I am Marc Kasowitz, President Trump's personal
lawyer.
Contrary to numerous
false press accounts leading up to today's hearing, Mr. Comey has now finally
confirmed publicly what he repeatedly told the President privately: The
President was not under
investigation as part of any probe into Russian interference. He also admitted
that there is no evidence
that a single vote changed as a result of any Russian interference.
Mr Comey's testimony
also makes clear that the President
never sought to impede the investigation into attempted Russian interference in
the 2016 election, and in fact, according to Mr. Comey, the President told Mr.
Comey "it would be good to find out" in that investigation if there
were "some 'satellite' associates of his who did something wrong."
And he did not exclude anyone from that statement.
Consistent with that
statement, the President never, in form or substance, directed or suggested
that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone, including suggesting that that Mr.
Comey "let Flynn go." As he publicly stated the next day, he did say
to Mr. Comey, "General Flynn is a
good guy, he has been through a lot" and also "asked how is General
Flynn is doing." Admiral Rogers testified that the President never
"directed [him] to do anything . . . illegal, immoral, unethical or
inappropriate" and never "pressured [him] to do so." Director
Coates said the same thing. The President likewise never pressured Mr. Comey.
The President also never told Mr. Comey, "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty"
in form or substance. Of course, the Office of the President is entitled to expect
loyalty from those who are serving in an administration, and, from before this
President took office to this day, it is overwhelmingly clear that there have
been and continue to be those in government who are actively attempting to
undermine this administration with selective and illegal leaks of classified
information and privileged communications. Mr. Comey has now admitted that he
is one of these leakers.
Today, Mr. Comey admitted that he unilaterally and
surreptitiously made unauthorized disclosures to the press of privileged
communications with the President. The leaks of this privileged information
began no later than March 2017 when friends of Mr. Comey have stated he
disclosed to them the conversations he had with the President during their
January 27, 2017 dinner and February 14, 2017 White House meeting. Today, Mr.
Comey admitted that he leaked to friends his purported memos of these
privileged conversations, one of which he testified was classified. He also
testified that immediately after he was terminated he authorized his friends to
leak the contents of these memos to the press in order to "prompt the
appointment of a special counsel." Although
Mr. Comey testified he only leaked the memos in response to a tweet, the public
record reveals that the New York Times was quoting from these memos the day before the referenced tweet,
which belies Mr. Comey's excuse for this unauthorized disclosure of privileged
information and appears to entirely retaliatory. We will leave it the
appropriate authorities to determine whether this leaks should be investigated
along with all those others being investigated.
In sum, it is now
established that there the President was not being investigated for colluding
with the or attempting to obstruct that investigation. As the Committee pointed
out today, these important facts for the country to know are virtually the only
facts that have not leaked during the long course of these events. As he said
yesterday, the President feels completely
vindicated and is eager to continue moving
forward with his agenda with this public cloud removed. Thank you.
ED: You can Google-search for URLs of video and/or the transcript.
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