Former FBI Director James Comey committed himself to exhaustive training sessions before his meetings with President Trump in order to prepare against Trump’s potential efforts to glean details on ongoing investigations, according to a report Thursday.
The Washington Post cites associates of Comey felt the need to prepare in advance with trusted confidants for his multiple encounters with the president after meeting with Trump during the transition and immediately after the inauguration. Trump did not seem to understand or approve of the FBI’s independence from the White House in its investigations, one associate said.
Comey wanted to come up with answers to Trump’s question while refraining from divulging sensitive information “in a manner that did not come across as a slap in the face,” another unnamed associate told the Washington Post.
Comey was fired by Trump last week amid conflicting accounts about how the decision was reached.
Trump claims that he was “going to fire” Comey no matter what memos from his Justice Department said. Democrats have pointed to that as evidence that Trump was trying to hinder the FBI’s probe into Russia, but Trump and other Republicans say they were unhappy with Comey’s failure to charge Hillary Clinton for her use of private emails and the resulting leak of classified information.
A report this week from the New York Times says that Comey wrote in a memo that Trump asked him during a January meeting to cease an investigation into former national security adviser Mike Flynn. The White House contends that the report is false.
Though Comey did not take notes during that January meeting with Trump, as soon as Comey departed and got into a car, he began to jot down detailed notes “to make sure he could accurately record what was said,” one associate told the Washington Post.
