I need to make sure to keep that distance to protect the F.B.I.'s independence, which had been built since Hoover. I mean, Hoover was always over having drinks with presidents and doing all kinds of stuff– that was– not appropriate. Gathering information, all that sort of thing on political figures. And the F.B.I., since Watergate, had created itself as an independent force in American life, so I need to be a guardian of that.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: And that affected you– a couple of days later when you got invited to the White House. You'd been invited for a reception?

JAMES COMEY: Yeah, the– the– the weekend of the inauguration, on Sunday, which was also the day of the National Football League Conference Championships. I remember that because of the time of the event. At 5:00, the president posted the law enforcement leaders of the agencies that had helped protect the inauguration, which is a really nice thing to do. And it was at 5:00 in the blue room at the White House.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You didn't want to go?

JAMES COMEY: Yeah, I didn't want to go for two reasons. First, I worried very much about that independence of the F.B.I. And, remember– and I'm sure everyone listening remembers, there were a whole lot of people who thought that I had helped elect Donald Trump by what I had done at the end of October.

And so why would I want to go to a public reception– a potentially public reception with the president two days after he takes office? And then second, I wanted to watch football and the championship games were on and 5:00 was right in the middle– I'd miss the end of one game and the beginning of another.

My staff said, "No, you have to go. You're the director of the F.B.I. It would be an insult to the other agencies– secret service, park police, if you don't go. And you can tape the football games and just don't talk to people about them."

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: And so you–

JAMES COMEY: And so I went.

http:// abcnews.go.com/Site/transcript-james-comeys-interview-abc-news-chief-anchor/story?id=54488723

>>1071691

JAMES COMEY: Well, I didn't want to say it on television. She said, "That's Jim's 'oh shit' face." And so I'm walking forward thinking that, thinking, "How could he think this is a good idea? That he's going to try to hug me, the guy that a whole lot of people think, although that's not true, but think I tried to get him elected president and did. Isn't he master of television, this is disastrous."

And I'm thinking all this as I'm walking and I have this awkward look on my face. But I was determined there's not going to be a hug, 'cause I'm not a master of television but I knew that would be a real problem. And so I extend my hand and he grabs my hand and he pulls in and back. So he–

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So he was going to hug you?

JAMES COMEY: He was going for the hug, going for the hug. And so I'm not an unusually strong person but I work out and so I tighten my abs and my core and I'm thinking, this– "Unless he's a lot strong than he looks, he's not getting a hug." And so he pulls and he doesn't get the hug.

Our arms are tense and he gets just far enough that I get something worse than a hug. Because he's just able to lean up to put his face by my right ear– unfortunately, the cameras were on the left side of my face. And so the whole world saw him kiss me. And he didn't kiss me, he said, "I really look forward to working with you. But the whole world, including my beloved family, saw the president of the United States kiss the man who helped get him elected."

>>1071721

>>1071721

EVERYBODY CONVINCED COMEY IS A NUTJOB, SLIMEBALL?

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So he asks you what you want and says what he wants?

JAMES COMEY: Correct.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Which was?

JAMES COMEY: He said, "I expect loyalty, I need loyalty." And I did not reply. I just– we're– actually, the– we were probably just about as close as you and I are now, probably exactly the same at this small table. And I just stared at him and had this little narrative with myself inside, saying, "Don't you move, don't you dare move. Don't even blink." Because I was so struck by– caught by it, but I knew I couldn't say yes, I couldn't nod, and so I just froze and stared at him.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Why not say no?

JAMES COMEY: That's a fair question. I think because I was caught totally by surprise. And again, I'm operating in an environment where I don't want– I'm going to be director for another six years. This man's the new president of the United States, I do not need a war with him.

I have to find a way to work with this administration and protect the values of the F.B.I. And so– and part of it was just sheer surprise. I couldn't think of a clever response. And by the second time he came back to it, he didn't respond at all. We just stared at each other and then he went on eating. And then he came back to– he didn't– he noticed that I didn't answer. He came back to it later in the dinner. And by then, I had my wits about me and had a better answer. GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: What was the second time?

JAMES COMEY: The second time was later in the conversation. He said, again, "I need loyalty." And I said, "You will always get honesty from me." And he paused and then he said, "Honest loyalty," as if he was proposing some compromise or a deal. And I paused and said, "You'll get that from me." And, of course, in between those two– the loyalty sandwich, in between those two, I had– I had an opportunity to explain to him the F.B.I.'s role and how important it was for the F.B.I. to be independent and how I thought about it.

>>1071807

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So you're listening. Are you thinking, "President Trump's a liar?"

JAMES COMEY: Yes, yeah. I– and I– and I had, obviously, concerns about that earlier, having watched him on the campaign that he is someone who is– for whom the truth is not a high value. And– and obviously, there were examples of that in the dinner.

The Priebus thing is– is an example of it. The– the inauguration thing is an example of it. I'm sure there are others in the conversation. But yes, that he is– that sometimes he's lying in ways that are obvious, sometimes he's saying things that we may not know are true or false and then there's a spectrum in between.

>>1071852

CLINTON'S GOLD CURTAINS IN TRUMP OFFICE

He said, "Sit. Sit." And then he left and– went down the hall, apparently to the Oval Office, and came back and said, "He's in the Oval. He'd love to see you." And I said, without expression, "Great." And then he takes me down to the Oval Office and the president was just finishing a conversation with the then-s– Press Secretary Sean Spicer. And I came in and sat down.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me stop you there. You've been in the Oval Office several times in your career. You served several presidents. How is it different?

JAMES COMEY: It was different– well I noticed right away the curtains were different. He had hung bright, gold curtains, which I found out later were actually Bill Clinton's Oval Office curtains, excuse me, since changed. And– but most striking was that he was sitting behind the resolute desk, the big– the president's desk, which I had actually never seen Presidents Bush or Obama do during a meeting.

They would be there sometimes for phone calls, I gather, but when I was there they always sat in the open sitting area, which made sense to me as someone who tries to get people as a leader to tell you the truth. It's much easier in an informal setting. But I noticed he was behind the desk with– both arms on the table top, on the desktop. And so I sat– so there's a gigantic block of wood between us, I sat in a little wooden chair right up against the desk. And the conversation started and– and Reince was trying to steer it, in part, towards the Steele dossier, and the president wasn't interested in that.

>>1071904

JAMES COMEY: Yeah, I don't remember being angry. I remember just thinking, "This is a lie." The stuff about, you know, being fired because of the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation, that makes no sense at all. And then, of course, I quickly saw on the news that, you know, the White House saying that the F.B.I. was in tatters and the workforce– it was relieved that I was fired. More and more lies. And so I was worried about the organization, worried about the people– who I'm supposed to meet with right after that and confused. I don't remember being angry in that moment.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Also had to find a way to get home.

JAMES COMEY: Yeah. It– 'cause I'm no longer F.B.I. director, so how do I get home? I– I actually gave thought to renting a convertible and driving almost 3,000 miles, something I've never done. I've had friends drive across country, but I'm not single or crazy so I didn't do it. And I left it to the– who– my deputy, who immediately had become the acting director of the F.B.I., to figure that out.

And the– the head of my security detail, who's an amazing person, said, "Sir, we're going to figure this out. But if I have to put you in handcuffs, we're taking you back on the F.B.I. plane." And I said, "Well look, I want to do whatever is appropriate under the law and the regulations, so you all figure that out." And they figured out that they had an obligation to protect me and so they would bring me back on the plane.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So you're in that private jet basically alone.

JAMES COMEY: Yeah.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: What did you do?

JAMES COMEY: I broke F.B.I. rules. I was no longer an employee so I wasn't breaking the rules. So I took a bottle of red wine out of my suitcase that I was bringing back from California, a California pinot noir, and I drank red wine from a paper coffee cup and just looked out at the lights of the country I love so much as we flew home.

>>1071984

And then I– as– we got close to the airport in Washington, I asked the pilots could I sit up with them, 'cause I'd never done it. Been all over the world with these pilots and sat in the passenger's seat. Hundreds of flights, I'd never sat up there and watched them do their work. So they put the headphones on me and I sat on a jump seat between the two pilots and watched them land along the Potomac. And– and then we shook hands with tears in our eyes and then I left and get driven home.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: That's it. The pinnacle of your professional career, it's over–

JAMES COMEY: Yeah. Yeah. Over in a flash. Yeah. Makes no sense at all.

>>1072017

JAMES COMEY: Yeah. I think there's a written record of– we– and I've left it out, we– he and I had one conversation on the phone, it was about a classified topic that was totally appropriate and– and so I don't know whether I did a memo on that. But nearly every encounter I documented, either with a memo– and some of them were classified– memos and so I obviously created them at the F.B.I. and left them at the F.B.I.

But for the unclassified encounters, I wrote them up on my personal computer, printed them on my printer, with my paper, and kept a copy here. But because I also want to protect the bureau, I left a copy at the F.B.I. But thank goodness I kept a copy here, because I was banned from the property.

One of the orders that was issued is I was never to be allowed back on F.B.I. property, like I had killed somebody. So my staff had to box my stuff up and send it home. But I had the memo in my safe, my unclassified memo. And I thought, "If I get that out, that'll put tremendous pressure on the Department of Justice to have somebody go get the tapes before President Trump could destroy them–"

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: And those tapes, in your mind, would be evidence of a possible crime.

JAMES COMEY: Yes. And I would be heard on those tapes in that conversation with the president, and he would be heard saying, "I hope you can let it go." And I would be heard saying, "I agree he's a good guy."

>>1072108

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Before we broke, you mentioned that they didn't trust the Justice Department. What do you make of the attorney general?

JAMES COMEY: I don't know what to make of him. I mean, I only worked with him very briefly before I was fired. My sense of him, maybe it's unfair to him, was that he was over matched for the job. And– that the job was f– much, much bigger than he was. And that he was going to struggle in it. That's my sense.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: And you also said that the deputy attorney general, who's now running the Russia investigation, you said what he put out in support of your firing was just a pretext, and the pretense then fell away. So can the American people have confidence in the man who's supervising the Russia investigation?

JAMES COMEY: Yes, in this sense. First of all, the American people can have complete confidence in Robert Mueller. As I said– earlier, he and I are not close friends, but I've known him and watched his work–

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You've had dinner, played golf?

JAMES COMEY: Yeah. I think we played golf once in our 25 years. And– sorry, and– and I've had dinner with him maybe once or twice. So I know him and I can s– and I– we're friendly. But I know his work most of all. And I've watched it closely. He's not on anybody's side. He does not care about anything except the truth. And so they can have great confidence if Bob Mueller is let– left in place to do his job, he will find the truth.