Comey Repeatedly Accuses Trump, White House Of "Lies"; Comey Ordered Leak Of His Trump Memo To Spur Special Counsel
ERIN BURNETT, OUTFRONT HOST: Good evening, I'm Erin Burnett. Welcome to a special edition of "OutFront" live from Washington, D.C. Tonight, the breaking news, the bombshell testimony. The keyword this evening, "lie." The fired FBI director pulling no punches, accusing the President of the United States Donald Trump of lying, questioning the credibility of Trump repeatedly in nearly three hours of dramatic testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee.</s>JAMES COMEY, FORMER FBI DIRECTOR: Saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader. Those were lies, plain and simple. I was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting.</s>SEN. ANGUS KING (R), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: The President said, "I had dinner with him. He wanted to have dinner because he wanted to stay on. Is this an accurate statement?"</s>COMEY: No, sir.</s>ANGUS: But, in that same interview, the President said, "In one case, I called him, and in one case, he called me." Is that an accurate statement?</s>COMEY: No.</s>ANGUS: Did you ever call the president?</s>COMEY: No.</s>ANGUS: And, in his press conference on May 18th, the President was asked whether he had urged you to shut down the investigation into Michael Flynn. The President responded, quote, "No, no. Next question." Is that an accurate statement?</s>COMEY: I don't believe it is.</s>BURNETT: It couldn't be more clear. And another explosive revelation and there were many of them today, Comey admitting that he engineered the leak of his memos about a meeting with the President. And he did it in order to force the naming of a special prosecutor. He brought this up himself.</s>COMEY: I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter. Didn't do it myself, for a variety of reasons. But I asked him to, because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel. And so I asked a close friend of mine to do it.</s>BURNETT: And, of course, it seems to have worked. Now, Special Counsel Robert Mueller has those memos. And the big question at this hour is whether Comey today made a case that Donald Trump, the President of the United States, obstructed justice, which could be an impeachable offense. We begin our breaking coverage with Dana Bash. And Dana, it was a stunning day on Capitol Hill.</s>DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: You can say that again, Erin. Look, James Comey said he has absolutely no doubt that the President fired him as FBI director in order to try to change the way that the Russia investigation was being conducted. And the irony is that the President got what he wanted. It did change but certainly not in the way the President intended or hoped.</s>RICHARD BURR (R), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth --</s>BASH: The former FBI director under oath and unvarnished called the President who fired him a liar.</s>COMEY: The administration then chose to defame me and, more importantly, the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader. Those were lies, plain and simple.</s>BASH: Using the "L" word more than once.</s>COMEY: I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, and so I thought it really porch to document.</s>BASH: With flare for the dramatic he is known for, James Comey described that faithful February 14th moment in the Oval Office when President Trump kicked everyone out but Comey, and asked him to lay off the investigation of his former national security advisor, Michael Flynn.</s>COMEY: My impression with was something big is about to happen. I need to remember every single word that is spoken.</s>BASH: And though Comey testified that the President did not explicitly order him to lay off Flynn, that's exactly how he took it.</s>COMEY: I took it as a direction. This is the president of the United States, with me alone, saying, I hope this. I took it as, this is what he wants me to do. I didn't obey that, but that's the way I took it.</s>BASH: He came under scrutiny from lawmakers for not pushing back on the President in the moment.</s>SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Why didn't you stop and say, "Mr. President, this is wrong. I cannot discuss this with you?"</s>COMEY: It's a great question. Maybe if I were stronger, I would have.</s>BASH: After he fired Comey last month, the President tweeted that Comey better hope that there are no tapes of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press.</s>COMEY: And look, I've seen the tweet about tapes. Lordy, I hope there are tapes.</s>BASH: Stunningly, Comey revealed that Trump's tweets prompted him to strategically deliver content of real-time memos he wrote about his conversations with Trump to the press.</s>COMEY: I woke up in the middle of the night Monday night because it didn't dawn on me originally there might be corroboration for our conversation. There might be a tape. And my judgment was I needed to get that out into the public square. And so I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter. Didn't do it myself for a variety of reasons. But I asked him to, because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel. And so I asked a close friend of my mine to do it.</s>BASH: That Comey, now a private citizen, deliberately used the press to force the appointment of a special counsel is a stark illustration of how seasoned he is in the ways of Washington. What was not standard Washington behavior, argued Comey, was that President asking an FBI director for what he took as a loyalty pledge.</s>COMEY: Again, I could be wrong, but my common sense told me what's going on here is that he's looking to get something in exchange for granting my request to stay in the job.</s>BASH: Throughout his nearly three-hour testimony, Comey revealed several nuggets about the FBI criminal probe now in the hands of special counsel Robert Mueller like this about Flynn.</s>BURR: Do you sense that the President was trying to obstruct justice or just seek for a way for Mike Flynn to save face, given he had already been fired?</s>COMEY: General Flynn, at that point in time, was in legal jeopardy. There was an open FBI criminal investigation of his statements in connection with the Russian contacts and the contacts themselves.</s>BASH: And he hinted at information not yet known to the public about Attorney General Jeff Sessions.</s>COMEY: Our judgment, as I recall, was that he was very close to and inevitably going to recuse himself for a variety of reasons. We also were aware of facts that I can't discuss in an open setting that would make his continued engagement in a Russia-related investigation problematic.</s>BASH: And though Comey testified that as FBI director, he did in fact tell the President he was not being investigated, Comey revealed that he handed over his memos about his conversations with Trump to the special counsel, which could mean now the President is being investigated for obstruction of justice.</s>BASH: Comey also dropped the political bomb about the Clinton e-mail investigation last year which Democrats accused him of mishandling big time. He said that Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch said to him that he should not call it an investigation but rather a matter, which he said confused and concerned him. Erin?</s>BURNETT: All right, Dana, thank you very much. And Jim Acosta is "out front" at the White House. And Jim, you know, you hear everything that Jim Comey said today and yet, the President of the United States, the White House are claiming as a victory tonight.</s>JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. We heard from Marc Kasowitz, the President's outside legal counsel earlier today. He talked to reporters, really just gave a statement. Didn't answer any questions. But he tried to have it both ways at one point saying that the Comey testimony today vindicated the President in that it revealed that the President was not under investigation as part of a Russia probe, but at the same time Kasowitz was pushing back on any notion that the President demanded that Comey make a loyalty pledge. Still, the White House legal team feels as though they struck gold with Comey's admission that he orchestrated the release of that information about his memos, so it would get out to the press and prompt a special counsel investigation. Here's more of what Marc Kasowitz had to say about that.</s>MARC KASOWITZ, PRIVATE ATTORNEY FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP: Today, Mr. Comey admitted that he leaked to friends of his purported memos of those privileged communications, one of which he testified was classified. Mr. Comey also testified that immediately after he was terminated, he authorized his friends to leak the contents of those memos to the press in order to, in Mr. Comey's words, quote, prompt the appointment of a special counsel, close quote.</s>ACOSTA: Now, despite that confidence hearing from the President's legal team, the Comey testimony did spark some uncomfortable questions over here at the White House, the Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders took questions from reporters earlier today. She was asked about Comey repeatedly saying that the President had lied. She was asked point blank whether the President is a liar and she said, "No, he is not. It's never a good at the White House when you're being asked that question." And she was also asked, once again, whether the President has some kind of recording system, Erin, that allows him to record his biddings (ph). The White House once again said they cannot answer the question. So it remains an open question over here at the White House if there's a recording system, where are the tapes. Erin?</s>BURNETT: It's a crucial question and they're going to have to answer it. All right, Jim Acosta, thank you very much. And "OutFront" now my panel who will be with us for the entire hour. Mark Preston, our senior political analyst, Nia-Malika Henderson, senior political reporter, Chris Cillizza, reporter, editor-at-large, Jeffrey Toobin, senior legal analyst, John Dean, who served as President Nixon's White House counsel during Watergate, Matthew Rosenberg, national security correspondent for the New York Times and Dana Bash is with us, of course, as well. Mark, we learned a lot of new things today.</s>MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: We did. And we also learned that there are a lot more unanswered questions and that this investigation is going to continue. But what we did learn and what we knew is that Comey is a bit of an operator. He understands the politics of Washington. He knew he's not a politician. He did a very controlled leak to try to help control the narrative from his side of the story, which I don't -- personally, I don't think I could blame him but, you know, there are some questions about that. We also know that at the time -- and this could have changed since he left as FBI director -- that President Trump was never a target himself in the investigation. Although Comey is very careful in how he explains that to say, at this time, and he's not a target for the -- you know, a counterintelligence investigation. I do think that Marc Kasowitz is declaring victory a little bit too early but as his lawyer you would expect him to do so.</s>BURNETT: What was the key headline for you Nia?</s>NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes, I think this White House sees it as a battle between Trump and Comey, right, in this statement. The final lines are essentially Trump feels vindicated and that he's gotten this cloud behind him and he can focus on his agenda. I think the problem with that construct is that this White House, Trump particularly, has a bit of a credibility problem, right? I mean, his relationship with the truth is an interesting one. And he's not always accurate in terms of his depiction of events. I think that's a bit problematic. But it does fit into sort of the insider-outsider narrative that Trump has like to construct. It existed in the campaign and it still exists as he's president.</s>BURNETT: He used the word "lie."</s>CHRIS CILLIZZA, CNN POLITICS REPORTER AND EDITOR-AT-LARGE: Yes.</s>BURNETT: He used it multiple times.</s>CILLIZZA: Yes.</s>BURNETT: I also just want to comment on his appearance. He looked tired. He looked haggard. This is clearly taken a toll on him. Did you, Chris, find him believable? And American public would said -- well he says, somebody's lying, did you find him believable?</s>CILLIZZA: Yes. He did look tired. But I feel like I'm often tired and haggard and I have nowhere near the amount of stress that Jim Comey has probably endured for the last months certainly about --</s>BURNETT: Yes.</s>CILLIZZA: -- six months. I did find him believable. And I think what you have to do is put it in the context of it's not in a vacuum. It's a he said-he said at this point. Obviously the special counsel, Bob Mueller, will eventually, I think, give us more clarity. But at the moment, if Donald Trump says this, Jim Comey says that. So, do I think he is more credible on this given his background in, you know, in this department, given sort of his track record than Donald Trump who we know for a fact Nia mentioned is look, that guy has, whether you like him or hate him or feel indifferent toward him, the guy has said a number of things both during the campaign and as president that are just not true. So, I think when you compare him to Donald Trump, yes, I think he came across as believable today and more believable than Donald Trump. Again, one other thing, Erin, he was under oath, right?</s>BURNET: Yes, right. Now --</s>CILLIZZA: This is not just somebody popping off on cable television, right? I mean, this is a serious thing with penalties if you are found to be lying.</s>BURNETT: So, when he came out today, you know, when you read this prepared statement --</s>JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Right.</s>BURNETT: By the way, I thought it was interesting at the topics (ph). I'm not going to waste anybody's time but I have some comments I'd like to make. And he talked about how he felt in those meetings, how pressure he felt. You were clear yesterday you thought that that memo was obstruction of justice. From what you heard today, did you change your view?</s>TOOBIN: Not at all. In fact, I thought the description of the key event, February 14th in the Oval Office, that discrimination was so extraordinary and so dramatic and so real -- I mean, imagine the scene. He walks into the Oval Office and everybody starts leaving. All these people -- the attorney general, his boss fades away. The vice president of the United States fades away. Reince Priebus tries to come in the door, Trump the steers him away. Jared Kushner not allowed in. These two guys next to each other. And what is so important that Trump needs to tell him, "Leave my claim alone." Let him be. Let Flynn -- you know, leave him alone." Which is, as far as I am concern, evidence of obstruction of justice. And then what happens? He doesn't leave him alone. He doesn't end the investigation, and he gets fired for his trouble.</s>BURNETT: So, John, on this issue, there was an exchange with Republican Senator Jim Risch, right, on the issue of what happened in that meeting and whether the President ordered Jim Comey to stop the investigation or whether he asked him to do so and whether that is a distinction with or without a different. Here's the exchange.</s>SEN. JIM RISCH (R), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: He did not direct you to let it go?</s>COMEY: Not in his words, no.</s>RISCH: He did not order you to let it go?</s>COMEY: Again, those words are not an order, no.</s>RISCH: He said "I hope." Now, like me, you probably did hundreds of cases, maybe thousands of cases charging people with criminal offenses. And, of course, you have knowledge of the thousands of cases out there that -- where people have been charged. Do you know of any case where a person has been charged for obstruction of justice or, for that matter, any other criminal offense, where this --- they said, or thought, they hoped for an outcome?</s>COMEY: I don't know well enough to answer. And the reason I keep saying his words is I took it as a direction.</s>RISCH: Right.</s>COMEY: This is the President of the United States, with me alone, saying, "I hope" this, I took it as, this is what he wants me to do. I didn't obey that, but that's the way I took it.</s>RISCH: You may have taken it as a direction but that's not what he said.</s>COMEY: Correct. I -- that's why --</s>RISCH: He said, "I hope."</s>COMEY: Those are exact words, correct.</s>BURNETT: Is that a distinction that matters?</s>JOHN DEAN, FORMER NIXON WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: I think it is a distinction that does not matter. When you're sitting in the Oval Office and the President makes a suggestion or has a hope, you as a staffer take it as a direction. I'm sure that's what Mr. Comey did and I think that's what most people sitting in the Oval Office would react to.</s>BURNETT: So you are still -- as you were last evening -- saying obstruction of justice tonight?</s>DEAN: I don't think there's any doubt. I don't think the debate moved far forward but certainly didn't retreat at all today but he went under oath and that made it a different status.</s>BURNETT: Right. It wasn't from leaks. It was --</s>DEAN: No.</s>BURNETT: -- from his own mouth. Now Matthew, Comey offered without everything -- look, he's a lawyer. He understands the game. We have all made that point clear. So he offered something without being asked. Now, if some of us did that it might be accidental but not in the case of Jim Comey. And what he offered was not only that he leaked the memos but his motive for doing so. And his motive wasn't just set the record straight. It was -- because he wanted to force the naming of a special prosecutor. Let me just play the exchange with Senator Collins.</s>COMEY: The President tweeted on Friday, after I got fired, that I better hope there's not tapes. I woke up in the middle of the night on Monday night because it didn't dawn on me originally that there might be corroboration for our conversation. There might be a tape. And my judgment was, I needed to get that out into the public square. And so I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter. Didn't do it myself for a variety of reasons. But I asked him to, because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel. And so I asked a friend of mine to do it.</s>COLLINS: And was that Mr. Wittes?</s>COMEY: No, no.</s>COLLINS: Who was that?</s>COMEY: A good friend of mine who's a professor at Columbia Law School.</s>BURNETT: And I want to get into that in the moment Matthew, but first, the bombshell her of his motive. That he did it for -- that he name a special prosecutor. Now, of course -- but now, it's like why is that? Because he felt there was something for the prosecutor to see or what?</s>MATTHEW ROSENBERG, NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Well I think, hey we have that Comey is an operator. And Donald Trump isn't wrong. He's a better to show but he knows that a matter Jim Comey's image. And I think Comey also speaks to something that every journalist in this town knows about the sources they've been dealing with. Is that there are people in the entire government establishment who see things that are going wrong and the self-corrected mechanisms aren't working. We are that last resort. That's what the press is for. That's what leaks are for, to try and change kind of public opinion or change policy. He said look this isn't going well in his estimation. I leak this. We get a special prosecutor we need. I need to move the ball that way so he leaked it.</s>BURNETT: So Dana, their bottom line. Is this then a good day for Jim Comey?</s>BASH: I mean, it depends on what his actual goal was. If his goal was to leave some pretty remarkable breadcrumbs for the public and for the Senate about things that are going on in the investigation that we should know about, confirming that Michael Flynn is under criminal investigation. And that part of the reason is because he might not have told the truth to investigators. And, you know, dropping a not-so-subtle bomb on Jeff Sessions by saying, well, you know, maybe he shouldn't have been involved because, you know, he was supposed to recuse himself. And, you know, I don't want to talk about it anymore than that, wink, wink. You know, payback is a, you know what? Because he was clearly upset that Jeff Sessions his boss didn't protect him from the President.</s>BURNETT: Right.</s>BASH: And there are other --</s>BURNETT: He implored him. I think he said the written testimony implored him to not have them ever be left alone.</s>BASH: And given the fact that he is an operator and given the fact that he understands the sort of way to politically maneuver this town. He also wanted to show the President, oh, yes, you're going to fire me? Guess what? I know how to work it, too. And the way I work it is I saw your tweet about tapes and I made sure that the public understood that I have notes, too.</s>PRESTON: You know, Eric, you know, I think what's important to know about Jim Comey today is that oftentimes when we see witnesses appear before Congress, it's very politicized, right? You know, you really see a political angle being pushed forth. Jim Comey came across as somebody who clearly is an operator and knows Washington but he came across to me as kind of sterile, like septic in some ways of being somebody who was trying to do good. Now whether the way that he went about it was the right way or not, that's rather (ph) to be judged. Whether it was legal or not --</s>TOOBIN: The advantage he had is he speaks English. He doesn't speak government talk.</s>TOOBIN: You know, when Dianne Feinstein asked him why didn't you go to -- go, you know, fight back. He said, I don't know. That's a good question. Like that's how human beings speak.</s>BASH: And if</s>BURNETT: Yes.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.</s>TOOBIN: And the other thing was, which I found remarkable, is that the Republicans did not attack him.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, they were good.</s>TOOBIN: You know, it took Marc Kasowitz, Trump's lawyer. He was the only one who alleged that Comey was lying. All the Republican --</s>HENDERSON: Yes.</s>TOOBIN: -- legislators were quite --</s>CILLIZZA: And I think that's super important.</s>BURNETT: Yes.</s>CILLIZZA: As the Mark's point -- typically what you see in these hearings which are not as high profile as this. The Democrats -- it seems like they're in two different hearings.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.</s>CILLIZZA: The Democrats ask certain questions, the Republicans ask different questions and it feels though it's two ships passing in the night. You saw over and over again, country that their talking points are in Sea Point out, by the way, that suggested, you know, trying to go after Comey's reputation.</s>BURNETT: Yes.</s>CILLIZZA: Even the people who were sorts of tough on Comey, they all started with, as I've said before, I appreciate your service.</s>BURNETT: Right.</s>CILLIZZA: So there's -- it certainly different than the average congressional hearing that we have.</s>BURNETT: So that left it to Marc Kasowitz to say, Matthew, that Jim Comey was lying, OK. And it comes down to, actually, reports in the New York Times. So let me just lay it out. On the issue of leaking the memos, right? You heard Comey said I walk up in the middle of the night, I saw the President's tweet and then I decided to leak the memo. So -- and of course the tweet, the original tweet was, "James Comey better hope there are no tapes of conversations before he starts leaking to the press." So that's what Marc Kasowitz, the president's lawyer on all things Risch says is a lie. He says that that's not when the memo was leaked. And here's what they came out and say.</s>KASOWITZ: Although Mr. Comey testified that he only leaked the memos in response to a tweet, the public record reveals that the New York Times was quoting from those memos the day before the referenced tweet.</s>BURNETT: OK. So we can lay this out very simply, Matthew. Kasowitz says there was a story in the New York Times detailing the dinner and Trump's demands for loyalty on May 11th. The tweet was May 12th. The first story in the New York Times that talked about the loyalty pledge in detail was on May 16th and that is the first time a memo was cited. Can you tell us as a representative here for the New York Times, was the memo the source for the story before the tweet or not?</s>ROSENBERG: I can't get into the source. And I'm not -- we did have a story on May 11th which was did not mentioned memos and was not an incredible detail that Trump did asked him for loyalty. That was not information that was only in the possession of James Comey. We know that today. He talked with a number of people about it. You know, Kasowitz in his entire statement said he want to</s>PRESTON: He also -- and he threw Dan Coats and Admiral Rogers yesterday.</s>ROSENBERG: Yes, he did.</s>PRETON: But the hearing that was held yesterday with the DNI director and the NSA director about how they actually answered questions about what they knew about supposedly trying to persuade the FBI to end the investigation. Kasowitz today misinterpreted how that hearing --</s>HENDERSON: I mean, we're getting a glimpse of what their strategy is going to be. There's a lawyer involved now. Sean Spicer and folks at the White House aren't going to be peppered with these questions as much as they have been in the past. But in some ways this was a little sloppy, right? I mean, this was full of typos, their statement. They kept the lane in terms of the time. There were going to come out and respond to this. So, you know, I think they've got some work to do. It's better than Donald Trump tweeting.</s>BURNETT: Yes.</s>HENDERSON: But it sort of what not is kind of --</s>BURNETT: Right. Which, of course, he didn't do.</s>HENDERSON: Yes.</s>BURNETT: The type of that (ph) but to your point, you know, saying that he's a liar and then saying look he told the truth on this is obviously a bitch way.</s>DEAN: He did not understand the executive communications either be called -- they call it permissive.</s>BURNETT: Next here from our nation's capital, the moment President Trump asked everyone to leave the room except for Jim Comey. So what happened next? And the breaking news, what Comey just revealed privately, and that classified session to senators about the embattled attorney general. Big developments on Jeff Sessions tonight. Plus, why is everyone talking about John McCain's line of questioning?