Senator Chuck Grassley, who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee, has sent a letter to the DOJ requesting again the transcript of Mike Flynn’s call to the Russian Ambassador, which the DOJ has never released to them. He also wants to know why James Comey can’t get his story straight on whether FBI agents thought Mike Flynn was telling the truth or not.
The transcript:
On February 15, 2017, this Committee requested on a bipartisan basis a copy of the transcript of the widely reported call between Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and the Russian ambassador and the FBI report summarizing the intercepted calls. The Justice Department declined to provide any of that information, and instead then-FBI Director Comey provided a wide-ranging briefing to us on March 15, 2017 that touched on the Flynn issues.
Like the Flynn interview itself, that briefing was not transcribed. Also like the Flynn interview, there are notes taken by a career, non-partisan law enforcement officer who was present. The agent was on detail to the Committee staff at the time. According to that agent’s contemporaneous notes, Director Comey specifically told us during that briefing that the FBI agents who interviewed Lt. General Michael Flynn, “saw nothing that led them to believe [he was] lying.” Our own Committee staff’s notes indicate that Mr. Comey said the “agents saw no change in his demeanor or tone that would say he was being untruthful.”
Comey:
Contrary to his public statements during his current book tour denying any memory of those comments, then-Director Comey led us to believe during that briefing that the agents who interviewed Flynn did not believe he intentionally lied about his conversation with the Ambassador and that the Justice Department was unlikely to prosecute him for false statements made in that interview. In the months since then, the Special Counsel obtained a guilty plea from Lt. General Flynn for that precise alleged conduct.
As the WSJ points out, Comey has recently claimed that he never said the FBI agents didn’t think Flynn had not lied:
“Did you tell lawmakers that FBI agents didn’t believe former national security adviser Michael Flynn was lying intentionally to investigators?” Fox News’ Bret Baier asked Mr. Comey on April 26.
“No,” Mr. Comey replied, adding that “I didn’t believe that and didn’t say that.” Asked a similar question by NBC’s Chuck Todd, Mr. Comey responded, “Not true. And I don’t know what people heard me say, if they’re reporting it accurately, what they heard me say, they misunderstood. But that’s not accurate.”
It does indeed sound like Comey has a credibility problem. Though I doubt the DOJ will take down their stone wall and release the interview. But we’ll see.
Here’s the full letter for you to read:
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