The New York Times has a new blockbuster scandalous report on Trump that is sure to dominate coverage tonight and tomorrow, alleging that Trump told Comey that Flynn was innocent and to let go of the investigation.
The White House denies the report:
“While the president has repeatedly expressed his view that General Flynn is a decent man who served and protected our country, the president has never asked Mr. Comey or anyone else to end any investigation, including any investigation involving General Flynn,” the statement said. “The president has the utmost respect for our law enforcement agencies, and all investigations. This is not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation between the president and Mr. Comey.”
The New York Times is alleging that Comey detailed the account in a memo after a February meeting in the Oval Office:
President Trump asked the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, to shut down the federal investigation into Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, in an Oval Office meeting in February, according to a memo that Mr. Comey wrote shortly after the meeting.
“I hope you can let this go,” the president told Mr. Comey, according to the memo.
The existence of Mr. Trump’s request is the clearest evidence that the president has tried to directly influence the Justice Department and F.B.I. investigation into links between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia.
Mr. Comey wrote the memo detailing his conversation with the president immediately after the meeting, which took place the day after Mr. Flynn resigned, according to two people who read the memo. The memo was part of a paper trail Mr. Comey created documenting what he perceived as the president’s improper efforts to influence an ongoing investigation. An F.B.I. agent’s contemporaneous notes are widely held up in court as credible evidence of conversations.
Mr. Comey shared the existence of the memo with senior F.B.I. officials and close associates…
“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Mr. Trump told Mr. Comey, according to the memo. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”
Mr. Trump told Mr. Comey that Mr. Flynn had done nothing wrong, according to the memo.
Mr. Comey did not say anything to Mr. Trump about curtailing the investigation, only replying: “I agree he is a good guy.”
Something of note they also include in the report:
The New York Times has not viewed a copy of the memo, which is unclassified, but one of Mr. Comey’s associates read parts of the memo to a Times reporter.
Once again we’re at the gate of media scandal with anonymous sources on one side and the White House on the other. At this point I have no idea if it’s the truth or not, so we’ll wait and see what comes of it.
You know, I wish the media had given one iota of the concern they have over Trump about the crap Obama was pulling while he was president. Trump may be guilty here, but Obama was certainly guilty of a lot worse and the media just yawned their way through his presidency.
UPDATE:
A good point by Ed Morrissey:
@allahpundit If Trump wanted Flynn off the hook, all he needed to do was pardon him.
— Ed Morrissey (@EdMorrissey) May 16, 2017
UPDATE 2:
So you remember when McCabe said last week that there had been NO efforts to interfere with the Russia investigation? If Comey had shared those memos with the top officials at the FBI, wouldn’t McCabe have known about it when he gave his answer? So who is lying?