US: Comey confirms Trump tried to halt Flynn probe

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - Former FBI Director James Comey detailed Thursday a series of interactions with President Donald Trump in which the chief executive made improper, potentially unlawful, requests of the independent head of America's top investigative agency.

Comey's prepared remarks before the Senate Intelligence Committee featured awkward exchanges with Trump in which Comey said the president sought a vow of loyalty from him, and asked him to halt an investigation into a former top official.

During a Jan. 27 dinner, Comey said Trump demanded fealty, telling him: "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.

"I didn’t move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed," Comey, who was unexpectedly fired last month, said. "We simply looked at each other in silence."

The tense exchange was followed roughly two weeks later by an Oval Office meeting in which Trump asked Comey to nix an investigation into Michael Flynn, Trump's former National Security Advisor who resigned in disgrace.

"He repeated that Flynn hadn’t done anything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but had misled the Vice President," Comey said in prepared remarks, referring to Trump. "He then said, 'I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.'"

The then FBI chief said he took those words "as a direction".

Comey described Flynn as being "in legal jeopardy" at the time when Trump made the request.

The bombshell revelations confirm rumored attempts from Trump to interfere in the FBI's independent operations at a time when the bureau is probing possible collusion between the Trump campaign and a Russian attempt to tilt the outcome of last year's election in Trump's favor.

Comey is only the second FBI director to have his 10-year term cut short in the bureau's more than 100-year history.

When Comey found out he was fired -- from media reports -- he said he was confused by Trump's shifting explanations, and said the Trump administration "chose to defame me" and the FBI by using "lies plain and simple".