How Comey’s story stacks up to Trump’s

Comey's account

The FBI director and other intelligence officials brief Trump and his national security team on their recent findings about Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Comey stays behind to make Trump aware of more sensitive information. A salacious dossier suggests that Russian officials had gathered compromising information about Trump that they would use as blackmail. This leaked dossier gets widespread coverage days after this conversation.

Comey’s statements say that he wanted to “minimize potential embarrassment” to Trump.

At that time, the FBI director assures Trump that he personally is not under investigation.

“During our one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower, based on President-elect Trump’s reaction to the briefing and without him directly asking the question, I offered that assurance.”

Comey leaves the meeting. In an FBI vehicle outside Trump Tower, he begins documenting his private conversation with the president-elect. It is the first in a series of notes he makes following interactions with Trump. Comey says he did not routinely write down accounts of such conversations prior to his meeting Trump.

In this statement, Comey notes that during his time as FBI director under President Obama, he had only two one-on-one meetings, and never by phone. Comey says he spoke with Trump nine times.

Comey's account

Trump calls Comey around lunchtime to invite him to dinner that evening. Originally, Trump had told Comey he had thought about extending the invitation to his whole family, but decided against it. Comey assumes others will be there, but learns upon arrival that it is a private meal, interrupted only when two Navy stewards enter the room to serve food and drinks.

When Trump asks Comey whether he wanted to remain as FBI director, Comey finds it an odd question “because he had already told me twice in earlier conversations that he hoped I would stay, and I had assured him that I intended to.”

Comey again tells Trump that he intends to serve out his tenure. But the conversation makes him uneasy. He tries to guard his character, and insists that he’s “reliable” – the president can count on him to tell the truth.

“I need loyalty, I expect loyalty,” Trump tells him.

“I didn’t move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence. The conversation then moved on, but he returned to the subject near the end of our dinner,” Comey writes.

“I need loyalty,” Trump repeats.

“You will always get honesty from me,” Comey responds.

“That’s what I want, honest loyalty,” Trump says.

“You will get that from me,” Comey assures him.

The FBI director would later write that he didn’t know whether he and the president viewed “honest loyalty” in the same light.

Before the dinner ends, Trump revisits their earlier conversation about the dossier.

Trump tells Comey he had considered ordering him to investigate the allegations to prove they were false, but Comey tells the president that is a bad idea because it will create a narrative that the FBI was investigating Trump personally.

Comey's account

Comey meets with Trump for a previously scheduled counter-terrorism briefing.

“I was directly facing the president, sitting between the deputy CIA director and the director of NCTC. There were quite a few others in the room, sitting behind us on couches and chairs,” he writes.

Trump tells Comey he wants to speak with him alone at the end. Both Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, linger behind, before Trump excuses them. Comey elaborates.

In his public testimony less than a week later, Sessions confirms this part of Comey’s story. Similar to Comey’s account, Sessions says Trump asked him to leave the room, leaving the presidetn and his FBI director alone in the Oval Office.

When the two men leave by way of the door next to the grandfather clock that has stood in the Oval Office since the year after Richard Nixon’s resignation, Trump begins.

“I want to talk about Mike Flynn.”

Flynn had been fired the day before.

Trump tells Comey that Flynn did nothing wrong in speaking to the Russians, and that the reason he was fired was because he had misled Vice President Mike Pence.

Trump then jumps to the subject of leaks and the importance of keeping classified information classified. Comey and Trump are briefly interrupted when White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus pops his head in the door. Trump dismisses him and returns to the topic of Flynn.

“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,” Trump says.

“He is a good guy,” Comey responds.

Comey confides his concern to his advisors. He later tells Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions that he no longer wanted any direct communication with the president.

Comey's account

During a House Intelligence Committee hearing 10 days before, Comey confirms that the FBI is investigating Russia’s possible coordination with the Trump campaign.

That investigation continues to irritate Trump.

Trump calls Comey and asks what could be done to “lift the cloud” of Russia.

“He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia,” Comey writes.

Comey reminds Trump that he is not under investigation, and has told congressional leaders the same, to which Trump presses that “we need to get that fact out.” Comey does not tell Trump that the FBI’s hesitance for doing so is in case that fact changes.

“I told him I would see what we could do, and that we would do our investigative work well and as quickly as we could,” he writes.

Comey's account

Trump calls Comey to ask him what he’d done to spread the word that he wasn’t involved in the Russia investigation. “The cloud,” as Trump calls it, was preventing him from doing his job.

Comey tells Trump that the White House counsel should contact the Justice Department. Trump agrees to do so.

“Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing, you know,” he tells Comey.

“I did not reply or ask him what he meant by ‘that thing,’” Comey writes.

This was the last time Comey spoke with Trump. Less than a month later, Trump fired him.