8/12/2018

JAMES COMEY/MICHAEL FLYNN/RUDY GIULIANI/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump’s lead personal lawyer, said on Sunday [8-12-18] that the president never had a conversation last year with James B. Comey, then the F.B.I. director, about ending the investigation into the fired national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, contradicting a memo Mr. Comey wrote at the time. Mr. Giuliani’s statement, made during an appearance on CNN’s ‘State of the Union,’ also appeared at odds with his own previous comments. While the White House has previously denied that Mr. Trump had asked Mr. Comey to drop the investigation, Mr. Giuliani had suggested that the two had discussed the inquiry, but in a way different from Mr. Comey’s account…When the ‘State of the Union’ host, Jake Tapper, noted that Mr. Giuliani had previously told ABC News that Mr. Trump had suggested that Mr. Comey give Mr. Flynn a break, Mr. Giuliani insisted he had never made that comment. Last month, when pressed on ABC News by George Stephanopoulos about whether Mr. Trump told Mr. Comey he hoped he could see his way to ending the Flynn case, Mr. Giuliani interrupted him to say that Mr. Trump did not say that…In a letter that Mr. Trump’s previous lead lawyer, John Dowd, wrote to the office of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, the president’s legal team pointed out that Mr. Comey had never mentioned his memory of their February 2017 conversation about Mr. Flynn in previous testimony before Congress, and recalled it only after Mr. Trump fired him in May 2017.”

Maggie Haberman, “Trump and Comey Had ‘No Conversation About Michael Flynn,’ Giuliani Says,” The New York Times online, August 12, 2018