Trump Demanded Loyalty Pledge, Comey Refused: Report
In January, Donald Trump demanded that then FBI Director James Comey pledge his loyalty to him, but Comey refused, The New York Times reported Thursday.
Instead, the FBI Director told the president that he would always be honest with Trump and that he was not politically “reliable,” associates of Comey told The Times.
According to the New York Times, later in the dinner Trump once again asked for Comey to pledge his loyalty. But once again, Comey refused.
Comey tried to explain to Trump the need for the FBI Director should be a non-partisan, independent enforcer of the nation’s laws.
This is how the New York Times described the scene:
Only seven days after Donald J. Trump was sworn in as president, James B. Comey has told associates, the F.B.I. director was summoned to the White House for a one-on-one dinner with the new commander in chief.
The conversation that night in January, Mr. Comey now believes, was a harbinger of his downfall this week as head of the F.B.I., according to two people who have heard his account of the dinner.
As they ate, the president and Mr. Comey made small talk about the election and the crowd sizes at Mr. Trump’s rallies. The president then turned the conversation to whether Mr. Comey would pledge his loyalty to him.
Mr. Comey declined to make that pledge. Instead, Mr. Comey has recounted to others, he told Mr. Trump that he would always be honest with him, but that he was not “reliable” in the conventional political sense.
