When Former FBI chief James Comey appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee last week, he told them US President Donald Trump suggested he drop the investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.
In his FBI capacity, he had been looking into Flynn’s connection with Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
Comey told them when he didn’t follow Trump’s instructions he became like the “meddlesome priest” Thomas A’Becket, who was martyred in 1170. He went on to explain why.
Firstly though, to look at what Comey told the Committee at the beginning of this section of testimony.
He told them what Trump said when he discussed Flynn with him in a private meeting at the Oval Office:
“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 said.
One of the Committee members asked Comey whether he interpreted the phrase “I hope” as a directive from Trump to stop the investigation into Flynn and the 2016 US presidential election.
Comey said he interpreted words like “I hope” or “I suggest,” as directives.
“I mean, this is a president of the United States with me alone saying, ‘I hope this.’
“I took it as, this is what he wants me to do. I didn’t obey that, but that’s the way I took it.”
As a result of not taking Trump’s advice, Comey says he was in the same situation as the one that occurred between A’Becket and King Henry II.
A’Becket and the king were having a spat over the rights the church held in England during Henry II’s reign.
Where the king said “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” (often interpreted as a wish to have him murdered – as A’Becket subsequently was), Trump simply fired Comey last month.
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