He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of russia. Thats taken off. That was may 10th, the day after the president fired mr. Comey. The following day, may 11th, President Trump told nbcs lesser holt what he had foremosthis miforemos foremost in his mind when who fired mr. Comey was the Russian Investigation. If the president fired the fbi because it was a tuesday or because he just decided he likes a lot of turnover in National Security jobs or just because james comey rubbed him the wrong way for no meaningful reason, that would basically be fine. Legally the president can fire president ial appointees without anybody telling him that he cant. If, however, the president fired mr. Comey because of the russia investigation, because he wanted to influence an ongoing fbi investigation into him and his campaign that comey was overseeing as fbi director, well, that might be obstruction of justice. Criminal liability here hinges on intent, evidence of the president s intent in that firing. Thats everything. So the 9th comey aspired, the 101 10th, the 11th he tells us that hes thinking about russia when he fired him. Then one week after comey was fired, we learned on may 16th that mr. Comey had written contemporaneous memos documenting his interactions with the president , interactions that led up to him being fired. He had given at least one of those memos to a friend who shared it with the times, a memo about an interaction in the oval office in which mr. Comey claims President Trump asked him to drop the Russian Investigation into his security adviser michael flynn. He also created similar members including some that are classified about every phone call and meeting he had with the president. So the times reported the existence of those memos on a tuesday, one week after comey was fired. Later that say day the fbi got the first request from a Congressional Republican to hand those memos over to congress. Republican congressman Jason Chaffetz was the chair of the House Oversight committee then. Hes since left for a gig at fox news but congressman chaffetz wrote to the fbi that same day the memos were reported and insisted that the bureau hand oaf all memoranda, notes, summaries and recordings referring or relating to any communications between comey and the president , which created this very interesting question. Would the fbi hand those over . Does the fbi even have the option to hand those over if foes memos are going to end up being evidence in a live fbi criminal investigation . Well, the very next day, the day after the existence of those memos were revealed and Congress Demanded to see them, Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller to take offer the investigation. And if comeys firing was directly connected to the russia investigation, which trump himself said it was, then comeys fire would presumably fire under the remit of the active only investigation. So the fbi said no. The fbi told congress no, we cannot turnover james comeys memos to you because they are evidence in an Ongoing Investigation and we dont turn over evidence in an Ongoing Investigation to anyone. That standoff between the fbi and Congressional Republicans over mr. Comeys memos, its been going on ever since, ever since may of last year. Republicans m Congress Demanded that the fbi hand over the memos. They demanded that Rod Rosenstein make the fbi turn them over. Rod rosenstein said no. That tracks with longstanding precedent at the Justice Department, evidence in ongoing criminal investigations is closely guarded. In this case in particular given what weve seen over the last year or so, there is in addition if were being real here, every reason to believe if those memos or any other evidence was turned over to Congressional Republicans, it would probably be leaked, perhaps selectively to the media and it seems safe to guess any such material would also be shared with the president and his legal team while the president or at least his campaign is the subject of the special counsels Ongoing Investigation and reportedly that includes an investigation of whether the firing of mr. Comey is evidence of obstruction of justice. So that is where things stood until right now, until tonight. After days of reporting that republicans in congress were putting incredible pressure on Rod Rosenstein to produce documents, threatening to hold him in contempt of congress, to impeach him, tonight the Justice Department has handed over to congress mr. Comeys memos about his interactions with the president. Memos that presumably are still important evidence in an investigation that we believe is still under way. So it is fortuitous timing that the man who wrote these memos is our guest tonight. Im very much looking forward to asking him about at that and Everything Else under the sun. James comey has been a life long public servant, he served in the Eastern District of virginia and Southern District of new york where he rose to become the u. S. Attorney in the Southern District, Deputy Attorney general of theins a united statd then director of the fbi. He expected at this point to be halfway through the normal tenyear turn of an fbi director and President Trump fired him in may. He has now written about his time in public life and his views of ethical leadership. It is a book driving everybody absolutely crazy up to and including the president , its called a higher loyalty, truth, lies and leadership. Director comey, its really nice to meet you. Its great to be here. Thank you for timing the whole thing, the memos came out just before you sat down. I had no idea. I havent had a chance to read what they have released. I can tell you what they stopped. What follows are notes i typed in the vehicle immediately upon exiting trump tower. I have tried to use actual words spoken including quoting directly in some places. I have not used quotation marks throughout because my purpose was to capture the substance of what was said. Im not sure of the proper classification here. Do you recognize those as your words . I do. Why did you explained to congress that you didnt write memos like this after other interactions with other president s. What trained you or told you or made you believe that you should write a memo after this after interactions with President Trump . The first meeting in particular i was concerned that i needed a record to show the other Intelligence Agency chiefs who had been with me but didnt stay behind for the second private meeting and i also was worried that i was meeting alone with the president to talk about things that were relating to him and to the fbis core responsibilities, and given the nature of the person, as i understood the president elect, he might not tell the truth about those if it ever became an issue so i needed a written record. Is this the sort of thing that fbi officials and special agents and people throughout the bureau do as a matter of course . Is there a template for this thing . Do you train one another this is a way to prepare your role as a potential witness . Agents would prepare a 302. Make it an official record. This was an email to my team who hadnt been there just telling them what went on. The other memos were more sort of aids to my own memory. But none of them were done in the way an fbi agent would do. I wasnt an agent. I was the director. You shared a lot of your details about your meetings and interactions with President Trump. So we know some of what is in these memos. Is congress, is the public going to learn substantially new information and important new information about your interactions with the president or do you feel like you conveyed the most important stuff to congress . I dont know. Because i dont i havent had access to my memos in quite a while so i dont know whether theres significant stuff thats in there that i wasnt able to tell in the book. I dont think so but i havent read them myself. So im okay with transparency. I just assume the department of justice went through the steps to make sure that it wasnt jeopardizing an Ongoing Investigation. To that point, you say in the book that you dont know if the president s requests to you about the russia investigation and your firing constituted obstruction of justice. You said a prosecutor would need to review all the evidence of the president s intent behind those actions in order to do that. Do you think these memos are part of the evidence that a prosecutor, Robert Mueller or somebody else, should be considering when determining the president s intent . Yes. In this way im sure the special counsels considering my recollection of those events, which are reflected in these memos, but its my recollection that is the evidence that would be used if there was ever a proceeding. These would be to show that i wrote it down at the time, sort of the bolster, the credibility of my recollection. Can it as a general matter impede an Ongoing Investigation to have central evidence, important evidence, made available to the public and that of course includes being shown to the person who may be the subject of investigation . Could in general, it could. It would depend upon the circumstances of the case and the material. Do you worry that it will . I dont know. I really cant say here. In terms of what congress has had access to, Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein has come under intense political pressure to hand over internal documents from the investigation. It has led to unprecedented stuff being made either public or given to congress. Information about a fisa warrant to surveil a trump Foreign Policy adviser, the e. C. , the electronic communication from 2016, which was a term i didnt know before this week, but that was the document that officially launched the russia investigation, and also now these memos, even though theyre part of an Ongoing Investigation. What do you think of the kind of demands republican members of congress have been making to see these documents internal to this investigation . Does it worry you this kind of stuff is being exposed for the first time . I dont know enough about what the considerations are inside the department to know whether i should be worried. I assume theres a robust back and forth and theyre protecting the prerogatives of the special counsel and the fbi but i dont know enough from the outside to say. In terms of the carter page fisa warrant, it used to be even the existence of a fisa warrant or existence of the fisa court was something that Public Officials didnt even want to acknowledge. But now we know that you and many other officials are among those who at one point or another signed off on applications for a surveillance warrant against this guy who at one point was part of the Trump Campaign. Nearly a dozen members of congress this week said that every official who signed off on those warrant applications, including you, should be prosecuted for doing so, that that fisa warrant is a scandal and that carter page was wronged. What do you make of that whole line of criticism . I dont think its based in substance or law a genuine concern for the integrity of the fisa process, which is incredibly rigorous and overseen by federal judges. Carter page was an adviser to the president s campaign. From what we know in terms of him being mentioned in other court cases, including a russian spy ring wrapped up here in new york, which he was in contact with, it seems from that there was a reasonable cause to at least look at him in terms of his contact with the russian government. Hes then announced as a Foreign Policy advisor for the Trump Campaign. Paul manafort is announced as chairman for the Trump Campaign and its been noted Paul Manafort was under investigation since 2014. When the fbi knows that kind of stuff about people who end up getting vaulted from relative obscurity into important positions in an active president ial campaign for the nominee of a major party, is there some duty to warn . Is there any sort of is there some action that the fbi should take . Youre not asked to do background checks on people for political campaigns but when you know what you know about these folks, you know about Ongoing Investigations involving these people and serious matters, should something have been said . I dont want to talk about those in particular but in general it depends upon what the facts are that started the investigation and what youve learned. The goal is always to disrupt and defeat the adversarys actions, so sometimes that means building a criminal case and locking up the person who has been working with the foreign power. Sometimes it means going to the person and saying, hey, we know youre hooked up with them, knock that off. Sometimes its a laying in the weeds trying to develop sources of information to get close to them. Lots of different techniques. Always the goal is to defeat the adversarys actions in an effort to influence the united states. Did anything like that happen in terms of Paul Manafort . I cant answer that. I mean, i could but i cant. And that kind of stuff is not in the book because the book cant contain classified information or investigative information. Right. These memos that have just been made public tonight, they literally became public as you sat down. I want to ask you about a couple of things that in my control room theyve just identified as information that they think is new to the public. As i read this to you, i will be reading it to myself for the first time. Ive not seen this. A memo dated february 8, 2017, quote, as i waited in the west wing lobby, mike flynn stopped by and sat down. We chatted for about five minutes about his new job, the challenges of building a staff and working with folks who had never been in government before, how he maintains fitness, et cetera. There was no mention by either of us of redacted, redacted, redacted. Mike flynn at that point had already been interviewed by fbi agents. He was interviewed by fbi agents at the white house two days after he was sworn in in january 2017. Clearly the fbi had reason to be questioning him while hes serving as National Security adviser. Was that awkward . Im not going to ask you whats redacted here. Presumably its redabted redacted for good reason. But your interaction, with mike flynn at that point when hes been questioned by the fbi, theres been a warning about him from the Justice Department to the white house, clearly hes still in his National Security adviser role. Yes, it was awkward. One of the reasons i recorded it was given those circumstances, i wanted to make sure i was able to remember that we didnt talk about the subject of the interview. I didnt say a word about it, he didnt say a word about it. It was just sort of chit chat as i waited for another meeting that wasnt involving him. Why was flynn interviewed by fbi agents two days after he was sworn in . I dont know whether i can answer that, rachel. And i dont want to say anything that steps on Robert Muellers investigators work so i dont think i can answer that as i sit here. Let me ask you a related question that i dont know if you can answer. This has bothered me just as a citizen has made me itch from the very beginning. Given what the fbi and other intelligence agencies knew about flynn at the time, it has always bothered me to think that he was sitting in on the president s daily brief, that he was involved in the highest level National Security discussions at the white house as duly sworn National Security adviser. This is after the Justice Department had taken this remarkable step where acting attorney general sally yates went to the white house and warned them that he was compromised by the russian government, that he was not being honest, he appeared to be vulnerable to blackmail. Did the fbi, did any Intelligence Agency involved in coming to this conclusion about flynn take any measures to keep Sensitive Information from him, to protect National Security from somebody who is believed to be compromised . He stayed in the white house for a long time after that warning was given. You predicted correctly. I understand why you have that question. Im not permitted to answer that. In terms of what happened once flynn was sworn in, once that warning happened, once he stayed on in the office, ultimately he does get fired. The president , youve testified to congress and you write about in the book told you to lay off the investigation to flynn. Its been publicly reported that President Trump did more than just ask you himself. Its been publicly reported that he also asked the director of national intelligence, dan coates, to intervene with you, to end the investigation into flynn. You said in june that you never talked to dni coates on that subject. Did anybody at any time other than the president ever ask you to back off the Flynn Investigation . No. Has there ever been any interaction between either yourself or the fbi in general and cia, nsa, treasury, any of the other agencies that might have been involved in this investigation that seemed not fulsome, that seemed not in keeping with the way previous counterintelligence investigations might have gone . Was there any reason to worry about anything else going on in any other agency in. Not that im aware of. Ive seen the public reporting that you mentioned but i have no personal knowledge of that. I want to ask you about George Papadopoulos. Okay. Page 189 of your book you say in late july, the fbi learned that George Papadopoulos had been discussing months earlier obtaining from the russian government emails damaging to Hillary Clinton. Now, that was news to me in the book. I know the fbi had to sign off on everything in the book. But the statement of offense around George Papadopoulos just says that he was told that the russians had emails of Hillary Clintons. You appear to be going further here saying it was more than that, that he actually was in conversations with them about obtaining those emails presumably for the Trump Campaign. Is that how you meant that . The public source for that is the two versions of the memo from the hpsci over the page fisa. So thats an accurate description of what is in the public record. So papadopoulos, that information came to the fbi and the fbi brought together a multiagency working group to start this investigation or did the fbi start this on its own . The fbi opened it in our Counterintelligence Division in late july of 2016. That timing ends up being important for the late politicization of that question because there were a lot of allegations that maybe the fbi started that investigation because of Christopher Steeles dossier, those intelligence memos he prepared. Thats not true . Not true. Did the fbi have a relationship with Christopher Steele you would consider to be one of trust, a useful, fruitful relationship with him . All im permitted to say about that as i understand it, he was considered a reliable person by the fbi. Okay. And in terms of how that broke down, i want to talk to you a little bit about some stuff that happened closer to the election. But it seems like there was a mutual break down between mr. Steele and the fbi getting close to the time of the election. Hes characterized it that way. Would you see it that way as well . I dont know anything about that. If i did, i wouldnt say but i couldnt say anything about it. Ill ask you more questions that you can answer when we come back. James comey is our guest tonight. Stay with us. For leisure. So i go national, where i can choose any available upgrade in the aisle without starting any conversations or paying any upcharges. What can i say . Control suits me. Go national. Go like a pro. Ftheres flonase sensimist. Tchy and watery near pollen. It relieves all your worst symptoms including nasal congestion, which most pills dont. And all from a gentle mist you can barely feel. Flonase sensimist. So, my portfolio did pretthats great. Year. But the market was up nearly twice as much. Thats a tough pill to swallow. Exactly. So i started trading. 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So why do we pay to have a phone connected when were already paying for internet . Shouldnt it all just be one thing . Thats why Xfinity Mobile comes with your internet. You can get up to 5 lines of talk and text included at no extra cost. So all you pay for is data. See how you could save 400 or more a year. And get 200 back when you sign up for Xfinity Mobile and add a new line of unlimited. Xfinity mobile. Its a new kind of network designed to save you money. Click, call or visit an xfinity store today. Joining us is former fbi director james comey. His new book a higher loyalty is driving everybody crazy. Its very good. Its a very readable book. Usually public official books are like paint by numbers but you can tell you wrote this and youre into it. Its a high bar, isnt it . You should hear when cable news hosts write books. Its not even paint by numbers, its just splatter. Since you sat down, we have been absorbing the memos you wrote after your interaction with President Trump after he fired y you, which have just been made public. I want to ask you about something that is new to me in these memos, which concerns a conversation you currently had with they white house chief of staff Reince Priebus. Quote, mr. Priebus asked me if this was a private conversation. I replied that it was. He then said he wanted to ask me a question and i could decide whether it was appropriate to answer. He then asked do you have a fisa order on mike flynn . I paused for a few seconds but said i would answer here but that this illustrated the kind of question that had to be asked and answered through established channels. I said the answer redacted. I then explained the normal channel was from d. O. J. Leadership to the White House Council about such things, redacted. I would normally make sure the a. G. And deputy a. G. Were aware. I explained it was important that communications about any particular case go through that channel to protect us and protect the white house of any accusations of improper influence there. Whats the context there . Whats going on in that moment . I was in a meeting with the white house. It was a followup to the dinner id had with the president on the 27th. As i understood the meeting, it was for me to introduce myself, get to know him and to explain how we interact, how the fbi interacts with the white house. He seemed to want to get it right. That was what i understood the purpose to be. So when he was asking you this, when youre having this interaction with Reince Priebus, at that time the white house had been warned that mike flynn potentially compromised by a foreign power, the warning from the acting attorney general happened and mike flynn was in the white house. This goes about the potential threat it poses to National Security to have somebody compromised by a foreign power in a National Security job in the white house. It sort of sounds like Reince Priebus was asking for a little help on that. Do you have a fisa order on mike flynn . Was he asking if mike flynn is currently under surveillance or if mike flynn is under a serious form of investigation . Do you know what he was getting at by asking you that . Not for sure. I think he was asking is there current electronic surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of the National Security adviser. And you did give him an answer . Correct. And then told him that the way that should work is you should go to ask the Justice Department. Theyll figure out whether they can answer the question and theyll get back. White House Counsel should. Was it improper for you to tell him directly in that moment . I didnt think so. I hesitated because i thought im trying to illustrate how it should work and i made a judgment in the moment that the answer that i was confident that if the president s chief of staff, white House Counsel, asked the Justice Department they would get the answer and so i could give the answer in the moment and use it to illustrate it going forward. So youre teaching him the way its properly handled . Trying to. Did he learn . I dont know. So some indication that he didnt. At some point he took me to see the president on the way out. Even though i said im fine, im sure hes really busy, i dont need to see him so that was at least some indication that he wasnt getting it. I have a bunch of questions to ask you about this. One particular question about Rod Rosenstein, Deputy Attorney general, who remains in his role, although hes been attacked a lot by the president and theres been a lot of criticism of him because of his role in the russia investigation. You explain in the book your concerns about the way he handled your firing. He produced that memo that essentially the way you see it and a lot of people see it cooked up a pretense for firing you. Did he know at the time that he did that about the president asking you to lay off mike flynn and to lift the cloud of the russia investigation . Was rosenstein one of the people in the know in terms of the kind of interactions youd had with the president that you felt were alarming . I dont know. I didnt inform him of those. But i dont know what his there was an acting person in that role before he got there, dana boente. I dont know what briefing dana gave him on what wed been telling dana. I have a question about dana boente. I dont know if you know this but we obtained some handwritten notes that we believe mr. Boente took after talking to you. Theyre in what we confirmed are his handwriting. The Washington Post has obtained confirmation that these notes are what they appear they are. I wanted to ask you about it because its essentially hearsay. Mr. Boente in these notes is writing down what appears to be what youre telling him about your conversation with the president. One of the things most striking to us, which weve already reported, is these phrases lift the cloud, talking about needing relief from the russia investigation, very, very directly tracked with what you testified to congress about what the president told you. Mr. Boente also took a note that looks like it says going to bring lawsuit with something we candidate read, steele. This looks from mr. Boentes handwriting. I dont. It looks like he was taking a note when he was talking to you about your interaction with the president. It looks like the president told you he was going to bring some kind of lawsuit over the steele dossier. Did the president say that to you . Looking at this i have some recollection of that. I dont know whether its in my memo. I wrote a memo after that march 30th call from the president , but it actually rings a bell as i sit here. And the content of the dossier, particularly the prostitute allegation involving the Ritz Carlton Hotel room and all of that, you write in detail about bringing that up with the president , how unnerving that was for you both shortly after the election in january 17. Was it your impression that the president was concerned about the real damage that the dossier could do to him as a legal matter, as sparking an investigation or did he seem more concerned in terms of embarrassment or the wave he might have to personally answer to it for his wife or to his family . I dont know. It may have been both. But my sense is he was focused most on the personal piece because he was he would bring it up with me repeatedly and at least twice he mentioned his wife if there was even a 1 chance it was true. It could be both. I remember most vividly the focus on the personal. In terms of the president s personal concerns there, you say at one point in these memos that when you were talking with him about those kind of allegations in the dossier, the president on his own terms brought up women who, quote, falsely accused him of grabbing them or touching them, says there was a, quote, stripper and trump gave me the sense that he was defending himself to me. Does that mean when you were talking to the president about the dossier, he on his own accord brought up other allegations made against him by other women during the course of the campaign . Yes. And was he asking you to investigate those matters . Why would he bring that up with the director of the fbi . I had no idea. It seemed off axis from what i was there to talk to him about. So it was kind of spontaneous from him. I didnt ask any question that elicited that statement and i didnt know. A bunch of the senior officials who you briefed at the time, who you gave these memos to about your interactions with the president , a bunch of these folks have ended up having their lives follow curvy paths in the past year. Obviously youve had the biggest curveball of them all, but jim rybicki, hes resigned from the fbi. James baker, i believe, is still there, although hes been reassigned and hes been reassigned to whats basically a potted plant job at the fbi in comparison with the kind of high level job he had in the past, Andrew Mccabe very publicly fired and attacked by the president. You have not just lost your job but spent a year as a pinata for the president for Congressional Republicans. Andrew mccabe said when he was fired heres the reality, im being singled out and treated this way because of the role i played, the actions i took in the aftermath of the firing of james comey. It was accelerated only after my testimony to the House Intelligence Committee revealed i would corroborate former director comeys accounts of his discussions with the president. Do you think thats the case . Are you concerned theres been an orchestrated campaign to target you and other people who could corroborate your testimony as witnesses . Theres certainly been an organized campaign to target me. There was definitely an organized campaign to attack andy mccabe, urge his firing, tear down his reputation, attack his wife. Just shameful attacks from the president directly. And with respect to the others, i know them all well, theres different stories. Rybicki was reassigned and baker is well away from the fbi. And Andrew Mccabe were told has been referred for a criminal process. In talking to the press about the clinton investigation, how it was being handled by d. O. J. And fbi, he says everything he did was within his job description, it was to preserve the public standing of the fbi. He says it was all authorized. Clearly the Inspector General doesnt agree with him on that. While you were director of the fbi and he was your deputy, was there clarity under your leadership about talking to the press, about the issue of leaks, about who could authorize people to discuss things with reporters . I think so. There were two people who could authorize disclosures, the director and deputy director. Andy had the authority to speak to the media and authorize communications with the media. Do you think he improperly spoke to the media in that capacity then . I dont know for sure. I know he didnt tell me about it, didnt ask me about it before he did it. I think the Inspector Generals report is right in that respect. I would have expected that. But i think he had the authority to do that and i think if he were here he would say i didnt need to talk to the boss because i had the authority to do that. Thats a hard one because given all that was going on, i would have expected him to talk to me but as a matter of rule he had the authority. I have another matter to ask you about that relates to the press, learning something the press probably should not have learned. Well do that right after we come back from this break. Thank you, sir. With this grade of protection. Its a fortress. And with this standard of luxury. Its an oasis. The 2018 eclass. Its everything you need it to be. And more. Lease the e300 for 569 a month at your local mercedesbenz dealer. Mercedesbenz. The best or nothing. And back pain made it hard to sleep and get up on time. Then i found aleve pm. The only one to combine a safe sleep aid. Plus the 12 hour pain relieving strength of aleve. Im back. Aleve pm for a better am. [ drum roll ]. 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We were discussing the fact that in dana boentes notes he references the president may be telling you he wanted to bring a lawsuit against Christopher Steele. You did note that in your memo, which we found here. Yes thats why i created them. The president reportedly telling you, i have a beautiful wife, it has been very painful, can you imagine me, hookers . He talked about bringing a personal lawsuit against Christopher Steele. As far as we know, the president never did that but he advised you he might at that point. I want to ask you about one other statement that the president reportedly made to you thats in these memos that have just been released tonight. This is in your words. The president brought up the golden showers thing and said it really bothered him if his wife had any doubt about it. He then explained as he did at our dinner that he hadnt stayed overnight in russia during the Miss Universe trip. Twice Reince Priebus tried to interject a comment about the redacted and why it was even in there but the president ignored him. The president said the hookers thing is nonsense but that putin had told him we have some of the most beautiful hookers in the world. He did not say when putin had told him this and i dont recall redacted. Some of this is redacted. The president was conveying this to you at the white house. In the oval office. He told you hed had a personal conversation with president putin about hookers . Yes. Did you believe him or did you think he was speaking hyperbolically . He didnt seem to be speaking hyperbolically. Do we otherwise know the president had personal conversations with Vladimir Putin at that point . I cant recall. I think there was public reporting he had spoken to Vladimir Putin as a congratulations on taking office at that point. Im not suggesting they talked about how beautiful the hookers were in russia but do i know there was at least one publicly reported conversation. That would be an unusual first call between new heads of state, a congratulatory phone call to be bragging about the relative value of each countrys hookers, would be an unusual i think thats a fair statement. I think so, too. Im going to assert my statement is fair there, which is probably improper. Id like to ask you something about Rudy Giuliani. On october 28, 2016 you sent a letter to congress notifying them that the fbi was reopening the investigation into Hillary Clintons emails. 11 days before the election, an vant that the Hillary Clinton campaign perceives to have landed on them like a meteor in the closing days of that campaign. Two days before you did that, President Trumps friend, former mayor of new york, your predecessor Rudy Giuliani said this on fox news mr. Mayor, we got 14 days. Does donald trump plan anything except for a series of inspiring rallies . Yes. What . When will this happen . We got a couple of surprises left. October surprises . I call them surprises in the way that were going to campaign to get our message out there, maybe in a little bit of a different way. Youll see. I think it will be enormously effective. And i do think that all of these revelations about Hillary Clinton finally are beginning to have an impact. Hes got a surprise or two youre going to hear about in the next two days. Im talking about some pretty big surprises. I heard you say that this morning. What do you mean . Youll see. So hes not just hinting there, hes bragging that he has advanced notice that something is coming. Two days later you announced the reopening of the clinton email investigation and then whether or not we can guess what he was hinting at there, mayor giuliani then thereafter did go back on fox and say, yeah, thats what he was hinting about, thats what he was talking about, he explained basically that fbi agents had told him that announcement was coming in advance. I had expected this for the last honestly, tell you the truth, i thought it was going to be about three, four weeks ago. Because way back in july this started. This has been boiling up mr. Mayor i did nothing to get it out. I had no role in it. Did i hear about it . Youre darn right i heard about it. I cant even repeat the language that the heari heard. Did Rudy Giuliani and therefore the Trump Campaign have advanced notice from inside the fbi, from the new York Field Office or wherever, that this announcement from you was coming . Not that i know of but i saw that same publicity and so i commissioned an investigation to see if we could understand whether people were disclosing information out of the new york office or any other place that resulted in rudys report on fox news and other leaks that we were seeing in the media. I dont know what the result of that was. I got fired before it was finished, but i know that i asked that it be investigated. Did you you write in the book about how the new York Field Office, how some agents in the new York Field Office had been leaking information related to the clinton investigation. You talk about that on page 208 of your book. I read it many times. Thank you. Whether or not they were behind those leaks to Rudy Giuliani, did agents in that office and their propensity to leak specifically about Hillary Clinton, did they basically force you to make that public notification because you knew theyd put it out whether you said anything publicly . No, i did not consider the prospect of a leak. That figured in a conversation that Loretta Lynch and i had the following week where she appeared to be saying to me it would have come out anyway basically. Thats not why i made that decision. I didnt know and still dont know as i sit here whether people in the fbi office in the new york were leaking. Given what you know about the Mueller Investigation and Rudy Giuliani, i want to ask you about news that just broke tonight. Rudy giuliani is going to be joining the president s legal team. You obviously worked for Rudy Giuliani when he was u. S. In manhattan and then you later got his job. Skpz this is a little bit about what you write about that experience in the book. Quote, there was something of an unwritten code about working in the office of giuliani, as i suppose there is in most organizations. It was that the rudy was the star at the top. You violated this code at your own peril. It took me a while to realize his confidence was not levened why a whole lot of humility. There was very little oxygen left for others. Then you describe your First Press Conference with giuliani. My supervisor told me i was to stand behind the podium while Rudy Giuliani spoke to the press. Though his confidence was exciting it fed an imperial style that narrowed the circle of people with whom he interacted. What is your reaction to the news tonight that mr. Giuliani is going to join the president s legal team . He told reporters he expects to be able to negotiate that end. Hell end the investigation in about two weeks. I saw that in the media. It struck me as interesting. I dont know what his vision would be for that. I dont know how it would be coming on to the new legal team, given the strength of rudys personality and the president s. I just dont know. If somebody wanted to end the Mueller Investigation, how would they do it . I dont think you could accomplish that by firing director mueller. I think youd have to fire everybody in the fbi and the Justice Department to accomplish that in practice given the people in the organization. I dont know what he has in mind. I dont. Somebody new appointed to oversee the investigation, orders the staff to be under seconded, orders that there be no new major investigatory steps taken, presumably somebody in the oversight role that Rod Rosenstein has now to wanted to kill it could kill it. Is it would be hard to kill given the culture of that. The people in those organizations, maybe not impossible but very hard to kill. Fbi director james comey, i have one more question i want to ask you after the break. Thank you again for doing this. Well be right back with james comey. Okay. Delivery should look like this. Handcrafted layers of clean food you can give your kids. Tomatoes. Even the picky ones. Panera. Food as it should be. Now delivered. I no wondering, what if . 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High cholesterol and weight gain; high blood sugar, which can lead to coma or death; decreased white blood cells, which can be fatal; dizziness upon standing; falls; seizures; impaired judgment; heat sensitivity; and trouble swallowing may occur. Youre more than just your bipolar i. Ask your doctor about vraylar. Joining us once again, james comey, author of a higher loyalty, which i cant get because everybody else always bought it. Thank you once again. In the book you spell out three reasons, i hesitate to call them concerns, three reasons you had worries about attorney general Loretta Lynch when it came to the Hillary Clinton email investigation. One is that you say that she asked to you call the investigation a matter, which instead of an investigation. There was the meeting she had with former president clinton on an airport tarmac, which you note didnt see that consequential to you but it did get a tide of critical media attention, which was important. And then theres something that you very carefully describe as an unverified Intelligence Report suggesting that she had offered assurances to the Clinton Campaign about the investigation, improper assurances or that she was somehow controlling you with regard to the investigation. Because of those worries, you basically, the way you put it is that you step away from Loretta Lynch. You announce the fbi findings and the clinton email investigation without her. The fbi separates from her. A part of why you decided do that was the existence of this unverified intelligence document that could have cast doubt on her independence from the Clinton Campaign, even though you didnt really think she had that problem. Did you ever brief her on that and give her a chance to defend herself . Thats another one i cant answer. Im very concerned and wrote this very carefully because i dont want to be unfair to loret loretta, shes a friend of mine. Ive known her for a long time. The problem was there was real material that at first i thought would come out in 50 years when it would be declassified and once the russians started dumping things, i thought its going to come now. Even though it wasnt true, it would allow people to have doubts whether the fix was in in some way and you mean this is a thing that happened that loretta lynn did . No. I want to be clear that we did not verify the thing recounted in these documents had happened but the documents were real. It was a real description of a fake thing. I believe it to be fake. I never saw any indication that loretta was compromised. We never spoke about the investigation from the previous fall. The way you talk about it in the book sort of cast aspersions about Loretta Lynch. She did take herself out of the loom loop in terms of seeing that investigation. You write nearly the book on page 42 about a mentor about a u. S. Attorney you learned from. Helen fahey. You said she didnt care much about what people felt misinformed her. She put her own feelings about feelings and reputations. There was no true reason to have concerns about Loretta Lynchs intentions about that investigation but misinformed people would get the wrong idea and you took action to account for that rather than the truth. Maybe in a slight sense. That was one of the bricks in the load that led me to believe that if i do the announcement next to loretta, it wont have credibility. The most important was her decision not to recuse herself after the airplane business and say she would accept my recommendation. Look, i get it. Its in the book because its true that this was one of the factor that i considered. But do you see what im expressing as my worry here . Effectively something untrue about her that people would have misperceived ends up being a limiting factor in terms of whether or not shes allowed to do her job. Its a little tricky. Untrue about her, we had not verified it and i did not believe she acted inappropriate. And you later investigated those claims not to be true, explained to George Stephanopoulos on sunday night. I read the transcript. I cant remember what i said. Im not supposed to talk about our investigation but i dont believe that loretta did anything improper. James comey is the author of a higher loyalty. Im sorry i thank you for your lifetime of public service. Im sorry the president ended it the way he did. Me too thank you. That does it for us tonight, now its now its time for the last word with lawrence odonnell. Ive been sitting here, taking notes. I havent missed a word of this. I want to get your reaction to what you think are the highlights of what you just discovered. Its hard when youre doing it yourself. But were there moments you popped and i didnt see that coming . In the interest of full disclosure, dude is sitting next to me still and hes 68 so theres a looming presence in the room. Also im not sure i breathed yet because we did an hour long