POOL
Washington DC - 8 June 2017
1. Pan of Senate Intelligence Hearing
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Sen. John Cornyn, (R) Texas:
"As a general matter, if an FBI agent has reason to believe that a crime has been committed, do they have a duty to report it?"
3. SOUNDBITE (English) James Comey, Former FBI Director:
"I don't know where the legal, there is a statute that prohibits misprision of a felony, knowing of a felony, and taking steps to conceal it, but this is a different question. So look, let me be clear, I would expect any FBI agent, who has information about a crime committed to report it. (Cornyn: Me too) But where you rest that obligation, I don't know, it exists."
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Sen. John Cornyn, (R) Texas:
"And let me ask you as a general proposition, if you are trying to make an investigation go away, is firing an FBI director a good way to make that happen?"
5. SOUNDBITE (English) James Comey, Former FBI Director:
"It doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but I'm actually hopelessly biased, given that I was the one fired. (Cornyn: I understand it's personal) No, given the nature of the FBI, I meant what I said, there is no indispensable people in the world, including at the FBI, that, there is lot of bad things of me not being at the FBI, most of them are for me, but the works going to go on as before."
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Sen. John Cornyn, (R) Texas:
"And that heightened your concerns about the appearance of a conflict of interest, with the Department of Justice which caused you to make what you have described as an incredibly painful decision, to basically take the matter up yourself and led to that July press conference?"
7. SOUNDBITE (English) James Comey, Former FBI Director:
"After the, President Clinton, former President Clinton, met on the plane with the Attorney General (Loretta Lynch), I considered whether I should call for the appointment of a special counsel and decided that that would be an unfair thing to do, because I knew that there was no case there, we had investigated it very, very thoroughly. I know this is a subject of passionate disagreement, but I knew there was no case there and calling for the appointment of a special counsel would be brutally unfair, cause it would send the message, 'aha there is something here'. That was my judgment, again lots of people have different views of it, but that's what I thought."
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Sen. John Cornyn, (R) Texas:
"Any president who has been assured on multiple occasions that he is not the subject of an FBI investigation, do you think its unreasonable for them to want the FBI Director to publicly announce that so that this cloud over his administration would be removed?"
9. SOUNDBITE (English) James Comey, Former FBI Director:
"I think that is a reasonable point of view, the concern would be obviously, because that boomerang comes back, its going to be a very big deal, because it will be a duty to correct."
10. Cutaway wide of hearing
11 . SOUNDBITE (English) James Comey, Former FBI Director:
"There is no doubt that it's a fair judgment. It's my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation, I was fired in some way to change or the endeavor was to change the way the Russia investigation was being conducted. That is a very big deal and not just because it involves me. The nature of the FBI and the nature of its work requires hat it not be the subject of political consideration. And on top of that you have the Russia investigation itself is vital, because of the threat. And I know I should have said this earlier, but it's obvious, if any Americans were part of helping the Russians do that to us, that is a very big deal and I'm confident that if that is the case, Director Mueller will find that evidence."
12. Comey gets up and walks out at the end of hearing
