Sectors that they withdraw. I have been trying to make a small contribution to encourage how much youber have in common. Tell you that we are polarized are lying to you. Values. We have common they have to be front and center. The rule of law, the truth. To try to encourage them to realize that and to get involved. The good news is they are getting involved in ways i never could have predicted, stepping forward. I am optimistic that this phase of my life will go away. And you will not be wanting to interview me a year from now, and that will be a wonderful thing. [laughter] for you, probably. Definitely for me. Nicolle could you imagine working in the United States government again . Mr. Comey no, no. But i also think there are lots of ways to be useful to your community and your country without working in the government. I never thought i was coming back after 2005 and the struggle over surveillance and torture. I thought i was done. You know this. I didnt apply to be f. B. I. Director. The economy in connecticut and told me to come in to be interviewed. My wife thought they are not going to pick you anyway. [laughter] the reason she said that was i had given money, as you know, tell mccain and to romney. I gave it in large part because i worried that unprincipled people might take over the republican party, which was a crazy worry to have, i know. [laughter] but she thought, there is no way they are picking you because you have been a republican. One thing led to another, and here i i think there is not am. Another life there i could imagine, but i will try to find ways to be useful to people. I bet that will be either in the University Setting or a nonprofit. Nicolle are you surprised based on the reaction to your decisionmaking in literally the days leading up to the 2016 election that you are now wielded as a bit of a cudgel against donald trump . Your attacks are amplified largely by the same kinds of people who were distraught by your actions in the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Is it a weird changing of constituencies for you . Mr. Comey it is weird, but it is understandable. It has not surprised me because the things we did, the things i the decisions that i am accountable for especially in the runup to the election confuse a lot of people because we didnt have a chance to explain it. And they saw it, as i would expect them a through partisan lenses. Everybody was trying to figure out which side is the fbi on . , the truth is we were not on anybodys side. But to people seeing the world that way, that is very confusing, and i get that. And what i have urged people to , iwho come up to me and say dont know which angle they are coming from, who hate me from this angle or this angle, i say, look, have you taken the time to try to understand why we made the decisions we made . Walk awayey will convinced, we were not trying to hurt clinton or help clinton, hurt trump or help trump. They were stuck. Trying to make the best decisions in impossible, unprecedented situations. So i get the confusion. I get why some of it is right confusing because and left dont make sense to me anymore in the United States. In the trumpist conspiracy, i was part of a complex conspiracy to stop donald trump from being president. That narrative is surprising to people on the clan to decide who whot on the clinton side did not understand why we were not investigating people attached to the trump campaign. The answer is, because we were not trying to have an impact. We were trying to make a decision that we were stuck with. Nicolle i think part of what makes this story confusing and makes it land in a weird way is that people feel that, if you knew that trump was going to be elected and declare on the fbi, an institution you revere, might you have made a different decision . Mr. Comey no, i would have made the same decision. Look, i knew the decision we were making to Tell Congress that we were reopening an investigation that we had told congress and the American People was finished, i knew that that decision was going to bring tremendous criticism. First of all, it would be really devastating for me personally, but bring criticism to the institution i led. And you cant consider that. You have to ask, given this institution and its values, what s the right thing to do . Even if i had known, or someone had told me this is what the future will look like, i would not have made decisions differently. That would have been a deeply unprincipled thing to do. The fbi is flawed because it is a human organization, but it is at its core a principled organization. And it would have been a betrayal of that institution to do it differently. Nicolle you did everything to protect the integrity of the f. B. I. Donald trump wins. Dossier. T the take us from that point forward. Mr. Comey that is an awesome set up. [laughter] nicolle it is saturday, right . Mr. Comey i want to be clear, i was never in Donald Trumps hotel suite. [laughter] nicolle where were you, in an office . Comey i was in a Conference Room in trump tower. Nicolle and nobody tinkled. In your underemployed state, you might need some of these. Mr. Comey that was not the tease i was looking for . [laughter] what was the question again . [laughter] nicolle donald trump wins and from the moment he is elected, he declares war on the deep state. He is at war with the institutions you revere. His first target was the intelligence agencies that he compared to nazi germany. You were in the briefings in which he was read into some of the sensitive intel about what the former fbi director mike hayden called the hack of our democracy and 2016. You write about the first meeting with Donald Trumps is something that for you conscious up memories of being around or investigating the mommeetinb. Mr. Comey yes. Were two dev meetings. The first was in a Group Setting where the director of National Intelligence was going to a brief mr. Trump and his incoming team on the unanimous conclusions of the Intelligence Committee which was that russia interfered in our election with the three goals, damage democracy, hurt Hillary Clinton and help donald trump. That actually was not the meeting i was nervous about. That one was odd, and it was odd what they didnt ask. I dont remember anybody asking, so how do we stop this Going Forward . You are about to become president of the United States. I remember the focus being entirely on, it did not affect the vote, right . To which the Intelligence Leaders had to say, we dont do that work, we cant tell you that. We saw no evidence that the russians penetrated to the voting mechanism level, but we have not done an analysis on whether they made a material difference. I was a little distracted in that meeting, but it kept popping into my mind what you said, an eerie reminder of the culture of cosa nostra that i had spent a bunch of time on when i was a prosecutor, with this boss at the center, this scent around the boss. It kept coming back. And i said it was distracted because the second meeting was me alone with the president elect where we, the leaders of the intelligence community, decided somebody had to tell him that we had information that we had not corroborated. We didnt know whether it was true or not, frankly, we didnt care, but because we had it and it came from a credible source, we needed him to know about this. I drew the short straw to tell the president elect about this allegation, again unverified, that there had been unusual sexual activities in 2013 in russia that the russians had captured on tape to be able to use to coerce mr. Trump. And i was very nervous about that meeting because i know how people are, and you know how people are. You tend to project onto others how you see the world, and i strongly suspected he would think that i was pulling a j. Edgar hoover on him, that i was dangling leverage over him. Which was not my purpose. But i knew he would think that way. So, how to do this and do it without embarrassing him, without embarrassing me, without creating a war between him and they f. B. I. , was front and center in my mind so that was why i was a little bit distracted. I did it in the private session, and the meeting started to go off the rails very quickly. Nicolle like what . Mr. Comey i explained to him, without using any of the terms you used, to explain to him the nature of this information, why we were telling him. That provoked from him a long monologue that had nothing to do with what i had asked about, reviewing and then denying other allegations of Sexual Misconduct by women that had said he had assaulted them. Nicolle 19 of them. Mr. Comey i dont know if he went through 19, but he started going through one after another. There was a woman on a plane, there was a woman here, there was another woman here. I think he said, do i look like , guy that needs to go there meaning prostitutes . Which i assumed was a rhetorical question. So i let it go. [laughter] nicolle glad he didnt ask me. [laughter] mr. Comey it started to get so defensive i worried it was going off the rails. So i pulled out, in a rhetorical sense [laughter] mr. Comey reducing the temperature by saying, look, we are not investigating you. Which was true. We were not. And we are not investigating this. We simply thought you needed to know this because, as i told you, the press is about to run with this. We do not keep secrets from the president of the United States. We need you to know this, but we are not investigating you. That was the essence of that second meeting. Nicolle that story is so important in my attempt to understand his war against law enforcement, and what would appear to be a war that the attorney general william barr has cojoined against the russia investigation origins. I think it is important to remind people that when you went in to brief an incoming president of this country, he asked you not one question about a russian attack on americas democracy, which should have been his now foremost concern, and he wanted you to reassure him he was not under investigation. Have either of those dynamics changed, and do either of those orientations from donald trump suggest that any of the investigations into him were misguided . Mr. Comey i cannot say whether, in his head, whether his thinking about those has changed. I have seen no indication that he has been able to let go of this notion that he sees the intelligence communitys finding as some attack on his legitimacy as president. And because he sees it that way, he must attack it and all those who are behind it. Nicolle are you surprised he has now got an ally in the effort to attack the origins of the investigation in william barr, who seems very comfortable meddling in the investigation . Mr. Comey i cant tell what is going on with the attorney general and that investigation. I was deeply concerned by some things he said early on about using the word spying, and saying, there are things that just dont make sense at the time, i said, that is not the way that pros operate. If there is a reason to look at something, you shut up and try to gather the facts and then share the facts with us. I still feel that way. I dont know what they are looking at, so i am not in a position to say, you shouldnt investigate. Ok, if youre going to investigate, investigate. John durham is someone who has a strong professional reputation, someone i have for years thought was an excellent prosecutor. I cant tell what is going on with the attorney general. I would hope that mr. Durham would do Everything Possible to protect his reputation from being damaged by those in leadership, and the most important way he can do that is give us transparency. I am not worried about a single thing in connection with any of the matters under investigation. Gather the facts, write a report, and share it with the American People. Please do that, because all the stuff in the media with the attorney general saying stuff doesnt jive is an attack on the integrity of the institution, which he is supposed to be leading. The way to protect that is show the folks the facts, lay it out. Dont drip it out, dont leak it out, give it out. I am confident that when the American People see the picture of why we did what we did, their confidence in the institution will be maintained, restored, and protected. [applause] nicolle one of the things that leaked out about that investigation, and i wonder if you think mr. Durham has an obligation to clarify this, is it is criminal in nature now. What crimes could have been committed . Mr. Comey i dont know what to make of that. Any time i see an anonymous source commenting on a criminal investigation, i have to wonder a couple things. First, is it true at all . Theres all kinds of stuff that has been pushed out of the Justice Department by anonymous people over the years that has turned out not to be true, so i dont know that. It is also possible that what happened is Something Like this. When the attorney general does an investigation and the ig has been looking at the fbis use of the fisa authorities, when they come across someone they think made a false statement or did not produce a document, they will refer that to the department of justice for an investigation. That is a criminal investigation. It is possible that was referred. It is possible it is something else. I just dont know. Here is what i do think. Again, this kind of news reporting is damaging to the credibility of the institution, from both directions. It allows people from one side to say bill barr has engaged in some inappropriate effort to distract from President Trumps problems, or carry water for President Trump. That is bad. It also comes from the other side, people saying, the department of justice is discovering that the f. B. I. And the c. I. A. Are corrupt. Both of those things are bad. If you are running the department of justice, you ought to stare at the policy that allows you to offer transparency to the American People when there is a strong public interest. We dont talk about pending investigations much, except when it matters most. This strikes me as an opportunity for the attorney general to say, this is what we are investigating. To clear that up. It is unfortunate somebody decided to talk to the media. Now clear it up and offer transparency. Nicolle i want to ask you about someone who was supposed to clear up a lot of these questions, bob mueller. His investigation captured the attention and the imagination across the ideological spectrum for very different reasons. People who thought if he could not answer exactly what russias role was in 2016, it did not matter what else happened, and wanted to know the extent of the trump campaigns coordination with or awareness of the russian hack, as well as people who watched in real time Donald Trumps efforts to obstruct the investigation into the russian attack and his involvement. Do you think mueller answered either of those questions to the publics satisfaction . Mr. Comey yes and no. Yes in the sense that, using really talented people, he ran to ground the nature and extent of the russian attack. He laid it out in great detail both in the indictments and in their report. He removed any possible doubt i keep hearing russian hoax. What thoughtful person thinks there is a hoax around the russian attack . Nicolle i would not call them thoughtful, but donald trump and his 63 million followers got enough of a muddied picture from mueller. Maybe this is my bias. As someone who you were a rare example of a Government Official and leader who understood the importance of clear communicating. What you just said is only known to people who read the mueller report, which may include everyone in this room but not the general public. Did mueller succeed if nobody knows what he did . Mr. Comey that is the no part of my answer. Yes, he did a great piece of he didnt succeed in his mission because there was inadequate transparency to the American People, on whose behalf he was investigating. And when i say inadequate, i mean in two different ways. Both in the way in which his report was spun, massaged, and, in my view, misconstrued by the attorney general, and the way in which it was physically presented made it impossible for the American People to have access to it. So bob mueller presented a great report that is oldschool. It is 446 pages long, but nobody has access to it, so nobody sees the work he did. And the American People dont know that he removed any possible fuzz on the notion of the russian attack, that he laid out an extraordinary series of acts by the president that would have resulted in anyone in this room already being in jail for obstruction of justice. Special considerations for a president , i get that, but he laid that out in detail, and nobody knows that. And because nobody knows that, my view and i have not talked to bob about this, but i would guess he sees it differently. I think part of his mandate is to make sure the people who he represents have a reasonable understanding about what he found. Nicolle so do you think history, i think a lot of people feel that way. [applause] nicolle i feel that way having covered it and never giving over the exasperation that the things bob mueller did to protect the integrity of the investigation were lost on the people he was trying to protect, the subjects and targets of the investigation, and were missed by everybody else. Is impeachment the remedy for that . A public political process . Mr. Comey im not sure impeachment is the remedy for our failure as an American Community to understand what bob mueller found. But i do think, in part, it is incumbent upon us as citizens i hear a little bit of a civics lecture running in my head even though it was 446 pages, you all should have gotten it and read it. But really, people are not going to do that. So if you are in bob muellers shoes, someone i really admire, you have to take that into account. Just sending it to the attorne