Justice Department hands Comey memos to Congress

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department has provided Congress with a set of redacted, unclassified memos written last year by then-FBI Director James Comey that described his private conversations with President Trump, including one in which the president asked Comey to end an investigation into his former national security adviser.

The redacted memos contained no substantive information that had not already been discussed publicly by Comey in his testimony to Congress last year or in his recently released memoir.

The unredacted memos will be made available for members of three House committees to review on Friday in a secure facility on Capitol Hill.

The delivery of the memos was in response to an April 13 request by the GOP chairmen of the House Judiciary, Intelligence, and Oversight and Government Reform committees.

The department had earlier allowed certain members to review, but not retain, the memos as long as they agreed not to disclose their content.

"In light of the unusual events occurring since the previous limited disclosure, the department has consulted the relevant parties and concluded that the release of the memoranda to Congress at this time would not adversely impact any ongoing investigation or other confidentiality interests of the executive branch," Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd wrote in a letter Thursday evening to the three chairmen.

Last week, Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R., Va.), Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R., Calif.), and Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R., S.C.) pressed for access to the memos as part of their inquiry into the FBI's handling of an investigation into then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server.

On Wednesday, Goodlatte served notice of his intent to subpoena the memos.

In a joint statement late Thursday, all three chairmen said the Comey memos  show that Comey never "felt obstructed or threatened."

The Associated Press obtained copies of the memos and reported some details Thursday night. Among them: According to Comey, Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin told him, "We have some of the most beautiful hookers in the world."

The comment came during a brief meeting with Trump at the White House in February 2017, according to the memo. Comey said Trump told him that the "hookers thing" was nonsense. The president was referring to allegations in a dossier about a possible encounter between Trump and Russian prostitutes in a Moscow hotel.

The AP also reported that, according to the memos, Trump told Comey that he had serious concerns about the judgment of his first national security adviser, Michael Flynn. Days later, Trump's chief of staff asked if Flynn's communications were being monitored under a secret surveillance warrant.

Comey's memo of a Feb. 14 discussion with Trump also includes a previously unknown exchange about trying to prevent leaks.

At the time, the president was upset that transcripts of his phone conversations with the leaders of Mexico and Australia had appeared in the Post.

Comey said he told the president "I was eager to find leakers and would like to nail one to the door as a message. I said something about it being difficult and he replied that we need to go after the reporters, and referred to the fact that 10 or 15 years ago we put them in jail to find out what they know, and it worked."

Comey said he replied: "I was a fan of pursuing leaks aggressively but that going after reporters was tricky, for legal reasons and because (the Justice Department) tends to approach it conservatively. He replied by telling me to talk to (Attorney General Jeff) Sessions and see what we can do about being more aggressive."​

"I said something about the value of putting a head on a pike as a message," Comey said. "He replied by saying it may involve putting reporters in jail. 'They spend a couple days in jail, make a new friend, they are ready to talk.' I laughed as I walked to the door Reince Priebus had opened."​

Comey headed the investigation begun in July 2016 into whether there was any coordination between Trump associates and Russian officials during the 2016 presidential election. Shortly after Trump's inauguration, Trump sought a promise of loyalty from Comey during a private dinner. Comey memorialized that in a memo.

In February 2017, Trump asked Comey in an Oval Office meeting if he "can see your way clear" to dropping the investigation into Flynn, who had been forced to resign as national security adviser after it became public that he had misled Vice President Pence about his conversations with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The two men had discussed during the transition the possibility of lifting Obama administration sanctions imposed on Russia.

In May 2017, Trump fired Comey. Soon afterward, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller III to take over the Russia probe.

Comey wrote some of the memos as unclassified documents. Several others he wrote contained classified information, and those were kept in a secure facility. After he left office, he shared some of the unclassified memos with a friend, parts of which were then shared with a reporter for the New York Times. All of his memos were subsequently provided to Mueller.

This article contains information from the Associated Press.