Translated material
Komi certificate
The US Senate hosts hearings with the participation of the former director of the FBI James Komi, who was dismissed by President Trump. These hearings are of great interest, as Komi oversaw the investigation of Russian intervention in the American presidential election, and the presidential critics consider dismissal as an attempt by President Trump to influence this investigation.
A direct broadcast from the hearings with the synchronous translation, which is conducted by colleagues from the Voice of America.
On Wednesday, on the eve of the hearing, James Komi took a sensational step, publishing, with the consent of the Senate, his seven -page performance, with whom he will speak at the hearing. Komi confirmed numerous messages in the press that, in his opinion, President Trump tried to put pressure on him.
Komi puts up the president’s actions in a negative light, refraining, however, from direct criticism of Donald Trump
Having introduced his performance to his speech the day before the hearing, the former director of the FBI received an unprecedented opportunity to demonstrate his interpretation of events that led to his dismissal, and his interpretation of the motives of the president’s actions. Komi puts up the president’s actions in a negative light, refraining, however, from direct criticism of Donald Trump.
Almost everything stated by James Komi was already known thanks to the numerous leaks in the press about his relations with President Trump, the news was only that the director of the FBI believed that the president was trying to put pressure on him.
According to Komi, the first conversation with the elected president took place on January 6, even before the inauguration of Donald Trump. Then the heads of American special services informed the future president of the details of the investigation of Russian presidential election intervention. After the meeting, during a conversation with the eye of the FBI, the head of the FBI notified Trump that he had at his disposal a report prepared by a former British intelligence officer, which claims that the Kremlin has a compromising evidence for Trump. During this meeting, Komi assured Trump that he was not an object of investigation of the American special services. According to Komi, immediately after this meeting, barely in his car, he decided to make a summary of this conversation with the president in hot pursuit, such an idea never came to him after talking with President Obama.
On January 27, after the inauguration, Komi was invited to dinner in the White House, where he, according to him, was in a frankly awkward position. The president, according to Komi, asked if he wanted to remain as director of the FBI, although before that Donald Trump announced his intention to preserve Komi in this chair.
In the end, they converged, at the insistence of the president, on "honest loyalty"
“I felt,” Komi writes, “that this dinner was partially organized in order to force me to ask the president to maintain this position for me and create a patronage relationship.” Following, according to Komi, the president announced that "he needs loyalty, that he is waiting for loyalty." Komi promised the president in response to honesty in relations with him. In the end, they converged, at the insistence of the president, on "honest loyalty."
Another FBI director, a meeting with the President, took place a few weeks later in the Oval office. During the conversation, one -on -one Donald Trump began a conversation about the dismissal of Michael Flynn from the post of assistant to the president of national security. “Michael Flynn is a good person,” said Trump Komi, urging the interlocutor to leave Flynn alone. According to Komi, he took this wish as a call to stop the investigation of Flynn's contacts with Russian representatives.
A detailed picture of the unusual relations of the president and director of the FBI, drawn by James Komi, completes the episode associated with the presidential phone call. The president, as Komi writes, complained that the Russian investigation hung over him like a cloud, turned into an obstacle to the government, and called on Komi to dispel this cloud, publicly stating that he, the president, was not an object of investigation. The director of the FBI refused to do this.
The retelling of Trump and Komi's conversations in the presentation of Komi caused the opposite reaction of supporters and opponents of Trump
This retelling of Donald Trump and James Komi in the presentation of Komi caused the opposite reaction of supporters and opponents of Trump. The president himself, in the manner uncharacteristic for him, did not take advantage of Twitter to answer the statements of Komi, which he in the past warned against speeches in the press with information about the details of their conversations. Mark Kasitz, lawyer of President Trump, said that the president was pleased that Komi confirmed that the president was not an object of attention of intelligence services in connection with the Russian investigation.
Critics of President Trump perceived the testimony of Komi as evidence of the potentially illegal actions of the US president. The Washington Post has published an article by Philip Allen Lakovara, who worked in a group of prosecutors who investigated Watergate. The article came under the heading: "I helped the charges of Watergate. The Komi statement gives sufficient evidence for the establishment of an obstacle to the work of justice."
The former head of American national intelligence James Clapper took advantage of the same parallel, but resorted to even stronger expressions.
Watergate pale compared to what we have encountered today
- If you compare these two stories, then Watergate pale in comparison with what we have encountered today. I will be with interest to follow James Komi’s performance at a hearing in the Senate Intelligence Committee, ”Clapper said.
But supporters of President Trump believe that Komi's statements are nothing but the same smoke without fire.
“How to compare these things at all,” says former CIA employee Philip MAD in an interview with CNN. -We know that at the heart of Watergate is a criminal criminal, which began to hack the headquarters of the Democratic Party. We know that the White House tried to cover this crime. In this case, the only thing we know is that General Flynn committed an ethically inappropriate act, liling the vice president of his conversation with the Russian ambassador, and this led to his resignation. But this is not an illegal action.
An influential lawyer, professor of jurisprudence, Alan Dershovitz writes in a commentary for Foxnews that Komi’s testimony did not become a “smoking gun”, which the democrats were expected to receive. “The Komi written statement, published on the eve of the Senate hearings, does not contain evidence that the president prevented the work of justice or committed other crimes,” Dershovitz is convinced .
At the same time, as commentators, both supporters and opponents of President Trump, agree during the hearing on Thursday, at which the circumstances of the dismissal of James Komi will be considered from the post of director of the FBI, will try to take advantage of this event in order to primarily affect public opinion. So far, according to surveys, the story of the Russian investigation and dismissal of James Komi is pulling the presidential ratings. On average, 55% of respondents negatively evaluate his presidency, 39.5% positively. This is the worst indicator after Trump arrives in the White House.
A fragment of the written testimony of the former director of the FBI to the Senate Committee of the U.S. Intelligence Congress James Komi:
June 8, 2017
I was asked to act today and describe my relationship with the elected President Donald Trump on issues that, as I understand it, are interested in you. I did not include in the testimony all the details of my conversations with the president, but, as far as I can remember, I turned on all the information that can be of interest to this committee.
BROWING 6 January 2017
The first time I met with the elected President Donald Trump on Friday, January 6, in the conference hall of Trump’s Tower in New York. I came there with another high -ranking member of the intelligence community (RS) to report to him and his new team responsible for national security, about what discovered the reconnaissance community about how Russia tried to intervene in the election. At the end of this briefing, I was left alone with the chosen president to report to him about some personally regarding information collected during a preliminary investigation. The leaders of the intelligence community believed that, for a number of reasons, it was necessary to inform the new president about the existence of this material, although he was not entirely decent and not fully verified.
Among these reasons were:
1. We knew that the press was about to publish these materials, and we believed that the intelligence community should not conceal them and detain the familiarization of the elected president with them.
2. Since there were several attempts to compromise the new president, we could neutralize these attempts by a briefing that would give arguments for the offensive. The Director of National Security asked me to personally conduct this part of the briefing because I retained my position and because the information was included in the liability of counterintelligence of the FBI. We also agreed that I would do it face to face so that the elected president could avoid reputation losses as much as possible.
Although we agreed that I would conduct this briefing, the FBI leadership and I was personally sure that this briefing would not create a situation in which the president who accepts authority would feel uncertain about whether the FBI is investigating his actions personally.
It is important to understand that counterintelligence investigations of the FBI differ from ordinary criminal investigations. The purpose of the investigation of the bureau is to understand what technical and human methods the hostile state uses to influence the United States or steal our secrets. The FBI uses this knowledge to disrupt attempts to do this. Sometimes this breakdown is expressed in the fact that we inform the person that they are trying to recruit or use it in order to influence the interests of a foreign power. Sometimes this is expressed in the fact that it is necessary to ensure the greater security of the computer that has been attacked. Sometimes you need to turn a person into a double agent, or stop this behavior using sanctions or expulsion from the country of security agents. Sometimes a criminal case is started. Since the nature of the hostile state is well known, counterintelligence actions are concentrated on individuals, which, according to the FBI, are - free or involuntarily - agents of a foreign state.
[...]
In this context, before holding this meeting on January 6, I discussed with the leadership of the FBI, whether I should warn the elected President Trump that we are not investigating him personally. During a meeting of the eye with the elected President Trump, based on the reaction of President Trump to the meeting and without his request, I gave him such assurances. After my first meeting with the elected President Trump in Trump’s tower, I felt the need to draw up a document about my first meeting with him. To convey an accurate conversation, I began to record everything on a laptop immediately in the FBI car at the moment I left this meeting. To record my meetings on paper alone with Mr. Trump has since entered my habit.