administration ever make a demand or a request the FBI or DOJ 

infiltrate or surveil the Trump campaign? 

Mr. Comey. No, not to my knowledge.

Mr. Deutch. And, Mr. Comey, how would you have reacted if 

you had received a request of this nature from any 

administration? 

Mr. Comey. Well, they wouldn't -- no one would dare ask 

me or anybody else at the FBI that because they know the reaction, 

which would be not only no, but hell no.
163

Mr. Deutch. In the tweet I read, President Trump appears 

to be directly demanding that the Department of Justice launch 

an investigation into his political opponents. You've already 

stated the answer to a request like that would be hell no. And 

why is that, Mr. Comey? 

Mr. Comey. Because that represents the final corruption 

and destruction of our system of justice. If we start 

investigating people by fiat from the leader because of their 

political affiliation, what are we anymore, which is why it has 

been so dispiriting not to see both sides of the political aisle 

react to this with shock and loud voices. It's just not who we 

are. I don't care who the President is, it's not who we are.

Mr. Deutch. I appreciate that. 

My final question just refers to something you said earlier 

today. You said that there's no crime of collusion as it's used, 

I think, in terms of conspiracy or aiding and abetting. I 

haven't heard the term collusion in my years at Justice. 

This investigation or I would say just to try to make this 

easier for you to answer, given your description of collusion, 

collusion would not be the basis for an investigation conducted 

by the FBI? 

Mr. Comey. Right, because it's not a thing in the criminal 

statutes, that I understand at least. It would be investigating 

where anyone conspired with the Russians or aided and abetted 

the Russians.
164

Mr. Deutch. Thank you, Mr. Comey. I appreciate it.

Ms. Plaskett. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, everyone. 

Mr. Comey, before we begin, I wanted to ask a question from 

the last round just as a point of clarification. In the 

discussion about why you put -- in late October made an 

announcement again about the Hillary Clinton email 

investigation, you said it was for consistency. What precluded 

or what made you believe or the FBI not believe that allowing 

the public to be aware of the investigation of Russia and possible 

interference or aiding and abetting by Trump aides in his 

campaign would justify that as well? 

Mr. Comey. Why wouldn't we announce --

Ms. Plaskett. Why wouldn't you have announced that? 

Mr. Comey. Well, for a number of reasons. It 

would -- there wouldn't be any policy exception that would permit 

it; that is, it would jeopardize the ongoing investigation and 

it would be brutally unfair because we didn't know whether we 

had anything. We literally just started. And as I said, by the 

time I was fired, we still hadn't come to a conclusion. And so 

we'd be revealing something that was inherently misleading and 

jeopardizing our ability to investigate by revealing it. 

It's for that reason -- I actually don't remember any 

discussion about whether to reveal that we had these classified 

counterintelligence files. Instead, what we debated a lot was 

should we tell the American people that the Russians are messing 
165

with our election more broadly.

Ms. Plaskett. But you stated in the last round that when 

you made the announcement in October about new emails, you didn't 

know what it would conclude either. So why would you make the 

announcement if you had no idea what those second round of emails 

might lead you to believe? 

Mr. Comey. I see. Because we had already, not only told 

the world about the Clinton Foundation -- excuse me, the Clinton 

investigation at its conclusion, we had then vigorously 

defended, in my view, rightly, the result and told people to move 

on, this was done well, this was done competently and honestly, 

you can trust your FBI. 

Now I know that's not true, and so that leaves me with two 

choices: I can either let the American people continue to rely 

upon something I know not to be true --

Ms. Plaskett. Which part was not true? 

Mr. Comey. That the case is done, you can move on.

Ms. Plaskett. Okay. That the case was done.

Mr. Comey. -- or I can tell Congress that what I said 

repeatedly is no longer true. Both of those are bad options. 

One, in my view, is catastrophic, that concealing from the 

American people and Congress that what we told you over and over 

and over again in the summer is no longer true would be 

devastating to the organizations. Now, reasonable people can 

disagree about that, but those were the two choices. And so it 
166

wasn't we were beginning a new investigation; we were restarting 

an investigation that the whole world knew about and was relying 

upon what were now false statements about it being completed. 

And then obviously critical to that was my troop saying, not only 

can we not finish this before the election, the result may change, 

because in this huge trove of emails appear to be emails that 

were missing from her Blackberry that we never found before. 

And so given that constellation of circumstances, I really 

didn't feel like I had any choice. I had to choose speaking over 

concealing.

Ms. Plaskett. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that 

clarification. 

Mr. Comey. Yeah. Good question.

Ms. Plaskett. What I wanted to ask a few questions about 

the body of evidence you're aware of related to President Trump 

and obstruction of justice. And I'm referring to your book, A 

Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies in Leadership. And on page 271, 

you write in the first full paragraph, I'm quoting: I also don't 

know whether the special counsel will find criminal wrongdoing 

by the President or others who have not been charged as of this 

writing. One of the pivotal questions I presume that Bob 

Mueller's team is investigating is whether or not, in urging me 

to back the FBI off our investigation of his national security 

advisor and firing me, President Trump was attempting to obstruct 

justice, which is a Federal crime. It's certainly possible 
167

there is at least circumstantial evidence in that regard, and 

there may be more that the Mueller team will assemble, end of 

quote. 

So I guess my first question was, were you aware of 

individuals charged -- that were charged as of that writing? 

Mr. Comey. I don't think I meant -- I can't think of 

anybody I was thinking of, if that makes sense.

Ms. Plaskett. Right. 

Mr. Comey. I wasn't -- I don't -- maybe that's an awkward 

sentence construction, but I don't think I was trying to carve 

somebody out.

Ms. Plaskett. But were you, in your mind, thinking of 

people who you believe would probably be charged but had not been 

charged as yet? 

Mr. Comey. I don't think so.

Ms. Plaskett. Okay. And what were the circumstantial 

evidence that you were referring to? 

Mr. Comey. That the President of the United States asked 

me to drop a pending criminal investigation.

Ms. Plaskett. And that's --

Mr. Comey. And did it after clearing the room and removing 

my boss and the Vice-President of the United States from the room 

in order to speak to me alone.

Ms. Plaskett. Okay. And those were the only pieces of 

circumstantial evidence that you had? 
168

Mr. Comey. That's all I can think of right now.

Ms. Plaskett. Okay. And do you consider President Trump 

asking you to back off the FBI -- back the FBI off of investigating 

then national security advisor the circumstantial evidence, 

right? 

Mr. Comey. Well, a piece of it, yes, and the manner in which 

it was done.

Ms. Plaskett. And the manner in which it was done. 

Do you consider President Trump firing you a circumstantial 

evidence of attempting to obstruct justice? 

Mr. Comey. Potentially, and that would require a lot of 

facts I can't see, so I wouldn't give you as strong an answer 

there. It's potentially circumstantial evidence. The first 

bit, the Oval Office conversation is circumstantial evidence.

Ms. Plaskett. So we've talked about the Oval Office 

incident as well as your firing as potential circumstantial 

evidence. Can you identify anything else outside of those 

things that's circumstantial or potentially direct evidence of 

President Trump attempting to obstruct justice, including public 

information and recent events? 

Mr. Comey. I don't think that's for me to answer. 

Ms. Bessee. Okay. I was going to say the same thing the 

witness said. To the extent, because he's also a potential 

witness for an ongoing investigation, he may be limited to 

what -- or he may not be able to answer the question.
169

Ms. Plaskett. Would he be able to answer the question 

related to those things that have occurred after his firing? 

Ms. Bessee. To the extent that he has knowledge of them 

based on his -- because he's a potential witness -- it depends 

on the question, so maybe if you ask the question we can assess --

Ms. Plaskett. So the question would be, can you identify 

any circumstantial or direct evidence that you may have obtained 

after being fired which would lead you to believe that the 

President has obstructed justice? 

Mr. Comey. I don't think I can answer that for this reason, 

that I'm not aware of any evidence that might be responsive to 

that question that's not in the public realm.

Ms. Plaskett. Right.

Mr. Comey. And so the next part of it would require me to 

characterize tweets and statements and things, which I don't 

think I can do.

Ms. Plaskett. You can't characterize tweets? I 

characterize them. 

Mr. Comey. That's what I'm saying. You're as qualified 

to do it as I, and so I don't think I ought to be in a position 

of trying to characterize things that are publicly available.

Ms. Plaskett. Well, I think because of your years of 

experience having prosecuted people, you would be able to 

identify what a jury would find as circumstantial better than 

most of us in this room. But if not, we can move on. 
170

Mr. Comey. But I'm a potential witness.

Ms. Plaskett. Got it.

Mr. Comey. So I just think it's a slippery slope for me 

to start characterizing public information.

Ms. Plaskett. Sure. You stated that attempting to 

obstruct justice, even if it does not work, is still a Federal 

crime. Would you agree? 

Mr. Comey. That's my recollection.

Ms. Plaskett. And there's been a growing narrative amongst 

conservative media that obstruction of justice is a mere process 

crime, that even if President Trump did obstruct justice, it 

really isn't that big of a deal if Special Counsel Mueller can't 

also demonstrate that he committed the ostensible underlying 

crime of colluding with or aiding and abetting with Russia to 

interfere with the election. Do you agree with that? 

Mr. Comey. No, and I've been hearing that for 30 years. 

Crimes that involve investigation -- that involve attacks on the 

criminal justice system, perjury, false statements, obstruction 

of justice, jury tampering, are things -- are statutes that 

Congress passed to protect the core of this country's rule of 

law, and so I never think of them as process crimes. They're 

serious and important Federal crimes.

Ms. Plaskett. And how important do you think it would be 

if the President of the United States attempted to impede a 

criminal investigation into his associates or his campaign? 
171

Mr. Comey. I don't think I'm comfortable answering with 

respect to the President, but I don't have to because I can answer 

generally. I think it's very serious when anybody endeavors to 

obstruct the due administration of justice.

Ms. Plaskett. Well, if it was -- anybody would be a very 

serious thing, but how much more serious would that issue be to 

the functioning of our democracy if it was, in fact, the 

President? 

Mr. Comey. You know, I'm worried about offering that 

opinion. I think it's very important that all of us in senior 

leadership positions in the government uphold our oaths, and 

critical to the President's oaths is to ensure that the laws are 

faithfully executed. So if someone who's taken that oath is 

obstructing justice, as we learned 45 years ago in Watergate, 

it's an incredibly important offense.

Ms. Plaskett. And does that present a national security 

threat? 

Mr. Comey. That's a hard one to answer. It would depend 

upon who it is and the circumstances and whatnot. I don't think 

I can answer that in the abstract.

Ms. Plaskett. Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. Comey. Thank you. 

Ms. Jackson Lee. Sheila Jackson Lee. Mr. Comey, it looks 

like we're going to be doing a bionic, I may be talking really 

fast and meteoric, and so I may be looking to put things in the 
172

record and not really seeking a question. 

So let me just do this. On the overall obstruction of 

justice, New York Times article that indicated they had it 

however here: Mr. Comey's firing was more unusual and important 

because he was overseeing the Russia investigation, a certain 

number of experts said. Questions about what will happen with 

that investigation now that he is gone are the main reason they 

said his firing is likely to be highly significant, with 

long-term ramifications for policy and government. These 

experts came from the University of Chicago, Denver, Harvard, 

Maryland, University of Virginia, Yale University. 

Do you, frankly, think that your firing without 

determination of why will have long-term policy and governmental 

impact? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know. It'll depend upon whether the 

law is able to work as intended and the special counsel can 

complete his work. I don't know where he'll end up, so it's hard 

for me to answer at this point.

Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me answer -- or ask some questions 

regarding the inspector general's report. I think it was around 

the 26th that -- September 26 that you received some indication 

about the Weiner laptop, 2016. And it started in New York, and 

people started to see emails flourishing, and FBI agents thought 

it was crucial -- I'm looking for my materials here -- thought 

it was crucial that you -- that they begin to investigate. And 
173

it seems that there was some suggestion in the IG's report of 

a question whether there was unnecessary delay. 

Mr. Comey. Yes, I remember that.

Ms. Jackson Lee. But it seems that he concluded that no 

emails, texts, anything, conversations he could find to suggest 

that it was purposeful delay, and I think that's important to 

be on the record. Do you agree with that? 

Mr. Comey. I agree. I've seen -- I didn't realize until 

I read the IG's report that chronology, because it wasn't 

presented to me for decision until the end of October, but there 

was reason to believe it would have been ready for decision 

earlier than that. But I never saw any indication that that was 

intentional delay.

Ms. Jackson Lee. So let me read this last text or last 

comment. As I said, I'm going to go as quickly as I can. 

The last paragraph on that particular section regarding 

Mr. Weiner's laptop: Comey, Lynch, and Yates face difficult 

choices in October 2016. However, we found it extraordinary 

that Comey assessed that it was best that the FBI Director not 

speak directly with the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney 

General about how best to navigate this most important decision 

and mitigate the resulting harms, and that Comey's decisions 

resulted in the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General 

concluding that it would be counterproductive to speak directly 

with the FBI Director. We believe that open and candid 
174

communications among leaders in the department and its 

components is essential for the effective functioning of the 

department. 

Without you suggesting what their thoughts were, upon 

reflection, because this, as I started out, was an election of 

the leaders of the free world, one of them was going to be elected. 

And I know earlier in his report you had -- it was an assumption 

that Secretary Clinton would win, and I don't consider that a 

factual basis to not do something, and then the idea that you 

didn't want to be in the -- in the position of concealing. 

Upon reflection or not reflection, why did you not speak 

to or find it important to speak to both the deputy and the 

Attorney General so there could have been a collaborative 

decision on what to do? 

Mr. Comey. That's a really good question. My thinking at 

the time was, I need to give them the chance to take this decision 

from me, but I also need to give them the chance to avoid it, 

and so that's what I did. I told them, I think I -- I had my 

staff tell them -- I think I need to tell Congress about this, 

but I'd be happy to talk to you. And they came back saying, we 

think it's a bad idea, but we don't want to talk to him. 

I read that -- I may be wrong, but I read that as them saying, 

over to you Jim. And this drives my wife crazy that I was willing 

to take that hit, but I thought it was important that if they 

don't want to be involved in the decision, that I make the 
175

decision. Now, what I maybe should have done was say, no, back 

to you Loretta and Sally, but that felt cowardly to me at the 

time. And if I were to live life over again, I might have marched 

across the street and said, hey, you folks see it differently 

than I and why, instead of the way I approached it. But I gave 

them the chance and they said, don't need to talk to you.

Ms. Jackson Lee. So we look at good practices, can we leave 

it on the point that, yes, march across the street and you sit 

down as a group and make the final decision? Would that have 

been, you know, without saying it was cowardly, without saying 

they didn't want to do it, but that's sort of DOJ, because you 

were having something so much so at a heightened level that that 

would have been the better practice? 

Mr. Comey. Maybe, but I actually don't want to -- I really 

like those two people. I don't let them too much off the hook. 

They're the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General of 

the United States for heaven's sakes. They know that I think 

I have to do this thing, so call me up and talk to me about it, 

give me your views of it, you're my boss. But instead, they 

communicate back saying over to you, Jim. 

So I'm not sure I want to take all the fault for that. I 

agree with you. I think the best practice would have been the 

three of us to sit down and talk it through.

Ms. Jackson Lee. Okay. I will -- the point behind that 

was that maybe the October 5th did not need to be announced only 
176

primarily because you were just in the midst of your October 

28 -- just in the midst of the investigation, and I don't think 

you would have been considered a concealer if you were just in 

the midst of the investigation. 

But let me quickly go to this issue here. Let me raise this 

question, and then I have about 1 minute and 50 seconds or 

something to ask these questions here. 

Director Comey, in your June 8, 2017, written testimony to 

the Senate Intelligence Committee, you wrote about a 

February 14, 2017, meeting with President Trump in which he 

stated, quote, I hope you can see your way clear to letting this 

go, to letting Flynn go. He's a good guy. I hope you can let 

this go. 

You then described your reaction, quote, I had understood 

that the President to be requesting that we drop any 

investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about 

his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December. 

Director Comey, is that still your understanding? 

Mr. Comey. Yes. 

[Comey Exhibit No. 5

Was marked for identification.] 

Ms. Jackson Lee. And I'd like to introduce the following 

document as exhibit 5, which is pages 90 to 91 of the transcript 

from former FBI general counsel James Baker's October 18, 2018, 

interview with the committee. 
177

And just in going to that earlier comment, you obviously 

you see now, today, of the final results of Director Flynn in 

terms of the Mueller indictment on the very facts that you were 

dealing with, and I just want to put that on the record. 

I would like to introduce the following exhibit, No. 5, and 

which is pages 90 to 91 of the transcript from former FBI general 

counsel James Baker's October 18, 2018, interview with the 

committee. It reads: Did you also have concerns that the 

statements by the President were requesting that the FBI drop 

the investigation of General Flynn? 

Mr. Comey. I'm sorry, I thought you were reading his 

statement.

Ms. Jackson Lee. The answer is yes. Forgive me. 

And why would it be concerning if the President asked the 

FBI to drop the investigation of his national security advisor? 

You said: Well, it's an --

Mr. Comey. Jim Baker said.

Ms. Jackson Lee. Jim Baker. 

It's an investigation, period. It's the President, I mean, 

I guess you would say breaking the norm in that sense, the 

President actually intervening --

Let me be very clear. I'm reading Jim Baker's comments. 

Thank you very much.

-- intervening while it's going on with respect to a 

particular investigation. 
178

It also goes back to what we talked about earlier. It has 

to -- it's not just some investigation; it's an investigation 

that is also related to the investigation -- or to Russia -- to 

the Russia matter that we were investigating, right? So it was 

not a free-standing independent investigation; it was something 

related to these other things. So it was alarming in that regard 

too. 

Do you share Mr. Baker's concerns about the President asking 

the FBI to drop the investigation of his national security 

advisor? Do you agree that the Flynn investigation was related 

to the Russia matter? 

Mr. Comey. I do.

Ms. Jackson Lee. The transcript continues: Is it 

alarming even if the FBI has no intention of dropping the 

investigation? 

Well, we didn't have any intention of dropping the 

investigation, so -- but it's alarming nonetheless, yes, because 

we'll know at a minimum the existence of the fact of the -- at 

a bare minimum, the fact of this conversation. Just again, looks 

bad if it were ever to -- if it was ever -- would look bad if 

it was ever to become public, because it looks like the 

President's trying to put his finger on the scale to cause the 

investigation to go into a particular way, and that would hurt 

the FBI's credibility, reputation for independence. That was 

very alarming. 
179

Question: You said it would look like that to the public. 

Did you believe that that's what actually was going on? 

The answer: The President was trying to put his finger on 

the scale. Yes, that's what I thought was going on. 

Do you agree with Mr. Baker's assessment that President 

Trump was trying to put his finger on the scale by asking you 

to drop Flynn's investigation? 

Mr. Comey. Potentially. As I said earlier, I would want 

to understand more about the President's intent before I reached 

a conclusion.

Ms. Jackson Lee. And so you think potentially, not 

affirmatively? 

Mr. Comey. Well, it would look like the President was 

trying to put his finger on the scale, but I understand the term 

"put his finger on the scale" to mean obstructing justice. And 

as I said earlier, I'd want to know more of the facts, which I'm 

sure the special counsel's work to understand, about the 

President's intent before I reached that conclusion.

Ms. Jackson Lee. And you don't believe that the statement 

on public television "it was a Russia thing" is an affirmative 

statement without qualification by the President of the United 

States? It was a Russia thing that I fired Mr. Comey on. 

Mr. Comey. Oh, I do. And the only thing I added, though, 

is since then he has said other things trying to, it seems, walk 

that back. And so again, I rely on his words. I saw him say
180

that, but I've since seen him try to say other things.

Ms. Jackson Lee. Well, you're a quintessential law 

enforcement officer and you know that is probably the tendency 

of any witness to walk back. Is that not true? 

Mr. Comey. No, the tendency of this witness is trying to 

be fair and open minded.

Ms. Jackson Lee. No, I'm projecting it to the President. 

Anybody who's being asked about something they said and it gets 

a lot of fury, it is a tendency to walk back. 

Mr. Comey. Well, it depends upon the person. Some people 

will try to walk back things, others not.

Ms. Jackson Lee. Were you also worried that it would hurt 

the FBI's credibility and reputation for independence? 

Mr. Comey. Yes.

Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. 

Mr. Comey. Thank you.

Mr. Raskin. Mr. Comey, I'm Jamie Raskin from Maryland. I 

want to start, Director Comey, with your written testimony of 

the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 8th of 2017, when you 

wrote about your famous dinner with President Trump at the White 

House on January 27th. And you said that the President was 

trying to, quote, create some sort of patronage relationship. 

And at one point he said to you, quote, I need loyalty. I expect 

loyalty. Is that your recollection? 

Mr. Comey. Yes.
181

Mr. Raskin. Okay. On pages 237 and 238 of your book, A 

Higher Loyalty, you also recount your dinner with President Trump 

and your reaction to this request. At the bottom of page 237 

you write, quote, to my mind, the demand was like Sammy the Bull's 

Cosa Nostra induction ceremony with Trump in the role of the 

family boss asking me if I have what it takes to be a made man. 

I did not and would never. 

Can you just elaborate on why that was the first thing that 

came into your mind, this comparison to a made boss ceremony for 

La Cosa Nostra? 

Mr. Comey. It was an impression that kept popping into my 

head when I interacted with President Trump, and particularly 

it started when I watched him interact as President-elect that 

first week of January at Trump Tower, and I kept trying to push 

it away because it seemed too dramatic. But his leadership 

style -- I'm not trying to suggest he's out robbing banks -- but 

his leadership style reminded me of that of a mafia boss, of a 

Cosa Nostra boss, because it's all about me, what you can do for 

me, it's all about your loyalty to me. It's not about any higher 

values or institutional values. It's about how are you feeding 

me the boss, how are you taking care of me the boss.

Mr. Raskin. And that was novel to your experience in terms 

of dealing with Presidents of the United States? 

Mr. Comey. Correct. I dealt closely with three, and this 

was the first time I'd had that reaction.
182

Mr. Raskin. Okay. And just to be clear, what is your 

loyalty to, as the director of the FBI or a law enforcement

official? 

Mr. Comey. To a variety of external values, most 

importantly, the Constitution and the laws of the United States, 

and then to the regulations that restrict and govern the FBI, 

and also to the values that make the FBI such an important part 

of American life: integrity, independence, competence, and 

fairness.

Mr. Raskin. Has anything happened since these events that 

have changed your perception of the President's modus operandi 

in terms of his dealing with his subordinates and people who work 

for the government? 

Mr. Comey. No. I think people who thought maybe I was 

being dramatic have come to believe that maybe I wasn't being 

dramatic in that observation.

Mr. Raskin. Yeah. How many -- have you ever prosecuted 

mafia bosses? 

Mr. Comey. Yes.

Mr. Raskin. How many? 

Mr. Comey. Well, not the -- I've prosecuted capos. I'm 

sitting next to an organized crime prosecutor. So I've 

prosecuted probably five to seven senior leaders. I've never 

prosecuted the boss of an organized crime family.

Mr. Raskin. Got you. The President's former personal 
183

attorney, Michael Cohen, has been in the headlines recently. 

I'm not going to ask you specific questions about his case, but 

I wanted to clarify for the record some of the legal and 

investigative processes that lend itself to that type of case. 

You may recall that when Mr. Cohen's apartment, office, and 

hotel room were first raided by the FBI in April of this year, 

the President attacked these steps. He declared that, quote, 

attorney-client privilege is dead. It was, quote, a total witch 

hunt. And he described the investigation as a, quote, 

disgraceful situation and an attack on our country. 

Now, the raid was conducted by the FBI pursuant to a search 

warrant and at the direction of the Office of the U.S. Attorney 

for the Southern District, I think. Can you walk us through the 

steps that the FBI and DOJ take before approving a search warrant 

on an attorney and seizing documents that might include 

potentially privileged materials? 

Mr. Comey. In very shorthand I will. It's a complicated 

process, but it involves a long series of approvals because it's 

what we would call a sensitive investigative matter. It touched 

on attorney-client relationships potentially, which are the core 

of our Nation, and so it would require approval to a very high 

level in the FBI, a very high level in the Department of Justice, 

and then have to go to a Federal judge.

Mr. Raskin. Okay. Was there anything that took place in 

these investigative steps that destroyed the attorney-client 
184

privilege such that it would justify the President's statement 

that the attorney-client privilege is dead? 

Mr. Comey. Well, I can answer in general, because I don't 

know that case. The entire sensitive investigative matter 

process is designed to be respectful of the privileges that might 

be touched by a search on a lawyer's office.

Mr. Raskin. Okay. President Trump has kept up his drum 

beat against his former lawyer. Most recently, the attacks were 

in response Mr. Cohen's plea deal with the special counsel's 

office in which he admitted to lying about the Trump Tower Moscow 

project in contact with Russian Government officials during the 

2016 campaign. 

The President responded within hours tweeting, quote: 

Michael Cohen asks judge for no prison time. You mean he can 

do all of the terrible unrelated to Trump things having to do 

with fraud, big loans, taxes, et cetera, and not serve a long 

prison term? He makes up stories to get a great and already 

reduced deal for himself and get his wife and father-in-law who 

has the money, question mark, off scot-free. He lied for this 

outcome and should, in my opinion, serve a complete sentence. 

I would like to draw on your years of experience as an 

organized crime prosecutor and senior DOJ official and head of 

the FBI to unpack some of the prosecutorial methods that are under 

attack by the President. 

First, why do criminal defendants such as Michael Cohen 
185

decide to change course and flip? 

Mr. Comey. I can only answer that in general not about the 

case in particular.

Mr. Raskin. In general. 

Mr. Comey. Because they conclude that it's in their 

self-interest to try to obtain a reduction in their sentence by 

providing substantial assistance to the people of the United 

States by helping solve other crimes.

Mr. Raskin. Yes. At certain points, I think the President 

has meditated the possibility of making it a crime to flip or 

saying it should be against the law to flip. What do you make 

of that suggestion, as a prosecutor? 

Mr. Comey. It's a shocking suggestion coming from any 

senior official, no less the President. It's a critical and 

legitimate part of the entire justice system in the United 

States.

Mr. Raskin. Does the government routinely grant 

defendants who cooperate with the government and render honest 

testimony reduced sentences in exchange for their cooperation? 

Mr. Comey. Routinely, the prosecutors ask the judge to 

take that substantial assistance into account and reduce their 

sentences.

Mr. Raskin. Okay. So it's not directly up to the 

prosecutor --

Mr. Comey. Correct. 
186

Mr. Raskin. -- but they will recommend to the court, if 

the person follows through --

Mr. Comey. Right, if they tell the truth and provide 

substantial assistance in the investigation or prosecution of 

others.

Mr. Raskin. Yes. You know --

Mr. Comey. That's how we make mob cases, terrorism cases, 

child abuse cases, drug cases, kidnapping cases. It's essential 

to the workings of our criminal justice system.

Mr. Raskin. Yes. It may be difficult to extricate 

ourselves from the last couple of years, but if we were to go 

back to a more innocent time, would you agree that it's dangerous 

or would you disagree that it's dangerous to have a sitting 

President commenting on active criminal proceedings and 

investigations and trying to interfere in them? 

Mr. Comey. I think we have become numb to lying and attacks 

on the rule of law by the President, all of us have to a certain 

extent, and it's something we can't ever become numb to.

Mr. Raskin. Okay. I will close with that. Thank you very 

much, Director Comey. 

Ms. Hariharan. It is 3:13, and we'll go off the record. 

[Recess.]
187

[3:23 p.m.] 

Chairman Goodlatte. Back on the record. 

Mr. Jordan. Mr. Chairman, is it okay? Okay, thank you. 

Director, let me just go back and try to clear up a few things 

probably mostly for me. The last hour I think you were talking 

about this with the minority as well. 

You have your meeting with the President in February of 

2017, where the President talks about can you see your way clear 

to go easy on Mike Flynn or whatever, something to that effect. 

You then had a meeting with your senior staff and wrote a memo 

memorializing what took place in your meeting with the President. 

Is that right? 

Mr. Comey. Correct. I met with the senior leadership team 

and prepared and reviewed with them a memo.

Mr. Jordan. Say it again. I'm sorry. Prepared to what? 

Mr. Comey. I prepared and then reviewed with them my memo. 

Mr. Jordan. So they worked on the memo with you? 

Mr. Comey. No. I wrote the memo. I gave them a copy of 

it to read, and then we sat down and talked. 

Mr. Jordan. You sat down and talked about it, okay. And 

who all was in that meeting, again? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know for sure, but I'm sure Deputy 

Director McCabe was there; General Counsel Baker was there; my 

chief of staff; Jim Rybicki was there. I believe the number 

three at the FBI at that point, who was the Associate Deputy 
188

Director, was there. 

Mr. Jordan. That individual's name? 

Mr. Comey. At that point, it was David Bowdich. 

Mr. Jordan. Bowdich, okay. 

Mr. Comey. And then I believe that -- and this I'm less 

certain of -- that the head of the National Security Branch, Carl 

Ghattas, was there, and -- or Bill Priestap, the head of 

Counterintelligence. I'm not sure about with the last two guys, 

but I think it's a possibility. 

Mr. Jordan. Deputy Director McCabe, Chief Counsel Baker, 

Chief of Staff Rybicki, Mr. Bowdich, Mr. Ghattas, Mr. Priestap. 

Mr. Comey. That's the universe of people I think could have 

been there. 

Mr. Jordan. You think they were all there. Was Peter 

Strzok there? 

Mr. Comey. I'm sorry. I didn't say I think they were all 

there. I said that's the universe of people who could have been 

there. I'm certain about McCabe, Rybicki, and Baker. 

Mr. Jordan. You're certain of the top three? 

Mr. Comey. Yeah. 

Mr. Jordan. The other three that you mentioned could have 

been there. 

Mr. Comey. Yeah. 

Mr. Jordan. What about Mr. Strzok? 

Mr. Comey. I don't remember him being there. 
189

Mr. Jordan. And Ms. Page? 

Mr. Comey. I don't remember her being there. 

Mr. Jordan. And what did McCabe, Baker, and Rybicki advise 

you to do, and then any of the others who -- if you can remember, 

what did they advise you to do after you showed them the memo 

and then talked about your -- you know, what had happened with 

you and the President? 

Mr. Comey. I don't remember who said what, but I remember 

two points of consensus: We were all very concerned about it; 

and, second, we agreed that we ought to hold it very close, not 

brief the investigative team at this point and not go over and 

talk to the leadership of the Department of Justice, to hold onto 

it until we got a new Deputy Attorney General and they sorted 

out how they were going to supervise the Russia investigation. 

Mr. Jordan. Why did you decide not to share it with the 

leadership of the Justice Department? 

Mr. Comey. Because we believed that the Attorney General, 

Mr. Sessions, was --

Mr. Jordan. Excuse me one second. I've got to move. I'm 

having trouble seeing you here. 

Mr. Comey. We believed that the Attorney General, 

Mr. Sessions, was on the cusp of recusing himself from anything 

related to Russia, so it didn't make any sense to brief him on 

it, and that there was no Deputy Attorney General at that point. 

Mr. Jordan. Why would you make that assumption? I mean, 
190

just because -- I mean, first of all, if he was on the cusp of 

leaving, that's a judgment call. Maybe he was; maybe -- I can't 

recall exactly what was going on in February. 

But he's still the Attorney General. He had not recused 

himself. If this is something important enough for you to 

memorialize, talk to your top people, why not then share it with 

the top law enforcement official in the government? 

Mr. Comey. Because we believed -- it turns out 

correctly -- that he was about to step out of any involvement, 

anything related to Russia. 

Mr. Jordan. I understand that. But just because you 

believe he's about to do something doesn't change the fact that 

he's the Attorney General and, frankly, as the Attorney General 

for our government, should receive that kind of information, I 

would think. 

Mr. Comey. It's a judgment call we made that it was prudent 

to wait, given our expectation he wouldn't be the Attorney 

General in a matter of days with respect to that topic. 

Mr. Jordan. Okay. So, if you're that concerned about 

Mr. Sessions, why didn't you share it with the Deputy Attorney 

General? 

Mr. Comey. There was no Deputy Attorney General at that 

point in time. 

Mr. Jordan. Ms. Yates had already stepped down. 

Mr. Comey. Correct.
191

Mr. Jordan. Okay. So who is number three at the Justice 

Department? Why not share it with them? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know who was number three at that point. 

There was an acting -- there was a U.S. Attorney acting as the 

Deputy Attorney General, who we knew would be in the seat only 

until Rod Rosenstein was confirmed. And so it didn't make sense 

to brief a matter like that to him, it was our judgment, and so 

we would just hold it. 

And there was no -- we saw no investigative urgency. If 

there was something we had to do right away, we might have thought 

about it differently, but given how we thought about the 

investigative state in which it was, it made sense to hold onto 

it. 

Mr. Jordan. I just want to be clear. So you knew at the 

time that there was no Deputy Attorney General; Ms. Yates had 

stepped down. You knew at the time that Jeff Sessions was the 

Attorney General, but you thought he may be recusing himself at 

some point in the near future. And you also knew at the time 

Rod Rosenstein had been nominated to fulfill or to fill the DAG 

position. Is that all right? 

Mr. Comey. Correct. 

Mr. Jordan. That was what you knew and assumed at the time. 

And so you made a decision we're going to wait until 

Mr. Rosenstein has the position and we're going to go talk to 

him? 
192

Mr. Comey. I think what we decided was -- I don't think 

we were that specific. We said: Let's wait until the 

Department of Justice gets its leadership team on and figures 

out how it wants to staff the -- this case. Because you'll 

recall, during his confirmation hearing, one of the things Rod 

Rosenstein had promised the Senate was he would think about 

whether to appoint a special prosecutor once he became Deputy 

Attorney General. 

Mr. Meadows. So how did you know that he was on the cusp, 

according to your words, the cusp of recusal? How would you know 

that? 

Mr. Comey. A couple of reasons. It seemed like an obvious 

case for recusal, given his role in the campaign. And I 

think -- in fact, I know we had been told by that point that the 

career officials at the Department of Justice were recommending 

that he recuse himself. I think we knew that at that point. So 

it seemed a foregone conclusion the Attorney General was going 

to step out of Russia matters. 

Mr. Meadows. So who told you? 

Mr. Comey. I don't remember. 

Mr. Meadows. Why would they have told you? 

Mr. Comey. Well, the person who told me would have been 

someone on my senior team. 

Mr. Meadows. Yeah, but why would that have been 

communicated? Before a recusal actually took place, why would 
193

they be communicating that to you, Director Comey? 

Mr. Comey. Why would my staff be telling me? 

Mr. Meadows. No. Why would someone at the Department of 

Justice tell you that Jeff Sessions is going to recuse himself 

that would actually change your actions and what you decided to 

do? 

Mr. Comey. First of all, I know I said this before, but 

no one told me from the Department of Justice. If your question 

is, why would someone at the Department of Justice tell someone 

at the FBI, that I don't know. 

Mr. Meadows. So who told you? I mean, obviously, it 

changed your decision. So you're saying that you have no 

knowledge of who told you that Jeff Sessions was on the cusp of 

recusal? 

Mr. Comey. Yeah. It didn't --

Mr. Meadows. That's your testimony? 

Mr. Comey. It didn't change my decision. It was --

Mr. Meadows. Well, it obviously did because you didn't 

take it to the Attorney General, which is the highest law 

enforcement officer. You didn't take it to him. So your 

testimony just now suggested that it did change your actions. 

Mr. Comey. No. I'm suggesting it was a factor in a 

decision I made. It was reality, and I stared at that reality 

and, based on that reality, I made a decision. The decision was, 

let's hold onto it until they sort out their leadership. 
194

Mr. Jordan. Didn't in your memos you highlight the idea 

that if the President has something like what he told you in this 

meeting that prompted the memo and prompted this meeting, that 

there's a proper chain he's supposed to follow? In fact, the 

President should go to the Attorney General. They should look 

at the information, and then they should bring it to you as the 

director of the FBI. 

You laid out a chain and a sequence that should happen if 

the President wants to get information to you, but it seems to 

me here we are now, you have this information that should be, 

I think, shared with the Attorney General and wasn't. 

Mr. Comey. I'm not sure I follow your question, 

Mr. Jordan. I don't remember a conversation with the President 

in this context about who he should talk to. 

Mr. Jordan. I think you, if I remember your memo -- I have 

to go back and look -- but if I remember your memo, one of the 

things you talked about is that if the President wants to share 

information like he shared with you about General Flynn, he 

should do that through the appropriate channels, being through 

the Attorney General, then through the Attorney General, Justice 

Department, and then it comes to you, as the Director of the FBI. 

Mr. Comey. Yeah. I'm not recalling that. He wasn't 

sharing information about Mr. Flynn. He was asking me to drop 

an investigation of Flynn. 

There are other contexts in which at the end of March or 
195

April where I told the President that the way it should work if 

he has an inquiry is to have the White House counsel call over 

to the leadership of the Department of Justice and do it that 

way. 

Mr. Jordan. Okay. Okay. I want to move on to -- I want 

to go back to Bruce Ohr and Christopher Steele real quick, if 

I can. Do you know Bruce Ohr personally? 

Mr. Comey. Yes. Not well. I've met him, and he was a 

prosecutor in New York around the time that I was a prosecutor 

in New York. 

Mr. Jordan. And did you -- just to recap, I think Mr. Gowdy 

was here earlier today. Did you know that Christopher Steele 

was giving information to Mr. Ohr? 

Mr. Comey. I didn't know that, and I don't know that for 

a fact. 

Mr. Jordan. So you didn't know that Christopher Steele was 

passing information to Mr. Ohr and he was then providing it -- Mr. 

Ohr was then providing it to the FBI? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know if that's true, and I didn't know 

anything like that when I was Director. 

Mr. Jordan. Did you know if Christopher Steele had any bias 

against President Trump? 

Mr. Comey. No. 

Mr. Jordan. Did you -- I'm just curious your thoughts. 

Maybe you can't comment on this. But why did the FBI need Bruce 
196

Ohr? If you were getting information directly from Mr. Steele, 

why did you need Bruce Ohr to also get information from Mr. Steele 

and then give it to the FBI? 

Mr. Comey. I can't answer that because I don't -- as I said 

in response to your earlier questions, I don't know anything 

about a Bruce Ohr connection to Mr. Steele. 

Mr. Jordan. Why was Christopher Steele terminated, his 

relationship with the FBI terminated, in November of 2016? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know. 

Mr. Jordan. Okay. Did you know that the FBI continued to 

use Mr. Steele's information after he was terminated by the FBI? 

Mr. Comey. What do you mean by use his information? 

Mr. Jordan. The fact that after he's terminated, he 

continues to give information to Bruce Ohr, who Bruce Ohr, after 

each and every time he communicates with Christopher Steele, then 

sits down with the FBI, and there are, my understanding, several 

302s, I think more than a dozen 302s that talk about those 

interactions that Mr. Ohr had with Mr. Steele. 

Mr. Comey. I don't know anything about that. 

Mr. Jordan. Okay. Were you aware that Christopher Steele 

had met with representatives in the media in September of 2016? 

Mr. Comey. No. 

Mr. Jordan. So didn't know anything about that and didn't 

know that he had met with Mr. Isikoff with Yahoo News? 

Mr. Comey. No. And I don't even know whether that's true, 
197

but I didn't know anything about it. 

Mr. Jordan. Okay. It's been reported that there's a 

series of emails that talk about the idea that Christopher 

Steele -- not the idea, the fact that Christopher Steele had met 

with representatives in the press in September of 2016. Do you 

know anything about that series of emails? 

Mr. Comey. No. I don't -- no, I don't remember anything 

about it. Don't think I ever got an email about it or saw an 

email about it. 

Mr. Gowdy. Director Comey, what element was missing in 

July of 2016, when you had the press conference, that might have 

been found in October on Anthony Weiner's computer? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know it's an element, but what

was -- the key ingredient that was missing in the Clinton 

investigation was any indication that she knew she was doing 

something she shouldn't be doing. And so what the Weiner trove 

potentially held was evidence of that intention, especially in 

the form of the emails from her BlackBerry during her first 3 

months as Secretary of State. 

Mr. Gowdy. Tell me how the existence of that information 

may have impacted the element of intent. 

Mr. Comey. Again, I don't know that I'd call -- I don't 

know whether I would describe it as an element. My understanding 

is -- and I remember you and I talking about this it seems like 

years ago -- the Department of Justice has always required before 
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it will bring that misdemeanor indications of intention or harm 

to the United States or obstruction of justice, those kinds of 

things. And that was the ingredient we didn't have in the 

Clinton case. 

And so the Weiner trove held the prospect that we -- because 

it might contain evidence of the beginning of her use of her 

unclass system, might hold that evidence. 

Mr. Gowdy. Well, I'm sure you can see, because a smart guy 

and a good lawyer, the next question is, how can you begin to 

even draft a non-pros memo if you haven't interviewed two dozen 

witnesses, including the target, but you're already drafting a 

non-pros, but the moment you find out that there may be a computer 

you have not accessed, you reopen the investigation; whatever 

you found on Weiner's computer, could you not have also found 

when you were interviewing the two dozen witnesses? 

Mr. Comey. Potentially. What I was doing in May was 10 

months into an investigation, seeing on the current course and 

speed where it's going to end, planning. Just -- I'm sure you 

did too. I drafted plenty of indictments before I finished 

investigations because it looked like we were going to get enough 

to charge a person. And so that's what it was about. 

And, again -- I know I said this in response to the 

Democrats' questions -- the prospect, what made Weiner's 

computer a horse of a different color was the size of the trove 

and the emails potentially from the first 3 months as Secretary 
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of State a very different kettle of fish. 

Mr. Gowdy. Is it because -- and, again, I know you don't 

like answering hypos, and I don't actually like asking 

them -- but what in particular the beginning stages of her tenure 

would have addressed an element that you thought was missing? 

Mr. Comey. Oh, that's easy to answer. If there was going 

to be evidence that she knew she was communicating in a way she 

shouldn't, explicit evidence, common sense tells you it's likely 

to be at the beginning when someone encountered her mode or means 

of communication and said: Hey, boss, you know you can't do 

that. You know you can't talk about this kind of thing or that 

kind of thing on an unclass system. 

It's much more likely to be at the beginning, which we never 

found, those 3 months, than much later. 

Mr. Gowdy. All right. Well, let me ask you about the 

beginning. Bryan Pagliano, when the FBI interviewed him, who 

did he say instructed him to set up the server? 

Mr. Kelley. I'm sorry. Who is the name, please? 

Mr. Gowdy. Bryan Pagliano. 

Mr. Comey. I don't remember. 

Mr. Gowdy. Do you remember Bryan Pagliano? 

Mr. Comey. Yeah, I remember the name.

Mr. Gowdy. A Department of State employee who, by all 

indications, set up the server for Secretary Clinton. Do you 

know whether he was asked what he was told about why this was 
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being done? 

Mr. Comey. I don't today. 

Mr. Gowdy. Could that witness also have provided some 

evidence of intent, based on those conversations? 

Mr. Comey. The guy who set up the server? 

Mr. Gowdy. Sure. 

Mr. Comey. Maybe. Maybe. 

Mr. Gowdy. Do you know where he worked? 

Mr. Comey. No. I mean, I'm sure I did at some point. I 

don't remember. 

Mr. Gowdy. He worked at the Department of State, or he was 

paid by the Department of State. Did the Bureau pull any hour 

sheets or performance evaluations to see whether or not he 

actually did work at the Department of State? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know. 

Mr. Gowdy. Did the Bureau talk to his supervisor? 

Mr. Comey. I don't -- I don't remember certainly today. 

I don't know whether I ever knew that. 

Mr. Gowdy. What was he granted immunity for and from? 

Mr. Comey. I don't recall. I'm sure I knew 2 years ago, 

but I don't remember. 

Mr. Gowdy. Who is Paul Combetta? 

Mr. Comey. Another one of the figures somehow in the setup 

of the server or something. I can't -- I remember the name, but 

I don't remember what his role was. 
201

Mr. Gowdy. He worked at Platte River. Does that refresh 

your recollection? 

Mr. Comey. Platte River Networks, yeah. I forget whether 

they supplied the server or one of the servers. They were 

involved in the setup or maintenance of the Secretary's private 

email server. 

Mr. Gowdy. Were they also involved in any deletions of her 

emails? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know. It sounds familiar, but I 

honestly can't remember. 

Mr. Gowdy. Do you recall the product BleachBit? 

Mr. Comey. Oh, yes, I do. 

Mr. Gowdy. Do you know where that came from? 

Mr. Comey. I certainly don't today. I don't know whether 

I ever did.

Mr. Gowdy. Do you recall a conference call between Cheryl 

Mills, David Kendall, perhaps Heather Samuelson, and Platte 

River about the time the public learned she had this unusual email 

arrangement? 

Mr. Comey. Vaguely. I'm not sure I remember those 

participants. 

Mr. Gowdy. Do you recall emails being destroyed by Platte 

River after the public learned that she had this email 

arrangement? 

Mr. Comey. Yes. That rings more of a bell. I remember 
202

something about -- and I don't know whether it was Combetta or 

not -- but somebody having failed to do what they asked him to 

do and panicking and going back and deleting emails on one of

the old servers maybe. 

Mr. Gowdy. That is definitely one version of how that 

conference call went, that he in the past had been told to have 

a short retention, and he got on the phone with some of Secretary 

Clinton's attorneys and had -- I won't use the word -- but an 

oh-something bad moment and realized he had not done it. There 

are other versions that we don't have access to because 

privileges were asserted surrounding that conversation. Do you 

recall anything about that? 

Mr. Comey. No. I remember privilege issues, but not about 

that conversation. 

Mr. Gowdy. Who made the decision to allow Cheryl Mills and 

Heather Samuelson to sit in on Secretary Clinton's interview? 

Mr. Comey. I think the DOJ did, although I'm trying to 

remember whether I knew personally. FBI people knew about it 

and didn't object to it. 

Mr. Gowdy. They did or did not? 

Mr. Comey. Did not, to my recollection. 

Mr. Gowdy. We've interviewed some Bureau employees who 

thought it was a very unusual arrangement that they were not 

familiar with. How would you describe allowing multiple fact 

witnesses to be present while a fact witness is being 
203

interviewed? 

Mr. Comey. Certainly unusual in that you had two people 

who had been witnesses, who were the Secretary -- the subject's 

lawyers, who after we cleared as to them were allowed to attend 

the interview. Unusual. 

Mr. Gowdy. When you say "unusual," in the time you spent 

in the Southern District and at the FBI and the Department of 

Justice, can you recall another time where fact witnesses also 

served as potential counsel? 

Mr. Comey. Yes. I can't -- and we would have to negotiate 

that with -- I'm trying to remember the terms -- a Curcio hearing 

and having all kinds of discussions about how to handle it in 

a charged case. 

I don't know that I can remember -- sitting here, I can't 

remember an uncharged, so an investigative stage case, where a 

lawyer for the subject emerged as a fact witness. I can't. I'm 

sure if I have more time to think about it, maybe I will, but 

I can't right now. 

Mr. Gowdy. Why does the Bureau typically not interview 

multiple fact witnesses at the same time? 

Mr. Comey. Because you'd ideally like people not to know 

what others' stories are so they're not able to get their story 

together. 

Mr. Gowdy. Some of the same reasons they have a 

sequestration rule. So you don't want witnesses to hear other 
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witnesses. 

Mr. Comey. Yeah, ideally. You want to keep them all in 

separate boxes. 

Mr. Gowdy. So why was this interview handled differently? 

Mr. Comey. I don't remember for sure. I think a key factor 

was they were her lawyers, and so our ability to keep them from 

talking to each other was slim to none regardless and that they 

had been -- we had finished our evaluation of them as potential 

subjects. And so I think the judgment of the team was it's 

unusual, but it's really not something that's going to hurt our 

investigation. 

Mr. Gowdy. Can you think of another investigation you were 

involved with where that happened? 

Mr. Comey. No. 

Mr. Gowdy. Did you interview Patrick Kennedy? 

Mr. Comey. I didn't interview anybody. 

Mr. Gowdy. Did the Bureau interview Patrick Kennedy? 

Mr. Comey. State Department official? 

Mr. Gowdy. State Department official. 

Mr. Comey. I don't know. It rings some bell, but maybe 

I know his name from something else. 

Mr. Gowdy. Did the Bureau gain an understanding of how she 

could have kept her emails from the time she separated from 

service at the State Department, but yet felt the need to delete 

them in March of 2015? 
205

Mr. Comey. I don't know. 

Mr. Gowdy. Destruction of evidence can be considered 

evidence of what? 

Mr. Comey. It can either be a separate offense or evidence 

of consciousness of guilt. 

Mr. Gowdy. Of the statutes the Bureau had under 

investigation -- and what I mean by that is the fact pattern may 

have applied to certain statutes -- which statutes do you recall 

were at issue or at play in this investigation? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know if I remember even the numbers 

anymore. I think it was 18 U.S.C. 1924, which I think is the 

misdemeanor, and 793, which is a variety of sections relating 

to espionage, mishandling of classified information, theft of 

classified information. I think those were the two. I could 

be wrong about that. I've tried to suppress it, but I think those 

are the two. 

Mr. Gowdy. So maybe a felony retention, a gross negligence 

standard, also a felony, I think, and then a misdemeanor? Does 

that sound right? 

Mr. Comey. Yes. Maybe you can help me. I think it was 

793 and 1924. I think 1924 is the misdemeanor. 793 --

Mr. Gowdy. You are correct. 1924, you are correct. 793, 

and there's a section (f), which is gross negligence, and then 

there's a section (d), which is a higher level of scienter. Does 

that sound right? 
206

Mr. Comey. It does sound right. 

Mr. Gowdy. In your judgment, what element was missing that 

prevented or thwarted a successful -- well, let me ask you this: 

Is it your position there was insufficient evidence to charge 

or your position that there was insufficient evidence, even if 

charged, to secure a conviction? 

Mr. Comey. As I recall, our judgment was that, given the 

way the Department of Justice for 50 or 100 years had treated 

those statutes, we did not have sufficient evidence of intent 

for any -- anybody in the counterespionage section to bring those 

charges, that they would never bring a gross negligence 

prosecution, and that all the misdemeanor cases involved some 

other element of proof that raised it up to the level at which 

they would bring that statute to bear. 

So I don't -- I don't think we spent a lot of time figuring 

out whether we had a beyond a reasonable doubt case, because it 

was so obvious we had a case that nobody would prosecute. 

Mr. Gowdy. Had there ever been prosecutions under the 

gross negligence statute? 

Mr. Comey. One, as I recall, since 1917. 

Mr. Gowdy. Was the statute ever used in applications for 

search warrants? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know. I don't know if I ever knew that. 

Mr. Gowdy. So, as we sit here today -- and I know you and 

I have had this conversation, and it's been a while -- your best 
207

explanation for what was lacking -- I get the fact the statute 

wasn't used that often, but no statute is used for the first time 

until it is. 

So what -- did you view the statute as being 

unconstitutional? Did you view it as being so vague as to not 

sustain a conviction, or was there an element of the statute you 

think was missing? 

Mr. Comey. See if I get this right. My recollection is 

not crystal clear at this point. I remember learning that there 

were grave reservations for decades in the Department of Justice 

about the constitutionality of 793(f), I think it is, and an 

understanding -- and I confirmed that understanding by reading 

the legislative history myself -- that when Congress passed that 

statute and made it a felony in 1917, their intention was for 

the definition of gross negligence to approach willfulness, very 

similar to the kind of intention that the Department of Justice 

would require for a 1924 prosecution. 

And we had proof that got us nowhere near willfulness. And 

so our judgment was we got no chance on 793, even if they would 

bring the second prosecution in American history in this context, 

and we sure got no chance on the intention requirement that 

they've imposed on the statute forever. And so our judgment was, 

look, we worked this hard; we're nowhere near where anybody would 

bring this. 

It turns out I got criticized that my case for having no 
208

case was not strong enough. The inspector general hit me that 

I should have told the public they also would never bring a case 

where the people communicating all had a clearance and a need 

to know the information, and that Director Comey failed to be 

accurate with the American people in saying not only was this 

no case; it was more of a no case than he realized. 

Mr. Gowdy. All right. You have smart lawyers at the 

Department, smart lawyers at the Bureau. So you knew all of that 

pretty early on in the investigation. This is one of the first 

things you're going to ask is, what is the case law? Have there 

been other prosecutions? 

Mr. Comey. Yeah. I didn't know it to that level of detail 

until the spring, but I knew from just talking to our troops early 

on it's going to be a hard case to make, given the way the 

Department of Justice has always understood these statutes. 

Let's get at it, see what we can find. 

Mr. Gowdy. So what were you looking for? What could have 

changed that analysis? What specific piece or pieces of 

evidence could have changed that? 

Mr. Comey. Significant evidence of knowledge of 

lawlessness, the nature of the unlawful conduct, significant 

evidence of communication with people without a clearance or a 

need to know, significant evidence of obstruction of justice and 

false statements by the subject, and probably other things that 

are in the other cases, but those are three that pop into my head 
209

2 years on. 

Mr. Gowdy. Did you find any evidence of either successful 

or attempted foreign intrusions in her server? 

Mr. Comey. My recollection is that we did not find evidence 

that foreign actors had intruded into the server, but that our 

experts thought we wouldn't see it, given the nature of the server 

and the nature of the adversary. That's my best recollection. 

Mr. Gowdy. So there was no draft of your July 5th statement 

that may have included any language about possibly hostile actors 

having access to emails? 

Mr. Comey. I don't remember for sure, but it wouldn't 

surprise me if there were because I was trying to describe what 

our folks said, which is: We don't see the evidence, but given 

the nature of the actors, we wouldn't be likely to see the 

evidence. But I don't remember exactly how I phrased it. 

Mr. Gowdy. So you don't recall a draft that may have used 

phrases like likelihood, significant likelihood edited down to 

a potential? 

Mr. Comey. I don't, sitting here. It wouldn't surprise 

me, though, as part of the editing process. 

Mr. Gowdy. If there had been evidence, in your judgment, 

would that have met the allowed access by people without 

sufficient security classifications? 

Mr. Comey. Not necessarily, because the kind of evidence 

I understand that DOJ looks for is I intentionally shared 
210

information with you, who didn't have a clearance. The 

carelessness involved in having a system that a bad guy could 

hack into is a different sort, and so that's not what I was talking 

about earlier. 

Mr. Gowdy. Did all of Secretary Clinton's attorneys have 

the requisite security clearances? 

Mr. Comey. Not to my knowledge. Not all of them, no. 

Mr. Gowdy. Do you recall which ones did not, and would they 

have been any of the ones who actually culled through her emails? 

Mr. Comey. I don't recall as to people. I have some 

recollection that maybe David Kendall from another case had a 

clearance or something. But of the attorneys, surely not all 

of them had the requisite clearance to be viewing classified 

information. 

Mr. Gowdy. Would that have met the evidentiary burden for 

an element if you gave emails to someone who did not have a 

security clearance? 

Mr. Comey. No. DOJ would laugh us across the street if 

we came over with that, that someone in the course of legal 

representation had their lawyer review something. No chance. 

Mr. Gowdy. It sounds to me, though, with all due respect, 

that you are describing an intent statute, an intent to 

disseminate or share classified information with somebody who 

is not entitled to it. So why would Congress come up with a gross 

negligence standard if we're going to read it as intent? 
211

Mr. Comey. I don't know for sure. You'd have to ask the 

1917 Congress. But my recollection of the reading the history 

of it is there was a movement to try and have the espionage statute 

sweep more broadly than just intentional misconduct. And there 

was a debate in Congress, which is why people who voted it for 

it said: I'll go along with gross negligence, but it better be 

up at the willful level, close to intentional misconduct. But 

I don't know beyond that. 

Mr. Gowdy. Do you know whether anyone at the Bureau or the 

Department shared questions with Ms. Mills' or Samuelson's 

attorney before the interview? 

Mr. Comey. No, I don't. 

Mr. Gowdy. Would you be surprised if that happened? Is 

that outside the normal protocol, from your experience? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know. It would depend. I guess I 

could imagine it if they were negotiating over privileged spheres 

and trying to navigate privilege. I could imagine an 

investigator sharing, "Look, this is what I want to talk about, 

this, this and this," to try and avoid a privilege assertion, 

but I don't know. 

Mr. Gowdy. What other investigatory tools did you have 

other than a voluntary interview? 

Mr. Comey. With respect to? 

Mr. Gowdy. Either Mills, Samuelson, Kendall, Pagliano, 

Combetta. 
212

Mr. Comey. Conceivably, you could -- lots of 

investigative tools, but the closest to an interview would be 

a grand jury subpoena, questioning someone in the grand jury. 

Mr. Gowdy. And tell me why that was not done for any of 

the witnesses. 

Mr. Comey. I don't know for sure. The judgment of the 

investigative team surely that it wasn't necessary. My 

recollection, which is not crystal clear, as to Secretary Clinton 

is that there were more degrees of freedom in doing an interview 

than doing it in a grand jury setting, where, as you know, it's 

very restrictive. 

Mr. Gowdy. I do know that. I also know, unless 

something's changed, the attorney's not allowed in a grand jury 

when a witness is being interviewed, and there would be no 

situation under which multiple witnesses would be interviewed 

at the same time by a grand jury. 

Mr. Comey. That's right. 

Mr. Gowdy. Fair? 

Mr. Comey. Fair, although, as you know, because this is 

what gums it up, the witness can ask to go outside and consult 

with their attorney --

Mr. Gowdy. Absolutely. 

Mr. Comey. -- as frequently as they like during a grand 

jury proceeding. 

Mr. Gowdy. Absolutely. So what I'm trying to get at is, 
213

what do you give up by using the grand jury? 

Mr. Comey. What did the --

Mr. Gowdy. What do you give up? What investigatory 

advantage do you lose? If you have a choice between a voluntary 

interview and a grand jury appearance, what are you risking 

losing with the grand jury interview? 

Mr. Comey. A number of things. If you're going to talk 

about TS/SCI information, you have a real problem with the grand 

jury. You'll have to clear a grand jury, which is really tricky, 

and both because of the intrusion on their private lives and just 

how difficult it is to clear 23 U.S. citizens who have been 

summoned for jury duty. 

And so you have to figure out what can we discuss in the 

grand jury and what can't we discuss in the grand jury. So what 

you're gaining with the informal interview is, in a SCIF, an 

agility that you wouldn't have in a grand jury and then the 

ability of a group of investigators all to fire at the person 

and watch and poke and watch and poke in a way you can't in a 

grand jury. 

Mr. Gowdy. Well, I'm out of time. I'm going to let 

Ratcliffe go. But I do need you to -- if the witnesses don't 

have clearances, then how much conversation would there be with 

those witnesses about classified information over which they had 

no clearance? 

Mr. Comey. I think they gave everybody in that room an 
214

interim clearance to discuss TS/SCI information that day. So 

you were able to give interim clearances to a small group of 

people. 

Mr. Gowdy. I was more referring to the lawyers that may 

have culled through the emails when they were asked to do so, 

and do you know whether they had clearances when they went through 

her emails? 

Mr. Comey. As I said earlier, I'm sure at least some of 

them didn't. Maybe all of them didn't. I have some 

recollection that maybe David Kendall or somebody had a 

clearance, but certainly not all of them. 

Mr. Gowdy. And he would have had a clearance -- well, who 

represented David Petraeus? 

Mr. Comey. Maybe it was David Kendall. Maybe that's why 

I'm remembering it. 

Mr. Gowdy. It was. 

Mr. Comey. He's an experienced lawyer who has represented 

a lot of people in classified investigations. 

Mr. Gowdy. He is. 

Mr. Comey. Maybe he did. But others, I'm sure they all 

didn't have clearances. 

Mr. Gowdy. And I think Congressman Ratcliffe made 

reference to the fact that you -- or at least there are quotes 

attributed to you -- are not happy with the decision to let him 

plead to a misdemeanor as opposed to a felony. Is that true? 
215

Mr. Comey. That's true. 

Mr. Gowdy. And part of it was because you assigned a higher 

level of knowledge or duty to him, given his role as a general? 

Mr. Comey. And the nature of the offense was just proof 

that he knew he was doing something he shouldn't do was 

overwhelming, and on top of that, he lied about it to the FBI. 

Mr. Gowdy. Right. I really am going to let John go now. 

He lied to the FBI; that is a crime. Lying to the public is not, 

as we've established. But is it not evidence of intent and/or 

consciousness of guilt? I mean, Secretary Clinton told the 

public that no classified information traversed her server, and 

that was false, right? 

Mr. Comey. She maintained that -- as I recall, that she 

did not -- she thought she had successfully talked around the 

classified subjects. And the challenge for the prosecutors and 

investigators was proving that is false. 

Mr. Gowdy. Well, and it would have been really interesting 

had she phrased it to the public: I did my best to avoid talking 

around any documents that may have been classified. 

But that is not what she said. She said: No classified 

information was either sent or received. 

Do you recall that? 

Mr. Comey. Generally. I think that's right. And, as you 

said, during her interview, she maintained that: I believed we 

had successfully talked -- we had not crossed the line. We had 
216

talked around these subjects and were sufficiently vague as to 

not implicate the classification requirements.

Mr. Gowdy. She also said that no records were destroyed, 

that they were all retained. Do you recall her saying that? 

Mr. Comey. I don't remember. I believe you, but I don't 

remember that. 

Mr. Gowdy. Do you recall her saying her attorneys were 

overly inclusive in what they considered to be public as opposed 

to private? 

Mr. Comey. No, I don't remember that one. 

Mr. Gowdy. You agree false statements sometimes is as much 

evidence of intent as you're going to get? 

Mr. Comey. In some cases. 

Mr. Gowdy. Demonstrably false exculpatory statements. 

Mr. Comey. Hard to answer in the abstract, but in some 

cases it can be your best evidence. 

Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Director, I want to have you look at an email, if you would, 

please. I'm more concerned with the second email where the from 

line is McCabe, Andrew McCabe. I'll give you a minute to look 

it over and then just want to run through it. 

Mr. Comey. The one dated Sunday, January 8th? 

Mr. Jordan. Yes, 12:08. 

Mr. Comey. Okay, I've read it. 

Mr. Jordan. Okay. So in the first line: "According to 
217

Kortan, CNN is close to going forward with the sensitive story." 

What is "the sensitive story"? 

Mr. Comey. I think it is the salacious -- the sexual 

details from a portion of the Steele dossier. 

Mr. Jordan. Okay. What's been commonly called the 

salacious and unverified, that part of the dossier? 

Mr. Comey. That's what I call it, yep. 

Mr. Jordan. All right. Second paragraph: "CNN states 

that they believe the pressure has built and is unavoidable." 

Actually, let's go to the: "Mike relates that he will try 

to skirt the most controversial stuff, focus on the question of 

possible compromise generally." 

What does "possible compromise" refer to? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know what he means. It means in the 

beginning, it sounds like he'll try to avoid the sex stuff, but 

I don't know what he means by "focus on the question of possible 

compromise generally."

Mr. Jordan. You read that the way I do. The most 

controversial stuff is what you just told me the sensitive story 

is. But the second clause, the question of possible compromise 

generally, you don't know what that means? 

Mr. Comey. I don't. Yeah, I don't know what he means. 

Mr. Jordan. Okay. Next sentence: "The trigger for them 

is they know the material was discussed in the brief and presented 

in an attachment."
218

I have an idea what I think that sentence means, but you

tell me, if you would. 

Mr. Comey. I take that as a reference to someone has told 

them that the President-elect was briefed on this controversial 

stuff, and -- yeah, that he was briefed on this controversial 

stuff and that their knowledge of that is what is triggering them 

to do the reporting. 

My recollection is, we understood that CNN had the salacious 

and unverified information, which was one of the reasons we told 

the President-elect about it. And in it's kind of a 

bootstrapping, they're now saying, we have found out that the 

President-elect was briefed on it and so we're going to go with 

it. That's what -- I could be wrong about that, Mr. Jordan, but 

that's how I understand that. 

Mr. Jordan. That's exactly how I read it. Now, just to 

be clear, the material that was discussed in the brief, that's 

the brief you gave the President-elect? 

Mr. Comey. Correct. 

Mr. Jordan. All right. And somehow someone told CNN that 

you had done just that? 

Mr. Comey. It appears so from this email. That's how I'm 

reading --

Mr. Jordan. Any idea who told them that?

Mr. Comey. Say again, I'm sorry? 

Mr. Jordan. Any idea who told them that you had actually 
219

briefed the President-elect about this subject? 

Mr. Comey. No. 

Mr. Jordan. No idea? 

Mr. Comey. No idea. 

Mr. Jordan. It's been reported that Mr. Clapper may have 

been involved in giving that information to CNN. Any indication 

that that's accurate? 

Mr. Comey. No. Same answer, I don't know. 

Mr. Jordan. Okay. What's the attachment? 

Mr. Comey. I don't see an attachment. 

Mr. Jordan. The trigger for them is they know the material 

was discussed in the brief that you gave to the President-elect 

on January 6 and presented in an attachment. 

Did you give -- was there some attachment? 

Mr. Comey. Oh, I see. I think I know what that means. 

Mr. Jordan. What is that? 

Mr. Comey. The way in which -- I just want to be careful 

here because I don't want to talk about classified information. 

I believe they're discussing the literal format, written format 

in which material was presented to the President-elect's team 

and to the President-elect, and they're referring to some of the 

material being in an attachment and not in the body of the 

document. That's what I understand that to mean. 

Mr. Jordan. So, in other words, you told the President 

certain things, but you also left him some kind of attachment, 
220

some written, some piece of paper or something as well, and they 

knew about that? 

Mr. Comey. Yeah. And that's a garble, because that -- I 

take them to mean an attachment, but the attachment, to my 

recollection, didn't contain the salacious and unverified stuff, 

and that that was simply conveyed orally from me to the 

President-elect. 

Mr. Jordan. I understand. Any idea how they got -- how 

CNN gets ahold of the attachment that you gave the President of 

the United States? 

Mr. Comey. I don't understand it to be saying that they 

have the attachment. I read this sentence to say the trigger 

for them is they know the material was discussed in the brief 

and presented in an attachment. 

Mr. Jordan. Okay. So they didn't physically have that, 

they just knew that that's how it was presented to the President? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know. I'm just reading this. 

Mr. Jordan. All right. Next sentence: "So far it does 

not look like they will characterize FBI efforts." 

What does that mean? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know for sure, but I have enough of a 

reaction I'll offer it to you, that I take this as likely being 

that the FBI Director briefed the President-elect about this 

material. I could be wrong about that, but I don't know what 

other FBI efforts he could be referring to. 
221

Mr. Jordan. So Andy McCabe is telling you, so far, based 

on what he has learned or Mr. Kortan has learned, that CNN is 

going to run with this story, but they don't fully know that 

you're the individual who briefed the President on this issue? 

That's what that sentence is about? 

Mr. Comey. Yeah, that's how I'm reading it. And I could 

be wrong, but I'm reading this as CNN has somehow gotten on to 

the idea that the President-elect was told about certain 

information, but they actually don't know who did the telling, 

which is an indication -- I could be wrong about this too -- that 

it didn't come from the FBI. 

Mr. Jordan. In the question section, he says, "a few 

questions," and he has two here. Asking you: "Do you have any 

guidance on who, if any, we should notify?" 

Did you notify anyone about this? 

Mr. Comey. I don't remember. I don't remember notifying 

anybody, but it's possible. 

Mr. Jordan. He suggests that you tell Deputy Attorney 

General Yates. Did you do that? 

Mr. Comey. I don't remember doing that. 

Mr. Jordan. What about, he next says, "the briefing 

partners." Did you let them know? 

Mr. Comey. I don't -- it's possible. I don't remember 

doing that, though, and I take that to mean the directors of CIA, 

NSA, and National Intelligence, but I don't remember doing that. 
222

Mr. Jordan. That was my next question. The briefing 

partners are who, those individuals? 

Mr. Comey. That's what I understand this to mean. 

Mr. Jordan. And those would be the individuals who 

accompanied you to New York for this briefing with the President? 

Mr. Comey. Correct. 

Mr. Jordan. President-elect at the time? 

Mr. Comey. Correct. 

Mr. Jordan. Okay. Okay. That's all I got. Thank you. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Director Comey, I want to pick up where we 

were talking earlier, and I want to give you back your statement 

from your July 5th press conference. 

Setting aside the questions about whether or not Secretary 

Clinton had the intent to or was just reckless or careless in 

mishandling classified information, do you take issue with the 

characterization by your former general counsel, Jim Baker, who 

told this committee that Secretary Clinton's mishandling of 

classified -- that Secretary Clinton mishandled classified 

information in a manner that he described as appalling? 

Mr. Kelley. Could we see that portion of the transcript, 

please? 

Mr. Ratcliffe. I don't have the portion. I'll represent 

to you --

Mr. Kelley. And which day was that testimony? 

Mr. Ratcliffe. If you want to take the time, it's referred 
223

to in the inspector general report, and I'll find where he 

represented, not just to this committee, but to the inspector 

general and used the word "appalling." You want me to do that? 

Mr. Kelley. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. 

Mr. Kelley. If you're going to refer to transcripts, we 

ought to take a look at them. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Let me just ask you, Director, whether it's 

in the transcript or not, was Hillary Clinton's mishandling of 

classified information appalling? 

Mr. Comey. It's not -- I accept your representation. 

It's not a term that I have used. I think of it as really sloppy 

and --

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay, really sloppy? Look at your press 

conference. I guess by your counting, it looks like Hillary 

Clinton mishandled classified information on at least -- and by 

mishandled, I mean that classified information went across an 

unclassified device or server -- on at least 110 emails and 52 

email chains. Is that right? 

Mr. Comey. I think that's right. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. And that eight of those were top secret. 

She mishandled top secret information at least eight times, by 

your counting? 

Mr. Comey. That's correct. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. And that she mishandled classified 
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information at a secret level 36 times, by your counting? 

Mr. Comey. That's right. These are all -- this is what 

makes up the 110 or whatever it is. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Exactly. She mishandled confidential 

information at least eight times, by your counting? 

Mr. Comey. Correct. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Doesn't -- your statement doesn't reflect 

it, but do you know if any of those were special access program, 

SCI, Sensitive Compartmentalized Information? Do you know if 

any of those were releasable only to five allied partners? 

Mr. Comey. I don't -- I don't remember. I believe some 

of the topics that were discussed in the top secret category were 

also designated as Sensitive Compartmented Information. I'm 

not certain of that, but I believe that to be the case. I don't 

know with respect to the other restrictions on dissemination. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. So -- and I found the reference in 

the inspector general report where page 166 --

Mr. Kelley. Thank you. 166? 

Mr. Ratcliffe. 166, the bottom paragraph: Baker told the 

OIG that he thought the conduct of former Secretary Clinton and 

her aides was appalling with respect to how they handled 

classified information, and arrogant in terms of their knowledge 

and understanding of these matters. 

Did I read that correctly? 

Mr. Comey. Yes, sir. 
225

Mr. Ratcliffe. So he says appalling and you say really 

sloppy. Okay. 

And as Congressman Gowdy related, Secretary Clinton, about 

that mishandling, made a number of statements under oath -- or 

made a number of statements in public that were inaccurate, and 

I represented to you that at least one occasion she made that 

statement under oath when she said, I never sent or received 

classified information, correct? 

Mr. Comey. Yes, she did say that. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. I want to let you take a look at -- we were 

looking for it before, but Hillary Clinton's 302. And on the 

page that I've referenced, I found the place where the agents 

and prosecutors were reviewing with her an email that had been 

marked. Do you find where I'm following? 

Mr. Comey. The bottom paragraph?

Mr. Ratcliffe. Yes. Take a second and read that.

Mr. Comey. [Reviewing.] 

Mr. Ratcliffe. All right. Does that refresh your 

recollection about, during the interview, Secretary Clinton 

being confronted with emails that had been marked classified? 

Mr. Comey. It looks like at least one. Here's the 

confusion, though. It had portion markings on the original. I 

think what they're explaining here is the overall document 

marking had been added later. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. 
226

Mr. Comey. But it was definitely she was asked about a C, 

which those of us who know this business, that was a portion 

marking for a confidential classification. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. But they had a discussion about 

that. So during at least in the time that she was being 

interviewed, she understood that she had either sent or received 

information that had been marked classified? 

Mr. Comey. She appears to from this, yep. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Do you recall that in the course of the 

Midyear investigation, that the FBI became aware that personal 

aides, Huma Abedin, and Hillary Clinton's lawyer, Cheryl Mills, 

also mishandled classified information? 

Mr. Comey. I don't -- I don't remember specifically. I 

remember there was some -- no, that was after. I --

Mr. Ratcliffe. And, again, by mishandled, I'm referring 

to classified information going across an unclassified device 

that they -- personal or work device that they had. 

Mr. Comey. I don't remember that about Ms. Mills. I 

remember a concern about that about Ms. Abedin, but what I was 

remembering is from the Weiner stuff from after -- I remember 

that being an issue after October 27th or 8th. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. All right. Congressman Gowdy asked you 

about Paul Combetta. I was surprised that you didn't really 

remember the role that he played in this, so let me -- do you 

recall that Paul Combetta was an employee at the Platte River 
227

Network who intentionally destroyed evidence known to be subject 

to a congressional subpoena and a preservation order and then 

lied to the FBI about it? 

Mr. Comey. I think so. I think Mr. Gowdy refreshed me on 

that. And which was the reason, as I recall, that there was an 

issue as to whether he would get any kind of immunity in exchange 

for his testimony thereafter. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. But he did receive immunity? 

Mr. Comey. Yeah. I just couldn't remember, in response 

to Mr. Gowdy's questions about him and the other guy, what the 

form of immunity was. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. All right. So I guess as I try and 

summarize what I've heard today, Hillary Clinton mishandled 

classified information more than a hundred times. She made 

false statements about it. The FBI was aware that at least one 

of her aides also mishandled classified information. And one 

of the folks employed on behalf of Secretary Clinton 

intentionally destroyed evidence known to be subject to a 

congressional subpoena and preservation order and lied to the 

FBI about it. 

And on July 5th, 2016, you stood before the American people 

and said that neither you nor any reasonable prosecutor would 

bring any charges in this fact pattern. Is that accurate? 

Mr. Comey. Yep. I believed it then, I believe it now. 

And anybody that thinks we were on team Clinton trying to cut 
228

her a break is smoking something. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. I'll object to everything after "yep" as 

nonresponsive to my question. 

But is Jim Baker a reasonable prosecutor? 

Mr. Comey. Yeah, I think he is. He hasn't done a lot of 

criminal prosecution, he's in the intelligence world, but I think 

he's a reasonable prosecutor. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Do you recall what Jim Baker's response was 

on May the 2nd when you presented him with the non-pros memo or 

exoneration memo about whether or not Hillary Clinton should be 

charged with mishandling classified information? 

Mr. Comey. You mean my draft of a possible public 

statement? 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Yes. 

Mr. Comey. I don't remember exactly. He was a big part 

of the editing process. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Let's see if I can find 

what -- Mr. Baker -- well, let me -- do we have the Baker 

transcript? 

Mr. Jordan. Director, I'm just curious, where did the 

names Midyear Exam and Crossfire Hurricane come from? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know for sure. What I was long told 

is that the names for all of these things came from some random 

name generator in the bowels of the Counterintelligence 

Division. I never had any information to the contrary, but 
229

occasionally I would see names that seemed like they couldn't 

be random. Those both seem kind of random to me. 

Mr. Jordan. So is it customary for any investigation the 

FBI does, it receives some code name or some name? 

Mr. Comey. I think no. Almost -- maybe all of the 

classified counterintelligence investigations are given a code 

name that's unclassified so that people who are outside of a 

classified space can make reference to it without giving anything 

away. 

Mr. Jordan. Is this a random list, you know, that sometimes 

we hear some algorithm giving us this -- spitting us out this 

information, or are these just people on the investigation coming 

up with a name that they choose? 

Mr. Comey. I don't know. I never found -- I was curious 

about the name Midyear Exam, so I used to ask. Never found any 

reason to think it was connected in any way to the case or the 

circumstances of it. But there were -- as I said, there were 

other cases where I saw names -- I can't remember right 

now -- that seemed like they were tailored. This one didn't seem 

tailored to me. 

Mr. Jordan. Does the same answer apply to Crossfire 

Hurricane? 

Mr. Comey. Yes. 

Mr. Jordan. Okay. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Mr. Comey, I want you to have the benefit 
230

of the transcript. I highlighted my exchange with Mr. Baker on 

page --

Mr. Kelley. Do you know what the date of this testimony 

was? The second day? Did he testify about this subject on the 

first day? 

Mr. Ratcliffe. He did not. 

Mr. Comey. Where are we? I'm sorry, sir. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Page 152. I asked the question: All 

right. And I have reason to believe that you originally believed 

it was appropriate to charge Hillary Clinton with regard to 

violations of the law, various laws, with regard to the 

mishandling of classified information. Is that accurate? 

Mr. Baker's answer was yes. 

Did you find that? 

Mr. Comey. I'm reading the rest where he explains. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. He does, and I will just -- the 

conversation continues, as you'll see, that he explained that 

you persuaded him that Hillary Clinton should not be charged 

after reviewing a binder of emails. 

Mr. Kelley. Could you point to the spot where it says Mr. 

Comey persuaded him? 

Mr. Ratcliffe. No. I'm not referring to the transcript 

there. I said I was paraphrasing it. 

Do you see that? 

Mr. Kelley. I'm sorry, I misunderstood the question. 
231

You're paraphrasing what? 

Mr. Ratcliffe. So my question -- I read the question and 

the answer. The question was to Mr. Baker: I have reason to 

believe that you originally believed it was appropriate to charge

Hillary Clinton with regard to violations of the law, various 

laws, with regard to the mishandling of classified information. 

Is that accurate? 

And his response was yes. 

Then I was commenting that he went on to explain that he 

had -- whether he was persuaded or changed his mind after 

reviewing a binder of emails. I was offering that in fairness 

to the witness. 

Mr. Kelley. I just thought -- maybe I misheard you. I 

thought you said that Mr. Comey had persuaded him. I didn't see 

that in the transcript. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. I may have been mistaken. 

Do you recall, Director Comey, having a conversation with 

Mr. Baker about this issue? 

Mr. Comey. I don't. I mean, I remember him editing my 

statement. And he also -- he says here, I discussed it 

internally and eventually became persuaded that charging her was 

not appropriate, and he goes on to explain why. But I don't know 

with -- he says with a number of different folks. I don't know 

who he talked to. 

I don't remember him being of the view at any point that 
232

she should be prosecuted. But in any event, by the time we got 

to May, he definitely wasn't expressing that view. He was 

helping me understand how we might close this thing in a 

transparent way. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. So in your transcript statement, you closed 

your remarks by saying -- have you got those? 

Mr. Comey. Yes. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. -- that we, referring to the FBI, we did 

the investigation in a professional way. Only facts matter, and 

the FBI found them here in an entirely apolitical and 

professional way. 

Do you see that? 

Mr. Comey. Yep. I got it. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. In light of the text messages of Agent 

Strzok and Attorney Lisa Page and Agent 1 and all of the folks 

that have been referred to today, do you still believe that? 

Mr. Comey. Yes, very much. 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Our time expired? 

Chairman Goodlatte. I'll just put this on the record now. 

This does not complete the questions that we have, and I know 

there have been some discussions about scheduling a second date 

and we would like to get that finalized for everybody's planning 

purposes. 

Mr. Kelley. Mr. Somers and I have spoken about that, and 

we've agreed to return on Monday, the 17th of December. But we 
233

would like to know in advance how much more, many rounds you need. 

I mean, we went through a full day today. 

Chairman Goodlatte. Got it. We'll do the best we can on 

that. And we will --

Mr. Gaetz. Before we go off the record, Mr. Chairman, I 

have a question. The rules that I don't consider myself bound 

by but that were expressed earlier in the committee, do those 

carry over to the subsequent questioning of the witness, or is 

it the interpretation of the chairs that during the -- that this 

is a suspension of the questioning but not a suspension of the 

rules package which you believe binds the members? 

Mr. Goodlatte. I was just about to get to that. I think 

that the best way to proceed would be to release the transcript 

tomorrow, and it will be available at some point tomorrow, and 

that comment by Mr. Comey and anyone else is fair game after the 

conclusion of this. And then we'll impose the same rules when 

we get to the second one. 

Mr. Kelley. We agree that's appropriate. 

Mr. Goodlatte. Very good. 

Ms. Sachsman Grooms. Back on the record. Just two quick 

follow-up questions. 
234

[4:29 p.m.] 

Ms. Sachsman Grooms. At the end of the last round, 

Mr. Ratcliffe went through kind of a summary of what I 

interpreted to be his conclusions about the Clinton case. He 

went through Clinton misclassified information, she made false 

statements, the FBI knew that her staff had mishandled 

unclassified information. He went through a number of different 

things. At the end, he asked you about your decision not to move 

forward to prosecute or recommend prosecution of the case.

I just wanted to clarify, when you were answering that, were 

you adopting that set of sort of summary comments by 

Mr. Ratcliffe or were you just commenting on that last bit? 

Mr. Comey. I was answering his question, which was, do you 

have a different view -- or do you have the same view of the case 

today, is what I understood it to be. And the answer is, 

absolutely, I do. 

Ms. Sachsman Grooms. And just to be clear, I didn't hear 

you say any time during today that you had uncovered any proof 

that Secretary Clinton had made false statements. Is that 

accurate? 

Mr. Comey. That's correct. 

Ms. Sachsman Grooms. Okay. Thank you. That's all I had. 

We can go off the record. 

[Whereupon, at 4:38 p.m., the interview was recessed, to 
235

reconvene on Monday, December 17, 2018.]