Original subtitles

♪ foreboding music ♪

♪♪♪

[footsteps pounding]

[man panting]

[reporter] Excuse my breath.

I just ran out here to, uh, bring you this news.

The President of the United States

has terminated the director of the FBI,

James Comey.

As we get more here, we'll bring it to you,

but at this point, a bombshell at the White House.

James Comey is out.

[chopper rotors whirring]

[reporter] Well, we've been watching as James Comey

got off with his motorcade, making his way

from the Westwood offices of the FBI.

He got the information this afternoon

that he has been relieved of his duties.

Comey would become only the second FBI director

in the history of the bureau to be fired.

I just spoke to a senior official a short time ago

who said they had no idea this was happening.

The other major complicating factor here

is the fact that the FBI

is investigating any possible collusion

between members of the Trump campaign team

and Russia, and now the head of the FBI has been fired.

[Katyal] I found out through The New York Times,

getting an alert on my phone.

I remember thinking,

you know, "Has my phone been hacked?

Is this a joke?"

- James. - [camera shutters clicking]

[Katyal] The idea that the president would fire

an FBI director,

middle of the Russia investigation,

is unthinkable.

[applause]

[Graff] This was a target of an FBI investigation

trying to choose the person who was investigating them.

[man] And what kind of constitutional problem

does that present?

A huge one. [laughs]

I think everyone realized that we were

coming into unprecedented political territory.

[helicopter rotors whirring]

[Weiner] Comey's got the FBI Gulfstream plane

out there in Los Angeles.

There's an O.J. moment

where you've got a helicopter

following this plane down the tarmac.

[engine whooshes]

Comey gets into the plane and settles back,

uncorks some red wine, pours it into a paper cup,

looks down over the United States

as evening settles in,

thinking, "What the hell just happened?"

♪♪♪

♪ dramatic music ♪

♪♪♪

[Reagan] I, Ronald Reagan...

William Jefferson Clinton...

Do solemnly swear...

Do solemnly swear...

♪♪♪

[Nixon] ...and will, to the best of my ability...

[George W. Bush] ...preserve, protect, and defend...

[Trump] ...the Constitution of the United States.

♪♪♪

[Colbert] I know that when you were fired,

you say in the book that, uh, when--

when it was over, you, uh,

flew back on a plane to the East Coast...

- [audience laughs and whoops] - Drinking Pinot Noir

out of a paper cup, so I thought maybe

we could re-create that happy moment for you right now.

[cheers and applause]

- To the truth. - Yes, to the truth.

♪ foreboding music ♪

Breaking news tonight: we have our first look

at fired FBI director James Comey's much-anticipated

tell-all book,

a window into his interactions with President Trump.

[reporter] James Comey starts a media tour

to promote his new book.

[anchor] Our guest tonight is James Comey.

...former FBI director, James Comey.

James Comey.

[cheers and applause]

It's all right, y'all. It's all right.

[Comey] Our president must

adhere to the values

that are the core of this country,

the most important being truth.

This president is not able to do that.

He is morally unfit to be president.

Comey holds little back. It is a scathing indictment.

[anchor] This president is "untethered to truth

and institutional values," Comey writes.

[anchor and Comey] "His leadership

is transactional, ego-driven"...

[Comey] ..."and about personal loyalty.

I'm writing at a time of great anxiety in my country.

I understand the anxiety.

Donald Trump's presidency threatens

much of what is good in this nation."

[Wittes] A lot of people

were suspicious of Jim

as a moralistic,

pious showboater.

This is nothing more than a poorly executed

PR stunt by Comey to desperately rehabilitate

- his tattered reputation. - [reporters] Sarah?

There's a lot of room for disagreement about that.

He is raising a moral and political and legal alarm...

- [reporter] Right. - [Wittes] About the health

of our institutions--

about the effect of our president on them.

Do you think people tied to President Trump

colluded with the Russians?

"I don't know" is the honest answer.

[Trump] This is a big mistake, this book!

There is no collusion with me--

- [anchors] All right. - [Trump] And Russia!

And our Justice Department,

they have this witch hunt...

[Graff] Trump is trying to muddy the legitimacy

of Bob Mueller's Russia investigation,

and to turn this into

the public appearance of a partisan witch hunt.

One of the biggest political witch hunts in the history

- of this country. - [overlapping voices]

Robert Mueller is on a Jihad of some sort.

[reporter] "Mr. Mueller, end the witch hunt."

♪ disconcerting ringing ♪

♪♪♪

[Comey] "I don't know whether the special counsel will find

criminal wrongdoing by the president

or others who have not been charged

as of this writing.

One of the pivotal questions

I presume Bob Mueller's team is investigating

is whether or not, in firing me,

President Trump was attempting to obstruct justice,

which is a federal crime.

♪ ominous string music ♪

I've prosecuted and overseen many cases

involving obstruction of justice,

but in this case, I'm a witness."

♪♪♪

[Weiner] Comey and Mueller are confronting

the most powerful man on the face of the Earth

in the most politically charged

investigation of a president

in American history.

These guys aren't pals.

But they are allies.

They have worked together with great effect

in the past in confronting

presidential power when it goes beyond the scope of the law.

♪ music darkens ♪

♪♪♪

[announcer] Ladies and gentlemen,

the President of the United States,

accompanied by Bob Mueller.

[Carlin] The heart and soul of the FBI is keeping

the trust and confidence of the American people,

being an investigative agency that's not corruptible.

- [Mueller] Mr. President. - [Carlin] It was a point

Mueller used to make when he was director.

[clears throat]

I am deeply honored by the trust

that President Bush has shown in nominating me

to head the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Bob Mueller was the symbol

of a non-partisan individual who keeps his head down,

follows the facts wherever they lead,

and doesn't care about making a name for himself.

The FBI is the foremost law enforcement agency

in the world.

The only political appointee at the FBI

is the director of the FBI.

- [applause] - Thank you all for coming.

[Carlin] That's traditionally been a ten-year term

to cross two terms of a president,

to make it clear

that the FBI director shouldn't be accountable

to one party or the other, but independent.

♪♪♪

Bob Mueller became

the head of the FBI a week before

the September 11th attacks in 2001.

And you can imagine what

his second week at work was like.

[static and unintelligible shouting on radio]

[cries]

[static and shouting continues]

[sirens blare]

[Graff] On the morning of September 11th,

Bob Mueller is getting his first briefing on al-Qaeda

when aides interrupt to tell him

that the first plane has hit the World Trade Center.

[man] What happened?

It collapsed.

The top floors collapsed down.

[Graff] Even as he's sitting there

in the briefing on al-Qaeda,

the idea that that was the beginning of a terror plot

was so far-fetched

that Mueller looks out the window and says,

"How could a plane have hit the World Trade Center

on such a clear day?"

- [children speak indistinctly] - [teacher] Try it again.

- Ready? - [Card] The president

was in Sarasota, Florida,

for an education event.

I came up from behind him

and leaned over and whispered into his right ear,

"A second plane hit the second tower.

America is under attack."

♪ disconcerting music ♪

[teacher] On the count of three...

♪♪♪

[hose hissing]

[Bush] Freedom itself was attacked this morning

by a faceless coward.

[camera shutters clicking]

The resolve of our great nation

is being tested.

But make no mistake.

We will show the world that we will pass this test.

God bless.

[camera shutters clicking]

♪♪♪

[Card] On September 14th,

in the immediate aftermath of 9/11,

the president says, "I want to get

the FBI director over here this morning."

And that sounds like a very normal expectation.

The truth is, it was not normal.

There was a great fear after Watergate

that the president would try

to influence the investigative arm

of the government,

so after Watergate,

FBI directors did not come to the White House very much

to have briefings with the president.

But Bob Mueller came over, and he starts his briefing,

and it was all about what they were doing

in terms of their investigation.

And the president interrupted and said,

"I am very interested

in learning what your investigation is finding,

but of greater concern to me is,

what are you doing to prevent the next attack?"

♪♪♪

[reporter] The U.S. House of Representatives

is closing offices today to allow a complete sweep

for traces of anthrax.

[Weiner] We have to remember

what the tension was like in Washington

in the days and weeks and months after 9/11.

[reporter] There were 197 people onboard

American Airlines Flight 63.

An unruly passenger apparently had

an explosive device in his shoes.

[Weiner] Everyone was convinced

that a second attack was days or minutes away.

"They've got nuclear weapons.

They've got biological weapons.

They've got chemical weapons. They're coming.

The second wave is gonna hit."

Vice President Dick Cheney held the point of view

that in any time of crisis,

the powers of the presidency were unitary--

that is, he encompassed the power

of the Congress and of the courts in himself.

It was more like a king than the president we think of.

[applause]

It was a point of view

that would get President George W. Bush

into a terrible, terrible situation.

These terrorists must be pursued,

they must be defeated,

and they must be brought to justice.

[applause]

[Weiner] In 2002,

to help forewarn of an attack on the United States,

President Bush orders the National Security Agency

to basically start spying

on not only the world...

but on Americans.

♪ ominous piano chords ♪

♪♪♪

The program, which authorized electronic eavesdropping

into people's phone calls and emails,

is code-named Stellar Wind.

♪♪♪

[Graff] The exact technical details of it

are still largely opaque to us,

but it authorized the surveillance of Americans

inside America.

♪♪♪

[Weiner] This threatens to shatter

an understanding that has been in place

since Watergate:

you don't spy on Americans without a warrant.

[Hatch] I wanna congratulate you, Mr. Comey,

for being selected by President Bush

for this important position in the Justice Department.

[Weiner] At this time,

the rising star in the Justice Department,

Jim Comey, is promoted to become

the deputy attorney general of the United States

above Bob Mueller,

and Comey comes to understand

that there are serious concerns about Stellar Wind,

emanating in large part from a lawyer

named Jack Goldsmith.

♪♪♪

[Goldsmith] When I got to the Office of Legal Counsel

in October of 2003,

I couldn't have imagined having confrontations

like I had with the White House.

But there's a natural tension

that's exacerbated in wartime

between, on the one hand,

wanting to do whatever you can to stop the next attack,

and on the other hand, ensuring that

the executive branch complies with the law.

So that tension was ever present.

It was starkly felt every day I worked.

[printer hums]

♪♪♪

So the Office of Legal Counsel basically serves to determine

what is lawful for the executive branch.

My predecessors had a conception

of executive power that was super broad,

and they basically thought the president could

do whatever he wanted in wartime

if he thought it was necessary for national security,

so for two years, the program had been deemed lawful.

But the entire program was flawed.

I concluded that

the government was not fully complying

with the law

that was designed to protect

the privacy of Americans

when it comes to electronic surveillance.

This results in an epic confrontation

over civil liberties--

the president and the vice president on one side,

Jim Comey and Bob Mueller on the other.

♪♪♪

[Graff] On March 9th,

there's this high-stakes meeting at the White House

to air the concerns about the Stellar Wind program.

It's a high-power gathering.

You've got Jim Comey, FBI Director Robert Mueller,

and head of the Office of Legal Counsel,

Jack Goldsmith,

versus Vice President Cheney;

Cheney's top legal advisor, David Addington;

and even White House Chief of Staff, Andy Card.

There was no one at any of those meetings that was there

because they wanted to deny personal liberty,

and they were not trying to interrupt

private communication.

I can't impress upon you

the reality of dealing with the change

from an analog world to a digital world.

[machinery clicks and whirs]

The world changed before our laws did,

and Stellar Wind took reality

and forced it into the law.

[dial-up modem hissing]

We've got bad things happening around the world.

We don't want to, eh... go blind,

and we have to go blind-- we-we'd have to pull the plug

if we don't get it signed.

[Comey] Cheney then expressed a frustration

that was entirely reasonable.

He pointed out that

the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel

had written a memo

to support the program in 2001

and that the attorney general had repeatedly certified

the program's legality since.

I said the 2001 opinion was so bad

as to be facially invalid.

No lawyer could rely upon it.

From the windowsill came Addington's cutting voice:

"I'm a lawyer, and I did."

"No good lawyer," I added.

David Addington said something to the effect that,

"If you rule that way, you'll have the blood

of the 100,000 people who die in the next attack

on your hands."

He wasn't saying that to scare me.

He really wasn't. He really believed it.

And I kind of believed it too.

I mean, I was reading the threat reports.

I was as scared as anybody else.

And this is all happening in secret.

It's very tough in that circumstance

to know exactly what the right answer is.

But we held.

We held, but it wasn't over.

♪ music builds ♪

[Comey] I met alone with Attorney General Ashcroft

to tell him in detail about the problems with the program

and why we could not approve another extension:

it was an extraordinary assertion

of presidential power.

The president has serious substantial powers,

but the president doesn't have the right

to do whatever he chooses.

No one has that right

in a society framed by the rule of law.

♪ tense music ♪

And I'm not in a position to discuss

what my advice was

to the President of the United States

and his staff.

I think those are things

that are importantly not discussed publicly.

It's pretty clear that Jim Comey

doesn't have the same feeling.

[Senator speaking] ...why he came off the list?

Did it have anything to do with the prosecution

of voter fraud cases?

[Sanchez] I would ask our witness

to please state your name for the record.

[quietly] My name's James Comey.

[Sanchez] Can you hit your microphone, please?

- Sorry, I've forgotten... - [Sanchez] There we go.

- I've forgotten the, uh... - [Sanchez chuckles]

The technology. My name is James Comey.

I go by Jim Comey.

[man] Now, were you there when Jim Comey gave his testimony?

Yeah, I was a dutiful staffer

sitting behind, uh,

Senator Charles Schumer.

In the spring of 2007,

I was the chief counsel to Senator Schumer

on the Judiciary Committee.

We had a-a witness who was gonna come testify

who had to cancel at the last minute,

and now we had an open spot.

And I know Jim a long time.

He had been my boss as a U.S. attorney

when I was an assistant U.S. attorney

in the southern district.

It also became known to me

that...you know, there's this other thing

that he has never talked about, that was only rumored.

So Jim Comey tells me on the phone

about this, you know, hitherto, you know,

unexplored and basically unknown crisis

in the Bush White House and Justice Department

in a way that made the hair stand up

on the back of my neck.

[man] And was the description in the room

as dramatic as it was on the phone?

It was more dramatic because there were, uh--

there were senators whose-whose jaws dropped to the floor.

[inhales deeply] This was a, uh...

[exhales]

Very memorable, uh... period in my life--

probably the most difficult time

in my entire professional life.

In the early part of 2004,

the Office of Legal Counsel, under my supervision,

was engaged in a reevaluation both factually and legally

of a particular classified program.

Just assume--you thought something was wrong?

- [Comey] Yes. - Right.

And it was a program that was renewed on a regular basis

and required signature by the attorney general

certifying to its legality.

But the attorney general was taken

to George Washington Hospital,

and I became the acting attorney general.

And as acting attorney general,

I would not certify the program,

as to its legality.

[man] During this period, you were not in good health.

- Could you at least e-- - [laughing]

- [man laughs] - There were press reports.

I would confirm that I was, for about ten days,

in intensive care in the hospital.

And I know--I know of nothing to contradict those...

[laughing] Press reports.

[laughs]

[man] Well, thank you for that--thank you

- for that candor. - That's--

there's a big concession for you.

♪ rising woodwind music ♪

[Schumer] Were you present when Alberto Gonzales visited

Attorney General Ashcroft's bedside?

[Comey] Yes.

[Schumer] And am I correct

that the conduct of Mr. Gonzalez and Mr. Card

on that evening troubled you greatly?

[Comey] Yes.

[Schumer] Why?

[inhales]

[sighs]

I-- [stammers] I'm only hesitating--

and I'm uncomfortable talking about this,

- but I'll answer the question. - [Schumer] I understand.

♪♪♪

Wednesday, March the tenth,

the night of the hospital incident,

at about eight o'clock that evening,

I was headed home.

My security detail was driving me, and got a call

from Attorney General Ashcroft's chief of staff,

telling me that he had gotten a call from Mrs. Ashcroft

from the hospital.

And Mrs. Ashcroft reported that a call had come through--

[Schumer] Do you have any idea who that call was from?

[inhales]

[exhales] I have some recollection

that the call was from the president himself,

but I don't know that for sure.

It came from the White House,

and as a result of that call,

Mr. Card and Mr. Gonzales were on their way to the hospital

to see Mr. Ashcroft.

♪ tense music ♪

So I told my security detail that I needed to get

to George Washington Hospital immediately.

[wheels squeal, siren blares]

They turned on the emergency equipment

and drove very quickly.

Immediately called FBI Director Mueller,

with whom I'd been discussing this particular matter,

and told him what was happening.

He said, "I'll meet you at the hospital right now."

♪♪♪

[Schumer] What was your concern?

You were in, obviously, a huge hurry.

[inhales, sighs] I was concerned that,

given how ill I knew the attorney general was,

that there might be an effort to ask him to overrule me

when he was in no condition to do that.

[siren blaring]

[Graff] You have these lights-and-siren motorcades

converging from across Washington.

Comey gets there first.

Comey knows that Mueller is not going to make it

to the hospital

before White House Chief of Staff Andy Card

and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales.

And Jim Comey, in that moment,

is worried that the Secret Service agents

who are with Andy Card

might try to remove Comey from the hospital room.

♪♪♪

[Comey] "While standing with the FBI special agent,

I called Bob Mueller again on his cell phone.

He was on his way.

'Bob,' I said, 'I need you to order your agents

not to permit me to be taken from Ashcroft's room

under any circumstances.'

Mueller asked me to pass the phone to the agent.

I stood as the agent listened, crisply answered, 'Yes, sir,'

and passed the phone back.

The agent looked at me with a steely expression.

'You will not leave that room, sir.

This is our scene.'"

♪ dramatic percussion ♪

[sirens fade]

[Graff] Just sort of imagine what it's like

for those FBI agents in that moment.

You know, "Use force if you need to

to resist the U.S. Secret Service

and the White House chief of staff."

And it has to be, uh,

one of the most surreal telephone calls

in American political history.

[medical device beeping steadily]

[Schumer] And the attorney general was... [stammers]

What was his condition?

Uh, Mr. Ashcroft was lying down in the bed.

The room was darkened.

He seemed pretty bad off.

I was shortly joined

by the head of the Office of Legal Counsel,

Assistant Attorney General Jack Goldsmith,

and it was only a matter of minutes

that the door opened, and in walked,

uh, Mr. Gonzales, carrying an envelope,

and Mr. Card.

- ♪ tense music ♪ - [door squeaks open]

♪♪♪

[Goldsmith] They seemed very surprised to see us.

It was a very awkward-- extremely awkward moment.

[indistinct conversation]

They were standing at the foot of the bed.

In that manila envelope, Gonzales had the approvals

for the program without any retraction,

and he asked the attorney general

would he approve the program that he essentially approved

for the last two years.

♪♪♪

There was some silence,

and then Ashcroft kind of lifted himself up off the bed

and he kind of expanded his chest

and kind of looked at them,

and he came to life a little bit.

[Comey] And then John Ashcroft did something that amazed me.

He had been misled about the scope

of the surveillance program, he said.

He vented that he had serious concerns

about the legal basis for parts of the program

now that he understood it.

"But that doesn't matter now," he said,

"because I'm not the attorney general."

With a finger extended from his shaking left hand,

he pointed at me.

"There is the attorney general."

♪ resonant music ♪

I don't appreciate the way Jim Comey talks about it.

His tunnel vision was limited,

so I don't question

how he relates it from his narrow vision,

but it's very different than a more realistic

a-and accurate description of what happened.

The president made a phone call to the hospital,

and I hear him say to John Ashcroft--

or Janet Ashcroft--that Andy Card and Alberto Gonzales

will come over and bring the documents,

and you can sign them.

And so, the president says to me,

"He's expecting you. You can go over there."

And I go out and get Alberto Gonzales,

and we then go over to the hospital.

This was not, "Sign the document!

You've gotta make him sign the document!"

- [man] No, no-- - This was not that way at all.

[man] But he did-- John Ashcroft didn't turn

to you and say, "I'm not the attorney general.

- This man is"? - No, he says, "I'm told

I'm not the attorney general right now."

I was...upset at the White House

because I didn't know

the attorney general wasn't the attorney general.

I was not in a condition

to make the kinds of decisions that...

um...

I wasn't totally without an awareness,

but I-I wasn't looking around the room.

I-I didn't...I didn't...

you know, I had a morphine pump in one hand.

And I was not attorney general for a good reason.

[medical devices beeping and humming]

[Goldsmith] At that point, they just wanted

to get the hell out of there,

and they said something like,

"Thank you very much, sir. I hope you feel better."

Mrs. Ashcroft is a small lady,

and...she did something that really kind of summed up

the way I think a lot of us felt.

As they were walking out the door,

she stuck out her tongue at them

in a very, um, forceful way.

She didn't approve.

♪♪♪

[Schumer] Can you tell us what happened then?

I was very upset. I was angry.

[Graff] Jim Comey has a strong sense of right and wrong,

and through his career

has not been shy about sharing that

publicly and vocally.

[Schumer] Tell me what so upset you.

I thought I'd just witnessed an effort to take advantage

of a very sick man

who did not have the powers of the attorney general

because they had been transferred to me.

[Card] People want to take these things

and turn them into Machiavellian games.

It was not.

Yes, the attorney general had signed off

on it every month.

Yes, there was an expectation

that he'd sign off on it again.

Yes, we were told that the program would come

to a screeching halt at midnight

if we didn't have the document signed.

And I wasn't even carrying the document.

Alberto Gonzales was.

Who sent you to the hospital?

Senator, what I can say is we'd had

a very important meeting at the White House

- over one of the most-- - [Schumer] I didn't ask that.

I didn't ask--you've discussed the meeting...

I'm answering your question, Senator.

- [Schumer] Who sent you? - If I could.

Did anyone tell you to go?

It was one of the most important programs

for the United States. It was important--

had been authorized by the president.

Did the president ask you to go?

We were there on behalf of the President of the United States.

I didn't ask you that.

Did the president ask you to go?

Senator, we were there on behalf

of the President of the United States.

Why can't you answer that question?

That's the answer that I can give you, Senator.

[Schumer] And you stated that the next day, Thursday,

was the deadline for reauthorization of the program.

- Is that right? - Yes, sir.

Okay. Can you tell us what happened?

The program was reauthorized without us,

and without a signature from the Department of Justice

attesting as to its legality

and, uh, I prepared a letter of resignation.

♪ ominous music ♪

♪♪♪

[Schumer] As I understand it,

you believed that others were also prepared to resign,

not just you.

Yes.

♪♪♪

[Ashcroft] I was prepared to resign if I felt

that we were condoning or promoting or facilitating

illegal behavior.

It is not to say that you are

the ultimate arbiter

of what's right and wrong.

[Goldsmith] I started thinking more about resignation

and trying to figure out what the principled thing

to do was in this highly political situation

where there was a lot of presidential power

to deal with, but there was also restraints

on presidential power.

And across my desk

was a large portrait of Elliot Richardson,

the attorney general under Nixon

who resigned on principle.

He has very thick, large black glasses,

and his beady little eyes were staring out of them,

and I grew very close to him in watching his portrait

and trying to decide what I should do.

Ultimately, I didn't see how I could continue to serve

an administration that seemed indifferent to the law,

so I was prepared to resign,

and a lot of other people were as well.

[Schumer] How about your chief of staff?

Yes, he-he was certainly gonna go when I went.

Right. How about Mr. Ashcroft's chief of staff?

My understanding was that he would go as well.

How about Director Mueller?

Yes.

♪♪♪

Literally and figuratively, George W. Bush blinks,

and he says, "Tell Jim to make the changes

that he thinks are necessary to this program."

[Weiner] Bush writes in his memoir...

that when Mueller and Comey confronted him

and said they were prepared to resign on principle,

a thought flashed immediately through his mind,

and that was the memory of the Saturday Night Massacre.

[slightly distorted] President Nixon has discharged

Archibald Cox as Watergate's special prosecutor.

As a result, Attorney General Elliot Richardson has resigned,

and when Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus

refused to carry out orders...

[inhales] From the president, he was discharged.

And Bush writes, "That was not a historical experience

I wished to repeat."

You felt lucky that the country was spared

what was clearly a constitutional crisis

and a potential mass resignation,

uh, over principle

by the leading law enforcement officials

in the country.

[Graff] George W. Bush didn't think

that any president could survive

the loss of an FBI director.

[helicopter rotors whirring]

Those are words he said to me a decade ago at this point

but have sort of rattled around my mind

with sort of a fresh resonance,

you know, as we sort of look at Jim Comey and Bob Mueller

in the midst of another showdown

with another president.

♪ percussive music ♪

♪♪♪

[Weiner] On June eighth, 2017,

almost ten years exactly after his testimony

about the Stellar Wind confrontation,

here comes Jim Comey to tell the story

of another extraordinary confrontation

with a president.

[reporter] Comey delivering the first public accounting

of his dealings with President Donald Trump.

[reporter] No word yet on whether the White House would

claim executive privilege to block Comey's testimony.

[reporter] He has done so much damage

to the reputation of the FBI,

and he continues to insert himself into stories.

[reporter] Nothing with Jim Comey has been dull

in his past testimonies.

I don't expect this one to be either.

[Burr] Director Comey, you're now under oath.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ranking Member Warner, members of the committee,

thank you for inviting me here to testify today.

When I was appointed FBI director in 2013,

I understood that I served at the pleasure of the president.

But I want the American people to know this truth:

when I was fired,

the administration chose to defame me

and, more importantly, the FBI by saying

that the organization was in disarray,

that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader.

Those were lies, plain and simple.

♪♪♪

[Wittes] There were a lot of terrible things

about the firing, but it didn't surprise me.

♪ dramatic sting ♪

I run a news and commentary outlet

that is devoted to, uh,

the space where

national security, law, and policy

crash into one another.

♪ unsettling music ♪

Two days after the election, I wrote a piece

specifically warning

that Trump might try

to fire Jim Comey.

♪♪♪

I believed that if you are an authoritarian personality

in control of the presidency,

you simply cannot be

as authoritarian as you want to be

if you have independent, honest law enforcement--

and let me just be candid about my bias, here:

That is what I think Jim represents.

Flaws and all, whatever mistakes he may have made,

he's independent and he's honest.

[Feinstein] Let me begin with one overarching question.

Why do you believe you were fired?

[Comey] There's no doubt that

it's a fair judgment-- it's my judgment--

that I was fired because of the Russia investigation.

I was fired to change the way

the Russia investigation was being conducted.

♪ dramatic sting ♪

[Wittes] I wanted to know

that the person who headed the FBI

would be willing

to stand up to the President of the United States

as Bob Mueller had been willing to do in 2004,

because, for reasons that were specific

to the Russia investigation,

I never doubted that there would be

a significant confrontation.

♪ ominous music ♪

[Weiner] The Russia investigation began

very quietly in the summer of 2016,

when evidence of Russian interference

in the presidential election started to emerge.

♪♪♪

[Clapper] There's a long history of the Russians

interfering in elections--

theirs and other people's.

We have records going back at least to the '60s

of Russians attempting, in their ham-handed way,

to influence elections.

[man] Just to play devil's advocate, I mean,

isn't there a variation of this

that we've done to Russia in the past?

Sure. We've done that.

Uh...I... [stammers softly]

This may seem naive or altruistic,

but I think in just about every case,

we were trying to do it because of the oppressed peoples

of that particular country or, frankly,

what we thought was in, you know, best U.S. interests.

But never ever as direct and aggressive and multifaceted

as what they did in 2016.

[man] Was the big difference

that they weaponized it and made it public?

Well, the thing was, it was so different.

It was so active,

particularly using the enabler of social media.

That was the big difference here.

Massive use of social media,

which was very sophisticated, very astute.

They had messages for everybody--

Black Lives Matter, white supremacists,

pro-Muslims, anti-Muslims,

pro-gun-control, anti-gun-control.

It didn't matter. The Russians went after them.

♪ unsettling music ♪

And their objections, we believe,

evolved over time,

starting with the very strong personal animus

that Vladimir Putin had towards Secretary Clinton,

whom he held responsible for fomenting

what he thought was a revolution

during the election in Russia in 2011.

♪♪♪

So the Russians did all they could

to undermine her.

- [crowd shouting] - [reporter] A revolt

in the Democratic Party

after hacked emails revealed

the DNC favored Clinton over Sanders.

Will you people shut up? Save it for Trump!

[Weiner] Russian intelligence hacked the DNC

and set the pestilence of these emails out

into the ecosystem of American politics.

[reporter] On the eve of the convention,

WikiLeaks released thousands of emails from the DNC.

[Weiner] So if you go back to the Watergate break-in,

a bunch of bad actors broke into

the Democratic National Headquarters,

digging up dirt.

Here we are today.

A bunch of bad actors that happen to be Russians

broke into the Democratic National Headquarters

to dig up dirt and help elect Donald Trump.

[Trump] I pledge

that I will be president for all Americans.

[cheers and applause]

[Weiner] FBI, CIA, and NSA are on the same page on this,

and frankly, FBI, CIA, and NSA rarely agree on anything.

So we put together all of the reporting that we had

on Russian interference in the run-up to the election,

put it in one document

called the Intelligence Community Assessment.

♪♪♪

And then we all took a very low-vis, low-profile

15-SUV column

that took us down to Trump Tower,

where we briefed out

our Intelligence Community Assessment

to then-President-Elect Trump

on Friday, January sixth.

♪♪♪

[man] So when you went in to brief Trump...

uh, set the stage for us.

- What was the room like? - Well, I don't know.

I guess it was about a 12x15-size room--

pretty small, had a conference table

which accommodated, uh, eight people,

and then about six people along the side.

I don't remember the colors of the wall.

♪ tense music ♪

♪♪♪

[Comey] "We walked in a group,

surrounded by our security people,

and entered the side-street entrance

for the Trump Tower residences."

[crowd chattering]

"After all the live-TV images of job applicants

and dignitaries coming and going

through the gilded Fifth Avenue lobby

as though on a reality TV show,

the leaders of our country's biggest intelligence agencies

were sneaking in to see the president-elect.

We were sneaking in to tell him

what Russia had done to try to help elect him."

♪ ominous music ♪

[Clapper] The import

of our Intelligence Community Assessment

really did, uh, cast some doubt

about the legitimacy of the election,

so we were all a bit apprehensive

about just what kind of a reaction we would get.

When we completed our briefing,

President Elect Trump and various other staff members

started drafting a press release,

you know, before we left the room,

which was kind of unusual.

And what they wanted to say was that the Russian meddling

had no impact on the election,

and we tried to point out to them

that we didn't say that.

[Heinrich] The president has repeatedly talked about

Russia's involvement as fake news.

Can you talk a little bit about what you saw

as FBI director?

The Russians interfered in our election

during the 2016 cycle.

They did it with purpose.

They did it with sophistication.

It was an active-measures campaign

driven from the top of that government.

There is no fuzz on that.

Did the president, in any of those interactions,

ask you what you should be doing

to protect America against Russian interference

in our election system?

I don't recall a conversation like that.

Never?

No.

♪♪♪

[Schmidt] It's in the aftermath of that briefing

that Comey pulls Trump aside

and tells him about the dossier,

this document that had been compiled

by a former British spy

on derogatory information the Russians had

about the president.

♪ eerie piano notes ♪

[Clapper] The dossier was not used at all

to draw on as a source

for the Intelligence Community Assessment.

We did include

about a page-and-three-quarter summary of the dossier

as an appendix,

but not as an organic part

of the Intelligence Community Assessment.

And we just felt, uh, the obligation or duty

to warn the president that this thing was out there.

And Jim asked if...

he said, "I think it'd be better

if I did it by myself," and I-I was fine with that.

[Comey] The material included some wild stuff.

Among that stuff were unconfirmed allegations

that the president-elect had been engaged

in unusual sexual activities with prostitutes in Russia

while on a trip to Moscow in 2013.

Another allegation was that these activities

were filmed by Russian intelligence

for the possible purpose of blackmail

against the president-elect.

Jim Comey, and I think rightfully so,

was concerned about

the counterintelligence implications.

The Russians have a long history

and are famous for using what they call "kompromat"--

compromising material--

which they might attempt to use for leverage.

[Wittes] The mere fact that this stuff is out there

is a problem

that has to be managed from a security point of view.

But Trump responds

by denying specific components of it:

whether he needs prostitutes or not.

Trump is the kind of guy who tries to make his own reality.

"It never happened,

I don't know anything about Russia,

and I have no business with Russians."

♪ dark music ♪

I think that our intelligence agencies

are giving the president advice that is colored

by their agenda and their motivations.

They began trying to get

Donald Trump to run for president in 1988,

again in 2000,

again in 2012, and then finally, in 2016.

I have worked for four presidents.

I think I could only be called an adviser to three of them:

Richard Nixon,

Ronald Reagan,

and Donald Trump.

If you are the subject

of a partisan witch hunt--

as I think Nixon was,

as I think Trump now is--

then I-I think that you cannot trust

in the intelligence agencies,

and I suspect, uh,

that Mr. Comey was telling the president

about the dossier as a way to threaten him.

♪♪♪

[Comey] There was a real chance that Donald Trump

would assume I was pulling a J. Edgar Hoover

and dangling the prostitute thing over him

to gain leverage.

I decided I could assure the president-elect

that the FBI was not currently investigating him.

This was literally true

but could be misleadingly narrow.

But I also saw the bigger danger of the new president,

who was known to be impulsive,

going to war against the FBI.

The FBI director is so concerned

by this interaction

that he gets into the FBI car

and immediately memorializes it.

[keys clacking]

[Carlin] It's the first memo

in a series of ones that Comey made

about every single interaction he had with the president.

[keys clacking]

♪♪♪

He's asked, "Why'd you feel the need to write it down?"

And he says, "It's because of the nature of the person."

[keys clacking]

♪♪♪

♪ ominous music building ♪

♪♪♪

[reporter] CNN has learned

that the nation's top intelligence officials

provided information to President-Elect Donald Trump

about claims of Russian efforts

to compromise President-Elect Trump.

[reporter] ...including a claim of sexual activity

caught on a Moscow hotel room surveillance camera.

[crowd talking at once]

- [Trump] Go ahead. - [reporter] First of all,

did the heads of the intelligence agencies

provide you with a two-page summary

of these unsubstantiated allegations?

[Trump] These meetings, as you know, are confidential,

classified, so I'm not allowed

to talk about what went on in a meeting,

but I will say I think it's a disgrace

that the intelligence agencies allowed any information

that turned out to be so false and fake out,

and that's something that

Nazi Germany would've done and did do.

- [reporters talking at once] - [Clapper] He had

a news conference

in which he characterized the intelligence community

as Nazis,

blaming us for, uh, putting out the dossier,

which was nonsensical.

The dossier is not an intelligence document.

It wasn't classified.

You know, it had nothing to do with

the intelligence community.

Naive me, I tried to appeal to his higher instincts,

I guess, and I asked that he not refer to, you know,

the intelligence community as Nazis.

[man] What was his reaction?

Uh, he said, you know, "Thanks, yeah, they're great,"

and all that, but his--his i- main interest was in

my, uh, issuing a statement rebutting the, uh, dossier,

which I-I really couldn't do...

and didn't.

- [reporters talking at once] - Go ahead.

What do you say to foreign policy experts

who say you're actually weakening national security

by waging this war of words

against your U.S. intelligence community?

[Clapper] And there's actually a fairly fine line

between democracy and autocracy,

and if we're not sensitive

and don't protect those institutions,

you're in trouble.

Well, you know, President Putin

and Russia put out a statement today that this, uh, fake news

was indeed fake news.

They said it totally never happened.

[cheers and applause]

Russia will have much greater respect

for our country when I'm leading it

than when other people have led it.

[cheers and applause]

[Weiner] The Russians, in an unbelievable

and unprecedented attack on American democracy,

hacked the election

with the intent of throwing it to Trump--

with the intent of disrupting American democracy.

♪♪♪

Jim Comey, he knows that the time will come,

about five minutes after inauguration,

that he's gonna be investigating the White House,

that he's gonna be investigating the president,

and that a terrible confrontation is in store.

Please raise your right hand and repeat after me.

"I, Donald John Trump do solemnly swear"...

♪ dark musical sting ♪

[thunder rumbles]

[Goldsmith] Ever since Watergate,

the country has recognized

that the Justice Department and FBI

have to have some form of independence

from the White House and the president,

especially when the White House and the president

are being investigated.

So we're already in a fraught situation

where the Justice Department itself is investigating

the campaign of the president in a close election,

but Trump from the very beginning

seemed to have an attitude that was indifferent

to these independence norms.

[applause]

[Trump] Oh, the inauguration was such a success

and such a safety success,

and we wanna thank you all, because it was really

a very, very special experience.

[Carlin] Right after the inauguration,

Trump has the heads of the law enforcement agencies

that did security for his swearing in

to the White House for an event,

and Comey is very concerned

about being seen on camera with the president,

especially when the FBI is supposed to be insulated

from politics.

But Comey, who's six-foot-eight,

- is noticed by the president. - [Trump] Let's, uh...

oh, and there's-- James, come here,

will you, please?

He's become more famous than me.

[laughter]

♪♪♪

[Comey] My wife, Patrice, has known me since I was 19.

Back at our home, she was watching TV

and pointing at the screen.

"That's Jim's 'oh, shit' face."

Yes, it was.

[applause]

[camera shutter clicking]

♪♪♪

The president leaned in

and put his mouth near my right ear.

"I'm really looking forward to working with you," he said.

Unfortunately,

because of the vantage point of the TV cameras,

what many in the world thought they saw was a kiss.

[applause]

[Wittes] To have this flamboyant display of embrace

made Jim concerned about the public confidence

in the integrity of the FBI

at a time when

his own position was,

in the eyes of a lot of people,

politically suspect.

Jim believed it was an attempt

to compromise him--

to make him look political,

to make him look close to Trump

in a fashion that would further convince

people who had supported Hilary Clinton

that he had put a thumb on the scale

during the election

by his performance in the Hilary Clinton email matters.

♪ ominous music building ♪

♪♪♪

[crowd chanting and applauding]

[Clinton] I am running for president of the United States!

[cheers and applause]

[Schmidt] In 2015, the FBI opened

the Clinton email investigation,

looking at Clinton using a personal email account

when she was secretary of state.

This was an investigation that was during the campaign,

and it was being looked at in a political lens

by the country.

Comey knew that the stakes were very high, and he felt

unnerved by some things the Justice Department had done

in the course of the investigation,

which made him wonder

whether their political leanings

were gonna get in the way of the investigation.

Things that looked funky,

like Loretta Lynch meeting with Bill Clinton

on the tarmac in Arizona.

Okay, what's with this?

[reporter] Loretta Lynch met with President Bill Clinton

on the tarmac of a Phoenix airport

for 30 minutes.

Because of the ongoing federal investigation

into Hillary Clinton's emails, that meeting

has now become a major problem.

[Comey] As the firestorm grew in the media,

I paid more attention, watching it become

another corrosive talking point

about how the Obama Justice Department

couldn't be trusted to complete

the Clinton email investigation.

Mr. Director.

[Schmidt] Comey felt that the FBI

needed to put distance between itself

and the Justice Department.

[Wittes] You have to understand the relationship.

The FBI conducts investigations.

Justice Department lawyers then decide

what charges can or cannot be brought

based on those findings.

[Schmidt] The FBI had interviewed Hillary Clinton,

and they'd come to the conclusion

that they didn't think she should be prosecuted,

but instead of quietly sending that recommendation

over to the Justice Department,

Comey held a press conference.

Good morning.

This is going to be an unusual statement

in at least a couple of ways.

First, I'm going to include

more detail about our process

than I ordinarily would,

because I think the American people

deserve those details

in a case of intense public interest.

[Schmidt] Transparency had been something

that had benefited Comey enormously

in the run-up to him taking over as FBI director.

In the years after he left the Justice Department

under the Bush administration,

he had publicly testified about a program

that he thought was illegal.

[Schumer] Just assume--you thought something was wrong.

- Yes. - [Schumer] Right.

[Schmidt] And by airing this out publicly,

Comey was able to get

the stain of the Bush administration

off of him and make himself

appear as a whistleblower,

so when Obama appoints him

as FBI director,

he cites this in his statement.

To know Jim Comey is also to know his fierce independence

and his deep integrity. When it's mattered most,

he joined Bob in standing up for what he believed was right.

He was prepared to give up the job he loved

rather than be part of something

he felt was fundamentally wrong.

♪ desolate music ♪

[Schmidt] So as he comes

into the Clinton email investigation,

transparency is something

that had really benefited Comey a lot

throughout his entire career,

and as he's faced with these different decisions,

he goes back to run the same play.

The problem is, in doing that,

he really undermined himself.

Although we did not find clear evidence

that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues

intended to violate laws

governing the handling of classified information,

there is evidence

that they were extremely careless.

It's awkward in the extreme.

Comey made it awkward in the extreme.

He gratuitously said

she had been "extremely careless"

in her handling of classified emails.

Well, carelessness is not a federal crime.

I didn't dissent from his decision to do it...

♪ uneasy music ♪

...but I was very concerned

about the precedent that it would set.

There's something really horrible

about having

a senior law enforcement official

evaluating the conduct of somebody in public

whom he is not going to charge, and I have a

sort of civil liberties anxiety about that.

Although there is evidence of potential violations

of the statues regarding the handling

of classified information,

our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor

would bring such a case.

I remember Director Comey-- one of the words

was "no reasonable prosecutor"

would, um, file charges.

The FBI, typically--you do your investigative report,

turn it over to the U.S. Attorney's office,

or in this case, to the Department of Justice,

let them make the decision.

The July announcement by Director Comey

was certainly outside the normal rulebook,

and, um, certainly surprised a lot of people.

There wasn't any advance warning that it was coming.

People have certainly

lost some confidence in the FBI over this,

and it's been a, uh-- a difficult time.

[crowd clamoring]

[Trump] When the FBI director

says that the secretary of state

was extremely careless and negligent

in handling our classified secrets,

I know that these terms

are minor

compared to what she actually did.

They were just used

to save her from facing justice

for her terrible, terrible crimes.

[crowd] Lock her up! Lock her up!

Lock her up! Lock her up!

Lock her up! Lock her up!

[crowd] Lock her up! Lock her up!

[Schmidt] Ten days before the election, Comey

took another extraordinary measure.

He sent a letter to Congress

saying that the bureau

had reopened

the email investigation...

♪ disquieting music ♪

As part of a different case,

Anthony Weiner,

the former husband

of Huma Abedin,

Hillary's closest aide,

had provided a laptop to the authorities,

and the FBI saw what they thought

were Hillary Clinton's emails.

[Wittes] Once you've said publicly

this investigation was finished,

the day you make a liar out of yourself

and go after new evidence,

you have some duty to--

to let people know about that.

[Comey] Assuming, as nearly everyone did,

that Hillary Clinton would be elected

President of the United States

in less than two weeks,

what would happen to the FBI

or her own presidency

if it later was revealed

after the fact

that she was still a subject

of an FBI investigation?

[Weiner] Comey feels,

rightly or wrongly,

a legal obligation to inform Congress

that, indeed, the needle has moved,

not knowing whether there's any "there" there

within in the emails, but knowing full well

that once he sends this one-page letter,

the Republicans on the Hill

will leak it nanoseconds later.

Clinton is conceivably doomed.

It took guts

for Director Comey

to make the move that he made

in light of the kind of opposition he had,

where they're trying to protect her

from criminal prosecution.

You know that.

[man] You think Comey made a mistake?

I do.

[man] Why?

The idea that the FBI

was wading into the politics of that moment

is tremendously damaging

to the reputation of the FBI.

[Trump] It took a lot of guts.

I was not his fan,

but I'll tell you what. What he did--

he brought back his reputation.

♪ disquieting music ♪

♪ dramatic sting ♪

[Weiner] Comey is in a very tough position.

The man in charge

of the Russia investigation

is now seen as a political actor.

♪ disquieting music ♪

♪♪♪

By this time,

the FBI investigation

into Russian meddling

has been going on for six months.

It's code-named "Crossfire Hurricane."

[Comey] At the heart of the Russian

interference campaign

was the release of damaging emails

associated with the Democratic Party.

In late July, the FBI learned

that a Trump campaign foreign policy advisor

named George Papadopoulos

had been discussing obtaining from the Russian government

emails damaging to Hillary Clinton.

Based on this information,

the FBI opened an investigation

to try to understand whether Americans,

including any associated with the Trump campaign,

were working in any way with the Russians

in their influence effort.

Comey knows that Flynn,

the national security advisor

to President Trump, has ties to Russia.

The FBI is looking at him very closely

whether he is in any way under the influence

of Vladimir Putin.

[Clapper] The Russians were going

to try to co-opt,

influence, gain leverage--

whatever they could do.

They attempted to woo me,

and I...

...saw them doing that with, uh, General Flynn,

and I just kind of

offered some fatherly advice about my own experience.

[man] And do you think he took that advice to heart?

No.

[Comey] On January 24th,

as part of our continuing investigation

of Russian influence efforts,

I dispatched two agents to the White House

to interview Flynn about his conversations

with the Russians.

He lied to the agents.

Mike Flynn, for reasons we do not understand yet,

lies to the FBI

about his Russia contacts.

Lying to the FBI is, of course, a crime.

Two days later,

the acting attorney general,

Sally Yates, warns the White House

that Flynn has lied to the FBI,

that he is susceptible to blackmail

by the Russians.

The next day,

the phone rings in Jim Comey's office.

The President of the United States

would like to have him for dinner.

[Heinrich] Mr. Comey, uh, prior to January 27th

of this year,

have you ever had a private dinner

with a President of the United States?

[Comey] No.

How unusual is it to have

a-a one-one-one dinner

with the president? Did that strike you as odd?

Yeah, so much so that I assumed there would be others,

that he couldn't possibly be having dinner with me alone.

If you had behaved differently in that dinner,

do you think you would have still been fired?

I don't know.

I--it--it's impossible to say,

looking back. I don't know.

♪ disquieting music ♪

♪♪♪

[Comey] At some point early on,

Trump asked bluntly,

"So what do you want to do?"

It was an odd question that I didn't

entirely understand at first,

but without waiting for an answer,

he launched into a monologue

that made it crystal-clear

what he was referring to:

whether I wanted to keep my job.

With a serious look on his face, he said,

"I need loyalty.

I expect loyalty."

♪♪♪

During the silence that followed,

I didn't move, speak,

or change my facial expression in any way.

♪♪♪

It's the two of them

under the chandelier, alone in the Green Room,

dining over shrimp scampi,

and at some point,

Comey has an out-of-body experience,

and he's flashing back on his early career,

interrogating, investigating,

and prosecuting mafiosi.

He's looking at the president, but he's seeing Sammy

"The Bull" Gravano,

listening to a don

saying "I need loyalty.

I need your loyalty."

It's gonna make a great movie.

[Goldsmith] It's not surprising

that a president would want loyalty

from a subordinate. It is extremely surprising,

and stupid on Trump's part,

to overtly ask for loyalty from Comey,

because first of all,

it looks like Trump is trying

to protect himself from scrutiny.

Second of all,

there's no way

that anyone in Comey's position,

and especially Jim Comey,

can give him the loyalty that he thinks he needs

when there's an investigation going on,

and Comey's got a job to do, and he's running

the FBI.

[Comey] I was determined not to give the president

any hint of assent to this demand,

so I gave silence instead.

He then returned to the issue of loyalty,

saying again, "I need loyalty."

I paused again.

"You will always get honesty from me," I said.

He paused. "That's what I want:

honest loyalty," he said.

This appeared to satisfy him as some sort of deal

in which we were both winners.

"You will get that from me," I said.

Jim has said that he muffed the situation,

um, and that he regrets, in retrospect,

uh, compromising with the president

on "honest loyalty."

I agree with him. I think--

I think, ideally,

the right way to do it would've been to say,

"Nope. Sorry, Mr. President.

I cannot oblige you on the loyalty thing.

You know. [laughs] Sorry.

You know, maybe you have to fire me now, but,

like, I don't--loyalty is-- that's just not what I do.

I have an oath to the Constitution.

End of story."

♪ suspenseful music ♪

I think it is interesting

that nobody else has told a story like this,

and I doubt very much it's because

nobody else has been asked

for a loyalty oath,

and I want to know

who exactly in the federal government

did better than Jim,

faced one-on-one with the president,

asked for loyalty.

♪♪♪

[reporter] Embattled national security advisor

General Michael Flynn

stepping down Monday night.

[reporter] Michael Flynn forced

to resign for not telling the truth

about his contacts with the Russian ambassador.

[reporter] The shakeup comes at a critical time

for President Trump.

[reporter] That also raised questions

about the relationship with Russia,

which still remains a big question.

Happy Valentine's Day. I can sense

the love in the room.

Um, I want to address

the events of last night, first and foremost.

The evolving and eroding level of trust

as a result of this situation

is what led the president

to ask for General Flynn's resignation.

Why would the president, if he was notified 17 days ago

that Flynn was a potential threat

to blackmail by the Russians,

why would he be kept on

for almost three weeks?

[Graff] Once we understood that this was a showdown

that involved lies from the president's

national security advisor--

that's when we began to move, publicly at least,

into uncharted territory.

♪♪♪

In your estimation, was General Flynn,

at that time, in serious legal jeopardy?

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.

And I--I think that is very significant, because

on February 14th,

you were in a meeting,

and the president asked

everyone to leave,

including the attorney general to leave,

before he brought up the matter of General Flynn,

and have you ever seen anything like that before?

No,

and so I knew

something was about to happen

that I needed to pay

very close attention to.

♪♪♪

[Comey] The president seemed oddly uninterested

and distracted during the classified briefing.

At the end of this low-energy session,

he signaled that the briefing was over.

Then, pointing at me, he added,

"I just want to talk to Jim. Thanks, everybody."

The president began by saying

General Flynn hadn't done anything wrong

in speaking with the Russians. 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."

♪♪♪

[Warner] Think about it.

[Warner] The President of the United States

asking the FBI director

to drop an ongoing investigation.

Thank you, sir.

[man] Senator Risch.

Thank you very much. You wrote down the words,

so we can all have the words in front of us now.

[Risch] Quote, "I hope--" this is the president speaking.

"I hope you can let this go."

Now, those are his exact words. Is that correct?

- Correct. - [Risch] Okay.

He did not direct you to let it go.

Not in his words, no.

[Risch] He did not order you to let it go.

Again, those words are not an order.

No.

He said, "I hope."

The reason I keep saying "his words" is

I took it as a direction.

[Comey] I mean, this is the President of the United States

with me alone, saying "I hope" this.

I didn't obey that, but that's the way I took it.

All right.

When you have the President of the United States

saying to the chief law enforcement officer,

"Hey, look the other way on my guy,"

that is an enormous red flag.

It sure seems like a cover-up,

and that is why we have to start looking

at obstruction of justice.

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?

Obstruction of justice is a technical crime.

It is something that requires evidence,

you know, that stands up in a court of law.

[Wittes] Now, there is no constitutional rule

that says the president is not allowed

to instruct the FBI director

as to how to conduct an investigation.

In fact, he is constitutionally authorized

to do exactly that.

[Goldsmith] Despite the norms

about FBI independence,

he's the chief prosecutor.

In some sense,

he is allowed to decide

who gets prosecuted or not,

and the paradox and difficulty here

is whether the president was acting

within his legitimate constitutional power

to direct an investigation,

or whether he crossed the line somehow,

if the line can be crossed, into criminality.

[Katyal] And so it looks suspicious,

but at the end of the day,

a lot of this does turn on criminal intent,

and we'd have to get into, really,

what was President Trump's state of mind at the time,

which is often very hard to prove,

because the prosecutor asks, "What were you thinking?"

and the defendant says, "I'm taking

my Fifth Amendment rights,"

and so what you need to do as a prosecutor

is look to extrinsic evidence--

did he talk to other folks,

what did he say to his national security advisor,

does he have anything written down

that might bear on this--

and then start to build a case.

This is one of the reasons why I think

that as a legal matter, the claim that Trump

committed obstruction of justice is much harder

than most commentators have made it seem,

but it's--the legal matter is not what's important.

What's important is that

the President of the United States

was trying to shape an investigation

into himself and his subordinates

in a way that

is a complete violation of all the norms

that have been put in place since Watergate.

♪ mournful music ♪

♪♪♪

[Trump] It's all fake news.

Mike Flynn is a fine person.

Mike was doing his job.

He was calling countries

and his counterparts.

[reporters clamoring]

Yes, go ahead.

[reporter] Can you say whether you

are aware that anyone

who advised your campaign

had contacts with Russia

during the course of the election?

How many times do I have

to answer this question?

- [reporter] Can you just say-- - Russia is a ruse.

Yeah, I know you have to get up and ask a question.

It's so important. Russia is a ruse.

I have nothing to do with Russia.

To the best of my t-- knowledge,

no person that I deal with...

[reporters calling "Mr. President"]

♪♪♪

[reporter] Jeff Sessions met twice

with the Russian ambassador

to the United States

during last year's

presidential campaign.

[reporter] As attorney general,

it's Jeff Sessions' responsibility

to oversee any potential investigation

into the Trump campaign's relationship with Russia.

Now, several are suggesting

that the nation's chief law enforcement officer

himself step aside.

The president was very concerned

when he first heard about this,

and had the White House counsel,

Don McGahn,

try and lobby Sessions

not to step aside.

I have been here

just three weeks today.

A lot has been happening, uh, in this three-week period.

Ultimately, Sessions said, "Look, the career folks

here at the Justice Department

who advised me on this said

that I have to not be involved in this

because of my role in the campaign."

Therefore, I have recused myself,

uh, in the matters that deal with the Trump campaign.

Jeff Sessions, who is

a politician through and through,

bent to the norms

of independence of the department.

You don't want the attorney general

to be conducting an investigation

where he has a conflict of interest.

So the number two person, Rod Rosenstein,

who occupied the position that Comey had

when I was in the Justice Department--

he was the deputy attorney general--

he became, for the Russia matter,

the acting attorney general,

just as Comey had become,

for the surveillance program

in 2004, the acting attorney general,

and so this actually worked

the way it was supposed to work.

Thank you all. Take care.

[Goldsmith] But when Sessions recused himself,

Trump became enraged.

[reporter] A source is telling CNN

that the president was frustrated and angry.

That led to a fiery meeting in the Oval Office,

where there were, quote, "a lot of expletives."

[Weiner] The President of the United States

is infuriated,

because he wants loyalty.

He wants his man

in charge of the Russia investigation,

and he can't have it.

[reporter] After that angry White House meeting,

the president left for Florida,

and it was from his Mar-a-Lago estate

on Saturday morning that Trump tweeted out

that explosive accusation

that President Obama ordered the wiretapping

of his phone and Trump Tower

during the campaign.

[Weiner] Trump is trying to muddy the waters

and distract from the Russia probe.

Along comes Comey

to set the record straight

in a very public way.

[reporter] Tomorrow, James Comey

will publicly answer questions

about the president's wiretapping claims.

[reporter] The setting this time:

the House Intelligence Committee.

It promises to be a blockbuster.

[reporter] How directly will he take on the president

in open session? If he does,

how is the president gonna respond?

♪ dramatic music ♪

[Nunes] The committee will come to order.

[Schiff] Director Comey, uh,

I want to begin by attempting to put to rest

several claims made by the president

about his predecessor,

namely, that President Obama

wiretapped his phones.

I have no information that supports those tweets,

and we have looked carefully inside the FBI.

The president accused

Mr. Obama, and presumably the FBI,

of engaging in McCarthyism.

[Schiff] Were you engaged in McCarthyism, Director Comey?

[Comey] I try very hard not to engage in any isms

of any kind,

including-- including McCarthyism.

[Schiff] The investigation in the House

Intelligence Committee

began as a bipartisan investigation.

Um, but then we had

the open hearing with James Comey.

Uh, Director Comey, you're recognized

for five minutes.

[Comey] As you know, our practice

is not to confirm

the existence of ongoing investigations,

but in unusual circumstances,

where it is in the public interest,

it may be appropriate to do so.

This is one of those circumstances.

♪ unsettling music ♪

[Schiff] He announced for the first time

that there had been a counterintelligence

investigation of the Trump campaign

going on since July.

I was told thereafter

that the GOP members of our committee

viewed that hearing

as an unmitigated disaster,

which was curious to me,

because it was only a disaster if you viewed

as your mission protecting the president.

[Weiner] We were attacked by a hostile power.

In a normal time,

the legislative branch of government

would say, "What the hell just happened?"

[Nunes] Director Comey, you announced this morning

that there'll be an investigation

into Trump associates. Do Russians

historically prefer Republicans

to win over Democrats?

I don't know the answer to that.

[Nunes] Did the Russians

prefer Mitt Romney

over Barack Obama in 2012?

I never saw a U.S. intelligence community

analytic position on that issue.

[Nunes] Don't you think it's ridiculous to say

that somehow, the Russians, uh, prefer

Republicans over-- over Democrats?

♪♪♪

[Weiner] With the election of Donald Trump,

you got a Republican president,

you got a Republican Congress,

and the Republican Congress

proves unwilling and unable

to investigate the Republican president.

[Nunes] Director Comey, do you have any evidence

at the FBI that any

current Trump White House

or administration official

coordinated with the Russian

- intelligence services? - [Comey] That's not something

I can answer in an open setting.

[Nunes] Well, we're conducting our own investigation here,

and I know that you're not going to tell me

whether or not you have any evidence,

but I can tell you that we don't have any evidence.

[Nunes] You know, there is a big gray cloud

that you have now put over,

uh, people who have very important work to do

to lead this country.

I understand. Thank you.

♪♪♪

[Katyal] If you think about the antics of Devin Nunes,

there's some deep, deep worry

that there are people in Congress

who don't care about the law,

who don't care about the Constitution,

and care only about getting reelected

and having their president reelected.

[Schiff] Among the majority party,

there's no interest in finding out

what the Russians did,

or what the Trump campaign did,

or what they did in combination.

That is damning evidence

that our system is

cracking in terms

of its checks and balances.

♪♪♪

[Weiner] What you have

in the House Intelligence Committee is

a chairman who has essentially destroyed

the checks and balances

that are written into the Constitution

to construct a Trumpian reality

around a terrible event.

And as we sit here today,

we know they're coming at us again,

and we haven't done a damn thing about it.

♪♪♪

[phone rings]

[Comey] He asked what we could do

to lift the cloud. I responded that we were

investigating the matter as quickly as we could.

The president went on to say that if there were

some satellite associates of his

who did something wrong,

it would be good to find that out,

but then reemphasized the problems

this was causing him

and said he hoped I could find a way

to get out that he wasn't being investigated.

[man] Now, I understand

that you received a call from Trump as well.

I--you know, I did. You know--[laughs]

Look, God knows I don't fully understand

why Donald Trump does all that he does,

but there's all sorts of ways

someone who is in political office

can try to put the arm on someone who's a prosecutor

or a law enforcement official.

Someone will say, "Stop working on that case."

People can also say, "Could you open up a case?"

Now, our jurisdiction included his properties,

his residents, bank accounts, family members--

I'm not saying that we were looking

at any of those things necessarily,

but that was what our ambit included.

Ordinarily, if someone of that position

is gonna be calling the local prosecutor

in a jurisdiction as I described,

there would've been some warning about it,

it would have been set up through the attorney general--

I mean, there is protocol

for precisely the purpose

of making sure that lines are not crossed,

so we considered whether or not

I should return the call

and actually make a tape recording

of the phone call between the sitting

United States attorney and the sitting president,

and we thought that was a bridge too far.

That didn't feel right,

and then we taught-- thought to ourselves

we could take contemporaneous notes,

and I later learned Jim Comey did.

[phone ringing]

Why was there so much of an instinct

for people to want to have a record

of a conversation with President Trump?

[Comey] On the morning of April 11th,

the president called to ask what I had done

about his request that I get out

that he is not personally under investigation.

He seemed irritated with me. Then he added,

"Because I have been very loyal to you. Very loyal.

We had that thing, you know."

♪♪♪

You described two phone calls

that you received from President Trump

where he asked you,

quote, "to lift the cloud," end quote.

[Feinstein] Talk for a moment about

your response to that

and what impact you believe that had.

[Comey] Well, I didn't do it, and so

this didn't improve the relationship.

[Feinstein] Please go into that with more detail.

[Comey] He was frustrated with the

Russia investigation

and something about the way I was conducting it

the president felt

created pressure on him that he wanted to relieve.

[Feinstein] After April 11th,

did he ask you more, ever,

about the Russia investigation?

No.

We never spoke again

after April 11th.

♪ grave music ♪

[Comey] I was in Los Angeles to attend

a diversity agent recruiting event.

I went early enough to have time

to visit the FBI's Los Angeles field office.

I met dozens of LA employees

standing at their desks,

and then I stopped.

On the TV screens along the back wall,

I could see "Comey Fired"

in large letters.

This is coming on the heels

of the FBI director being,

uh, so central

involved in this, uh, Russian scandal.

[Comey] Across three screens,

displaying three different news stations,

I now saw the same words.

President Trump acted based on the clear recommendations

of deputy attorney general,

uh, Rod Rosenstein.

I just got a letter.

It's a lengthy letter, a three-page letter,

from the deputy attorney general.

The deputy attorney general

Rod Rosenstein said,

"I could not defend the director.

James Comey's handling

of the conclusion of the investigation

of Secretary Clinton's emails, started..."

[Goldsmith] When Trump

fired Comey, he gave

as his first and ostensible reason,

a memo that Rosenstein had written

that had detailed

what Rosenstein viewed as the failings of Comey

in connection with the Hillary investigation.

You remember, that was that highly dramatic

press conference that was held last summer

where, uh, FBI director Comey

was quite critical of Hillary Clinton.

There's much to question about what Comey did,

but that seemed like it was a memo written

quickly, and not very impressively,

as an excuse to fire Comey.

There is no way

that Rod Rosenstein could have thought

that Donald Trump

wanted to fire the FBI director

because he had been unfair

to Hillary Clinton...

[man] Morning, sir. How you doing?

[Wittes] ...Though I'm sure it reflects

Rod's honest evaluation of Jim's performance

in the Hillary Clinton email matters.

♪ somber music ♪

[Holt] Monday, you met with the deputy attorney general,

- Rod Rosenstein. - [Trump] Right.

[Holt] Did you ask for a recommendation?

Uh, he made a recommendation,

but regardless of recommendation,

I was going to fire Comey. My decision.

- It was not-- - You had made the decision

before they came in the room?

I-I was going to fire Comey.

And, in fact, when I decided to just do it,

I said to myself--I said, "You know,

this Russia thing with Trump and Russia

is a made-up story."

This was an excuse

for having lost an election, and--

Okay, are you angry with Mr. Comey

because of his Russia investigation?

I just want somebody that's competent.

[Wittes] Trump realized

that he could not count

on Jim Comey

to not investigate him

and not investigate his friend,

and that is why he fired Jim Comey,

as he made very clear

the next day to the Russian ambassador

and the foreign minister.

♪♪♪

[Schmidt] The thing about that meeting

that is sort of an interesting thing

of the Trump era is that everyone remembers it

because the president called Comey a nutjob.

With all the news Trump makes,

we tend to follow the stupid human trick

and not pay attention to the more substantive thing,

the fact that he said

it relieved pressure on him.

[Wittes] Ultimately, this is the story

about a president

not getting the investigative outcomes

that he wanted,

and trying to make law enforcement

malleable to his political desires,

and the--the extreme danger of that

should be all we've been talking about

for the last year and a half,

and it hasn't been,

and one of the reasons is that

people have such mixed feelings about Jim.

FBI director

James Comey

has just been fired

by Donald Trump.

[cheering]

Wow. Wow...

Huge, huge Donald Trump fans here tonight.

The complicated feelings

that people have about Comey

in relation to Hillary Clinton

really did muddy that story.

[Sanders] Frankly, I think it's kind of sad.

Here's what Democrats said not long ago about Comey.

Harry Reid said Comey should resign

and be investigated by the Senate.

Senator Chuck Schumer said, "I don't have confidence

in him any longer." And I've heard

from countless, uh, members of the FBI

that are grateful and thankful for the president's decision.

[reporter] You personally

have talked to countless FBI employees since this happened?

- [Sanders] Correct. - I mean, really?

Like, I mean, really? Are we be--so are we talking--

[Sanders] Between, like, email, text messages,

- absolutely. - [reporter] 50?

- Yes. - [Wittes] I don't believe

she heard from anybody

in the building,

so I sought,

under Freedom of Information Act,

all statements to staff

in response to the firing

in all the field offices,

in all the divisions.

If Sarah Huckabee Sanders was right,

there would be a kind of

"ding-dong, the witch is dead."

There was not a single expression

anywhere in any of those pages

that remotely supports

what Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.

People in that building

knew instinctively

that the attacks on him

were a proxy for an attack on them.

♪♪♪

[Weiner] At that point, the face-to-face meetings

between Trump and Comey

are not a matter of public record,

but two days after Comey is fired,

there's a headline in The New York Times.

"In A Private Dinner,

Trump Demanded Loyalty.

Comey Demurred."

[Schmidt] In the aftermath of Comey being fired,

it was clear that some stuff had gone on

that we didn't know about between Comey

and the president, and the first story

that I was able to break about it

was the loyalty dinner.

Trump was obviously very upset,

and it's in the aftermath of that story

that the president tweets

"Comey better hope there are not tapes."

[Comey] President tweeted on Friday

after I got fired.

[Comey] I woke up in the middle of the night.

Holy cow. There might be tapes,

and if there are tapes,

it's not just my word against his

on the direction to get rid of the Flynn investigation,

and so I asked a friend of mine

to share the content of the memo with a reporter,

because I thought that might prompt

the appointment of a special counsel.

[man] When you received

the information about this memo,

did you realize what it could lead to?

Yeah, I mean, it was pretty clear--

the significance of it. Yeah.

♪♪♪

We reported about the Oval Office meeting,

and the next day,

Rod Rosenstein

appoints Mueller to be the special counsel.

The White House blindsided tonight

as the Department of Justice

will appoint a special counsel...

[reporter] Special Counsel in the Russia investigation.

[reporter] That special counsel will be

former FBI director Robert Mueller.

[reporter] The former FBI director Robert Mueller.

♪♪♪

[man] So it--it isn't like the firing of Comey

ended the investigation into--

No. If anything,

you could argue that it

doubled or tripled the shadow

over the White House.

♪ uneasy music ♪

[Manchin] Sir, uh, do you believe that Robert Mueller,

our new special investigator on Russia,

will be thorough and complete without political intervention,

and would you be confident

on his findings and recommendations?

Yes. Bob Mueller is one

of the finest people and public servants

this country has ever produced.

He will do it well.

He is a dogged, tough person,

and you can have high confidence

that when it's done, he's turned over all the rocks.

[Burr] Director Comey, thank you once again

on behalf of the committee. This hearing's adjourned.

[Weiner] When the president fires Jim Comey,

he thinks if he decapitates the FBI,

the FBI will cease to investigate him.

He is so wrong.

♪♪♪

Bob Mueller can take teams of FBI agents

and point them in a number of directions.

His mandate is not simply to look at all things Russia.

It is to look at all things criminal.

[Graff] Like Paul Manafort

and Rick Gates' indictment

for money laundering and past work

for Russian-backed oligarchs in Ukraine.

[Trump] Paul Manafort is a nice man.

You look at what's going on with him--

it--it's just a sad thing.

We've seen from Mueller

that his interests are broad,

that he is looking

at many different things, including

charging Russians who were part

of this influence campaign, to charging

folks around the president

with making false statements to investigators.

[Graff] Michael Flynn ended up pleading guilty.

This is where we saw George Papadopoulos

plead guilty.

There has been

absolutely no collusion.

It's been stated that they have no collusion.

At every stage of his investigation,

Bob Mueller has surprised us

by knowing more and knowing it earlier

than we possibly imagined.

[Trump] They have a witch hunt

against the President of the United States.

What's going on is a disgrace.

It's an absolute disgrace.

Investigations beget investigations,

so what starts as a counterintelligence case

becomes an obstruction of justice case

when Comey is fired,

and it has now

almost inevitably,

because you're investigating Donald Trump,

become an investigation

that is fraught with evidence trails

and the question of hush money, and...

...it could go on

until long after Trump has left office.

[man] Why don't you just fire Mueller?

Why don't I just fire Mueller?

[man] Yeah, just fire the guy.

And many people have said,

"You should fire him."

So we'll see what happens.

Uh, I think it's, uh, disgraceful,

and so does a lot of other people.

This is a pure and simple

witch hunt. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you.

[reporters clamoring]

[Bharara] I saw this on Twitter just yesterday.

Someone had the revelation: "Oh, I--I guess

much of what goes on in this country

at the highest levels is done on the honor system."

Yeah, and that's true.

So when he fired Jim Comey,

uh, I learned a lesson:

that this president, if brought to anger,

is capable of firing anyone.

I think he's capable of pardoning anyone.

I think he's capable

of taking outrageous steps

if he thinks that he or his family

are in the crosshairs.

Today, the president demanded

his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, resign.

[reporter] We're going to have a new acting attorney general

who has been somewhat critical of the Mueller investigation.

[reporter] The president's move

shifts the focus immediately

to the Mueller investigation.

Is it in danger?

It's kind of shame--shame on us

for being so surprised by it,

and as we tape this, lots of things have happened

in, you know, very recent times,

so shame on us again

if we don't realize,

uh, how close we are

to yet another constitutional crisis,

because, you know any-- any moment,

if Donald Trump had his druthers,

he would do a lot of things that are inimical to democracy.

[man] Raise your right hand and please repeat after me.

"I, Richard Nixon,

do solemnly swear..."

I, Richard Nixon, do solemnly swear...

[man] Our whole history is about

creating a system of accountability

to prevent the rise

of an autocracy or a dictatorship.

If you don't obey the laws that are put in place

to keep all of us on the up-and-up,

then where are you?

[Reagan] I, Ronald Reagan,

do solemnly swear...

"That I will faithfully execute

the office of President of the United States..."

That I will faithfully execute the office

of President of the United States...

If the FBI is not doing it, who's gonna do it?

We're not perfect,

but the institution is solid.

I-I fear what it would be like if we didn't have

the FBI.

It's not--it's not the enemy.

I will, to the best of my ability...

"Preserve, protect, and defend

the Constitution of the United States."

[man] The question of whether we

are still capable

of holding the president, uh, accountable

is an enduring one,

and I hope that the American people

want those truth-finding mechanisms

to be able to do their job

unimpeded.

[Trump] Preserve, protect, and defend

the Constitution of the United States.

Congratulations, Mr. President.

[Weiner] No free republic

in the history of civilization

has lasted longer than 300 years,

and that was the Roman Empire.

We're on year 242.

[Weiner] If we're gonna make it

to the three-century mark,

we have to get through this

in a way in which

our institutions

and the rule of law are strengthened,

and at the moment, they are under attack

by the President of the United States.

♪♪♪

♪ disquieting music ♪

♪♪♪