Obama speaks out on ‘mistake’ during his presidency for not telling FBI what was on his private email server
President Barack Obama and FBI director James Comey had a friendly chat in the Oval Office about Donald Trump’s request for an unredacted copy of his “secret” intelligence file on President Obama’s administration, according to Comey, who watched the meeting from his home office.
“You mentioned [the email] on Monday. You said, in fact, ‘I’m a little disappointed because [the email] is just going to reveal who wrote it and who sent it. This is not a good thing for the [intelligence community] to be doing.’ I said, ‘That’s interesting and fair. And I guess the key question would be, in terms of the FBI, do you see any relevance of it in terms of your investigation of Russian attempts to interfere in the election?'” Comey recalls telling the president.
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According to Comey, Obama “did not respond directly,” but “responded in a way I was expecting: ‘I’m very sorry I’m not able to tell you that, but we cannot discuss that here.'”
Comey told Comey that he wanted to talk to the president again, but the FBI director said he was not allowed to leave the White House during the transition and would have to remain in the West Wing until May. So, Comey left and returned before Trump’s inauguration, though he says he was “just about to be fired” himself.
“I wanted to talk to the president again in terms of the ongoing Russia investigation, and that’s the way that I thought the conversation was going to go,” Comey says in the book “A Higher Loyalty.”
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But Trump’s decision to fire Comey was a setback for the FBI director and his agency, which is reportedly still running an internal investigation into Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election.
According to the New York Times, Comey was a member of Trump’s transition team and had been working closely with him on his campaign and at the White House.
He told the president of his concern about the ongoing Russia investigation.
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“I went over to him and I said again, ‘
