Only 17% Of Adults Would Trust Testimony From Ghislaine Maxwell

The chart above is from the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between August 1st and 4th of a nationwide sample of 1,702 adults (including 1,528 registered voters). The margin of error is 3.3 points for adults and 3 points for registered voters.

Bolton's Offer To Testify Puts Pressure On McConnell

(This caricature of John Bolton is by DonkeyHotey.)

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton had refused to testify before the House Judiciary Committee. He had said he wanted to see if a court would make him testify.

He has now changed his mind. On Monday, he issued a statement saying, "If the Senate issues a subpoena for my testimony, I am prepared to testify". This is a game-changer.

Republicans in the Senate have been justifying their refusal to vote to remove Trump from office by saying they had heard no "first person" testimony. They claimed all the testimony so far had been from second-hand sources (and sources against Trump).

They cannot make this claim against Bolton. Bolton is an established conservative Republican who has worked in three Republican administrations. And he worked in Trump's administration in a position to know exactly what Trump did regarding Ukraine.

The question now is -- Will the Senate issue a subpoena for Bolton to testify?

Bolton's offer puts more pressure on Majority Leader McConnell, who has been adamant about not calling witnesses for the Senate trial of Trump. It puts McConnell (and Senate Republicans) between a rack and a hard place.

If they subpoena Bolton, he could give devastating testimony against Trump. If they don't, it would look like they had rigged to Senate trial to protect Trump. Either way, it could cost them seats in the 2020 Senate elections.

It will be interesting to see what choice they make.

Ukraine Did NOT Interfere In 2016 Election (Russia Did)

(The image of Dr. Fiona Hill testifying before Congress is from The Washington Post.)

All 17 United States intelligence agencies have told us that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, and did it to support the candidacy of Donald Trump. Understandably, Donald Trump won't admit that.

It has generally been believed that Trump won't accept that truth because he thinks it will diminish his election win. Instead, he is spreading a narrative that Russia did not intervene. Ukraine was the country that intervened in the 2016 election, and according to Trump, they did it to support Hillary Clinton.

It's a ludicrous assertion, and has been debunked by all who have investigated to 2016 interference. But Trump continues the claim, and now some of his defenders in Congress are also telling that lie in an effort to confuse the narrative around Trump's impeachable crimes concerning Ukraine.

Now we have more evidence debunking the claim about Ukraine. It comes from Dr. Fiona Hill, who was a high-ranking official in the National Security Council of the Trump administration. Here, from her deposition (which she read before being questioned) to the congressional committee investigating whether Trump committed any impeachable offense. She wrote:

Based on questions and statements I have heard, some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country—and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did. This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.

The unfortunate truth is that Russia was the foreign power that systematically attacked our democratic institutions in 2016. This is the public conclusion of our intelligence agencies, confirmed in bipartisan Congressional reports. It is beyond dispute, even if some of the underlying details must remain classified.

The impact of the successful 2016 Russian campaign remains evident today. Our nation is being torn apart. Truth is questioned. Our highly professional and expert career foreign service is being undermined.

U.S. support for Ukraine—which continues to face armed Russian aggression—has been politicized.

The Russian government’s goal is to weaken our country—to diminish America’s global role and to neutralize a perceived U.S. threat to Russian interests. President Putin and the Russian security services aim to counter U.S. foreign policy objectives in Europe, including in Ukraine, where Moscow wishes to reassert political and economic dominance.

I say this not as an alarmist, but as a realist. I do not think long-term conflict with Russia is either desirable or inevitable. I continue to believe that we need to seek ways of stabilizing our relationship with Moscow even as we counter their efforts to harm us. Right now, Russia’s security services and their proxies have geared up to repeat their interference in the 2020 election. We are running out of time to stop them. In the course of this investigation, I would ask that you please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests.

As Republicans and Democrats have agreed for decades, Ukraine is a valued partner of the United States, and it plays an important role in our national security. And as I told this Committee last month, I refuse to be part of an effort to legitimize an alternate narrative that the Ukrainian government is a U.S. adversary, and that Ukraine—not Russia—attacked us in 2016.

These fictions are harmful even if they are deployed for purely domestic political purposes. President Putin and the Russian security services operate like a Super PAC. They deploy millions of dollars to weaponize our own political opposition research and false narratives. When we are consumed by partisan rancor, we cannot combat these external forces as they seek to divide us against each another, degrade our institutions, and destroy the faith of the American people in our democracy.

I respect the work that this Congress does in carrying out its constitutional responsibilities, including in this inquiry, and I am here to help you to the best of my ability. If the President, or anyone else, impedes or subverts the national security of the United States in order to further domestic political or personal interests, that is more than worthy of your attention. But we must not let domestic politics stop us from defending ourselves against the foreign powers who truly wish us harm.

Ambassador Taylor's Testimony Is "The Smoking Gun"

Ambassador William B. Taylor (pictured) is a career diplomat. He was appointed by George W. Bush to be the ambassador to Ukraine in 2006. He retired after being replaced in that post by President Obama. After Ambassador Yovanovitch was forced out by the Trump administration, he was asked to come out of retirement and again be the ambassador to Ukraine.

No Republican can claim Taylor is some kind of "deep state Democrat". He is an honest man trusted by them to do the job properly in Ukraine.

But his testimony before Congress was devastating for the Trump administration. He told the truth -- and that truth may well be the "smoking gun" that proves a "quid pro quo" did exist. It could be the information that assures Donald Trump will be impeached -- and if there are some honest Republicans left in the Senate, even removed from office.

Here are some quotes from Ambassador Taylor's opening statement to Congress:

Did Mueller's Testimony Matter? - We Don't Know Yet

(Photo Of Robert Mueller being sworn in, from wired.com, is by Jonathan Ernst / Reuters.)

Robert Mueller's log-anticipated testimony before two congressional committees (Judiciary and Intelligence) is over now. Did it matter?

Democrats were hoping his testimony would move the public to support impeachment of Trump. Republicans were hoping it would not. The media pundits are all over the place -- some saying the testimony was devastating for Trump, while others say it was boring and not consequential. Who was right?

I think Dan Rather is probably the closest to what I think. He says we don't know yet, because we haven't heard from the people yet. He writes:

A favorite saying I heard long ago and have often repeated is "No president is bigger than the country."

This thought returned this morning as I took stock of two sets of headlines: those coming from the Mueller testimony and those coming from Puerto Rico. 

In the first, we have a struggle to make sense of what took place yesterday on Capitol Hill. Was it a dud or did it lay out a striking case of criminality? Was it the death knell for the Russia investigation or will it spark hearings, oversight, and even a possible march towards impeachment? We must keep in mind that hot takes are often wrong, especially in a nanosecond news cycle like the one we live in where where we're tossed and spun more than a ragdoll in a washing machine. And the major reason why hot takes turn out wrong is because the future matters and it has yet to be written. 

That brings me to Puerto Rico, where the headlines aren't ambiguous at all. An unprecedented surge of popular protest, at a scope and scale that is almost unfathomable, chased a government from office. We saw, very literally, the power of the people. Their voices were so loud, so clear, so impossible to ignore, dismiss, or belittle, that they collectively bent the future to their will. 

And therein lies a lesson for what happened in Washington. We may have heard from the pundits about what yesterday meant, but we haven't heard from the people. Will there be an outpouring of energy and outrage, in phone calls to elected officials, at town halls, at public demonstrations and in campaign fundraising? Or will there be a general shrugging of shoulders? Will the Democratic leadership in the House see action or apathy? 

Despite how historically unpopular this president is we have seen very little mass demonstrations since the immediate aftermath of his election. And I suspect that's because a lot of energy (and money) has gone into a political response as demonstrated in the 2018 elections. Will that strategy largely continue looking into 2020? Or will the aftermath of what we heard yesterday foment a new direction? Those headlines have yet to be written. They're impossible to write at this point because we haven't heard yet from the people that really matter, the broad and diverse electorate that is bigger than any president.

Rather Comments On Barr's Testimony To Senate Committee

(This photo of Attorney General Barr on Capitol Hill, from Slate.com, is by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.)

Attorney General William "Whitewash Willie" Barr testified before a Senate committee on Wednesday. His appearance was shameful and horrifying to those who love this country and want to preserve our democracy. Barr showed he has no interest in the rule of law. He only cares about protecting Trump.

One of the better responses to Barr's testimony was by Dan Rather. He wrote:

Today a deep and corrosive cynicism was on display in the U.S. Senate. It was a shameful chapter in American history abetted by those who would happily trample the safeguards of our democracy in the service of a president who sees our Department of Justice as his own private protector and cudgel. 

William Barr cares nothing for that, or the judgement of history. He sees his job as preserving, protecting, and defending the president against any and all legitimate inquiry. 

This is a cynicism meant to delay, distract and deceive from the administrations of truth and justice. We could debate whether what Barr said met the high bar of perjury, just as we can debate whether President Trump's obstruction of justice should lead towards a path of impeachment. But there can be no debate over whether our independent judiciary is under withering stress. To see an Attorney General scuriolsy echo the raving rhetoric of his president against a justice department brought a sadness even more than anger. Have we sunk so low? 

We were attacked by a foreign power during the 2016 election, and their goal by whatever means, was to destabilize our institutions of democracy. The Russians wanted us to forsake the very freedoms that have made us strong. And whether through active conspiracy or through a tacit sharing of objectives, these destructive forces have found a witting ally in the president.

We now hear that Barr won't testify before the House tomorrow. He knows he has no good answers to thousands of good questions. But that's not how it's supposed to work. Our officials, the men and women we pay with our tax dollars, owe us accountability. 

President Trump cares nothing for the women and men who pledge him loyalty beyond what that loyalty means for his needs. We have long had the measure of the man. What is so discouraging is those who line up behind him to debase themselves and harm our nation. William Barr is clearly at the top of the list. 

There is no joy in saying all this. There is no joy in seeing Republican senators and representatives line up in obedience. What solace there is comes in the fact that I believe a majority of Americans look at this farce and say, this isn't who we are, or who we will be.

The Voters Believe Cohen More Than Trump (Or GOP)

These charts reflect the results of a new Quinnipiac University Poll -- done between March 1st and 4th of a national sample of 1,120 voters, with a margin of error of 3.4 points.

Trump's lawyer for the last decade testified before Congress in a public session last week. The congressional Republicans did not try to verify what he was saying. They just repeatedly tried to brand him as a liar -- a person who could not be believed no matter what he said. Donald Trump took the same tack.

Were they successful? Not if this poll is to be believed. By a 26 point margin, they disapproved of how the Republicans acted during the hearing (while approving of the Democrats by a 5 point margin). By an 8 point margin, voters thought Cohen told the truth, and by a 15 point margin said they believed Cohen more than Trump. And by a whopping 33 point margin, they believe Congress should do more to investigate Cohen's claims.

It gets worse for Trump. By a 40 point margin, voters think Trump committed crimes before becoming president. And by a 2 point margin, believe he has committed crimes since becoming president. They also think Trump is not honest by a 35 point margin.

Those are not good numbers for Trump. Cohen's testimony hurt him last week. Now the House is preparing to call many more witnesses to testify about Trump's actions both before and after becoming president. The coming months are going to be very uncomfortable for Trump -- and very likely could be fatal for his political ambitions.

Ocasio-Cortez Impresses With Her Questioning Of Cohen

(The image of Cohen testifying is by Richard Codor, and the caricature of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is by DonkeyHotey.)

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is serving her first term in the House Of Representatives. Republicans have tried to demonize her -- probably because a smart and strong woman scares the hell out of them.

And that's exactly what she is -- smart and strong. She has hit the ground running, and is performing exceptionally well for a freshman legislator.

An excellent example of this was displayed during her questioning of Michael Cohen when he appeared before a House committee. Instead of trying to grandstand, like too many other representatives did, she asked pertinent questions and got answers that will help in the investigation of the corrupt Trump family.

Here is her five minutes of questioning:

Ocasio-Cortez: "Thank you, Mr. Chair.

"Mr. Cohen, I would like to quickly pick up on some previous lines of questioning before getting into my own. So I may go a little quickly to get it all in five minutes. First, my colleague from Vermont had you asked several questions about AMI, the parent company of the National Enquirer. And in that you mentioned a treasure trove -- a treasure trove of documents in David Pecker's office relating the information assembled from all of these 'catch and kill' operations against people who potentially had damaging information on the president.

"You also mentioned that the president was very concerned about the whereabouts of these documents and who possessed them. Does that treasure trove of documents still exist?"

Cohen: "I don't know. I had asked David Pecker for them."

Ocasio-Cortez: "So you would say the person who knows the whereabouts of these documents would be David Pecker."

Cohen: "David Pecker, Barry Levine, or Dylan Howard." (Editor’s note: Pecker is chairman of AMI; Levine is the National Enquirer’s former executive editor; Howard is AMI’s vice president.)

Ocasio-Cortez: "Okay. Thank you. Secondly, I want to ask a little bit about your conversation with my colleague from Missouri about asset inflation. To your knowledge, did the president ever provide inflated assets to an insurance company?"

Cohen: "Yes."

Ocasio-Cortez: "Who else knows that the president did this?"

Cohen: "Allen Weisselberg, Ron Lieberman, and Matthew Calamari." (Editor’s note: Weisselberg is the Trump Organization’s CFO, Lieberman and Calamari are executives at the Trump Organization.)

Ocasio-Cortez: "And where would the committee find more information on this? Do you think we need to review his financial statements and his tax returns in order to compare them?"

Cohen: "Yes. And you would find it at the Trump Org."

Ocasio-Cortez: "Thank you very much. The last thing here. The Trump Golf organization currently has a golf course in my home borough of the Bronx, Trump Links. I drive past it every day going between the Bronx and Queens. In fact, The Washington Post reported on the Trump Links Bronx course in an article entitled 'Taxpayers Built this New York Golf Course and Trump Reaps the Rewards.'

"That article is where many New Yorkers and people in the country learned that taxpayers spent $127 million to build Trump Links in a 'generous deal allowing President Trump to keep almost every dollar that flows in on a golf course built with public funds.'

"And this doesn't seem to be the only time the president has benefited at the expense of the public. Mr. Cohen, I want to ask you about your assertion that the president may improperly devalued his assets to avoid paying taxes. According to an August 24th -- August 21st 2016 report by The Washington Post: 'While the president claimed in financial disclosure forms that Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida, was worth more than 50 million, he had reported otherwise to local tax authorities that the course was worth 'no more than 5 million'.' Mr. Cohen, do you know whether this specific report is accurate?"

Cohen: "It is identical to what he did at Trump National Golf Club at Briarcliff Manor."

Ocasio-Cortez: "Do you know -- to your knowledge, was the president interested in reducing his local real estate bills, tax bills?"

Cohen: "Yes."

Ocasio-Cortez: "And how do you do that?"

Cohen: "What you do is you deflate the value of the asset and then you put in a request to the tax department for a deduction."

Ocasio-Cortez: "Thank you. Now on October 2018, the New York Times revealed that 'President Trump participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents.' It further stated for Mr. Trump: 'He also helped formulate a strategy to undervalue his parents' real estate holdings by hundreds of millions of dollars on tax returns, sharply reducing his tax bill when those properties were transferred to him and his siblings.' Mr. Cohen, do you know whether that specific report is accurate?"

Cohen: "I don't. I wasn't there in the 1990s."

Ocasio-Cortez: "Who would know the answer to those questions?"

Cohen: "Allen Weisselberg."

Ocasio-Cortez: "And would it help for the committee to obtain federal and state tax returns from the president and his company to address that discrepancy?"

Cohen: "I believe so."

Ocasio-Cortez: "Thank you very much. I yield the rest of my time to the chair."

Cohen Says Donald Trump Is A Racist, A Conman, & A Cheat

 (These caricatures of Michael Cohen and Donald Trump are by the inimitable DonkeyHotey.)

On Wednesday, Donald Trump's longtime personal attorney (Michael Cohen) testified before Congress. Cohen has already pled guilty and is soon to start a prison sentence for his misdeeds on behalf of Trump. He testified under oath, and I believe he finally told the truth.

Here are some of the things he told Congress:

I am ashamed that I chose to take part in concealing Mr. Trump’s illicit acts rather than listening to my own conscience.

I am ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is.

He is a racist.

He is a conman.

He is a cheat. . . .

To be clear: Mr. Trump knew of and directed the Trump Moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it. He lied about it because he never expected to win the election. He also lied about it because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars on the Moscow real estate project. . . .

Over time, I saw his true character revealed.

Mr. Trump is an enigma. He is complicated, as am I. He has both good and bad, as do we all. But the bad far outweighs the good, and since taking office, he has become the worst version of himself. He is capable of behaving kindly, but he is not kind. He is capable of committing acts of generosity, but he is not generous. He is capable of being loyal, but he is fundamentally disloyal.

Donald Trump is a man who ran for office to make his brand great, not to make our country great. He had no desire or intention to lead this nation – only to market himself and to build his wealth and power. Mr. Trump would often say, this campaign was going to be the “greatest infomercial in political history.”

He never expected to win the primary. He never expected to win the general election. The campaign – for him – was always a marketing opportunity. . . .

A lot of people have asked me about whether Mr. Trump knew about the release of the hacked Democratic National Committee emails ahead of time. The answer is yes.

Mr. Trump knew from Roger Stone in advance about the WikiLeaks drop of emails.

In July 2016, days before the Democratic convention, I was in Mr. Trump’s office when his secretary announced that Roger Stone was on the phone. Mr. Trump put Mr. Stone on the speakerphone. Mr. Stone told Mr. Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that Mr. Assange told Mr. Stone that, within a couple of days, there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Mr. Trump responded by stating to the effect of “wouldn’t that be great.”

Mr. Trump is a racist. The country has seen Mr. Trump court white supremacists and bigots. You have heard him call poorer countries “shitholes.”

In private, he is even worse.

He once asked me if I could name a country run by a black person that wasn’t a “shithole.” This was when Barack Obama was President of the United States.

While we were once driving through a struggling neighborhood in Chicago, he commented that only black people could live that way.

And, he told me that black people would never vote for him because they were too stupid. . . .

Mr. Trump is a cheat. . . .

It was my experience that Mr. Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be listed among the wealthiest people in Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes. . . .

Mr. Trump directed me to find a straw bidder to purchase a portrait of him that was being auctioned at an Art Hamptons Event. The objective was to ensure that his portrait, which was going to be auctioned last, would go for the highest price of any portrait that afternoon. The portrait was purchased by the fake bidder for $60,000. Mr. Trump directed the Trump Foundation, which is supposed to be a charitable organization, to repay the fake bidder, despite keeping the art for himself.

And it should come as no surprise that one of my more common responsibilities was that Mr. Trump directed me to call business owners, many of whom were small businesses, that were owed money for their services and told them no payment or a reduced payment would be coming. When I advised Mr. Trump of my success, he actually reveled in it. . . .

Mr. Trump is a conman.

He asked me to pay off an adult film star with whom he had an affair, and to lie to his wife about it, which I did. Lying to the First Lady is one of my biggest regrets. She is a kind, good person. I respect her greatly – and she did not deserve that. . . .

Mr. Trump directed me to use my own personal funds from a Home Equity Line of Credit to avoid any money being traced back to him that could negatively impact his campaign. . . .

When I say conman, I’m talking about a man who declares himself brilliant but directed me to threaten his high school, his colleges, and the College Board to never release his grades or SAT scores. . . .

The sad fact is that I never heard Mr. Trump say anything in private that led me to believe he loved our nation or wanted to make it better. In fact, he did the opposite.

When telling me in 2008 that he was cutting employees’ salaries in half – including mine – he showed me what he claimed was a $10 million IRS tax refund, and he said that he could not believe how stupid the government was for giving “someone like him” that much money back. . . .

Sometime in the summer of 2017, I read all over the media that there had been a meeting in Trump Tower in June 2016 involving Don Jr. and others from the campaign with Russians, including a representative of the Russian government, and an email setting up the meeting with the subject line, “Dirt on Hillary Clinton.” Something clicked in my mind. I remember being in the room with Mr. Trump, probably in early June 2016, when something peculiar happened. Don Jr. came into the room and walked behind his father’s desk – which in itself was unusual. People didn’t just walk behind Mr. Trump’s desk to talk to him. I recalled Don Jr. leaning over to his father and speaking in a low voice, which I could clearly hear, and saying: “The meeting is all set.” I remember Mr. Trump saying, “Ok good...let me know.”

What struck me as I looked back and thought about that exchange between Don Jr. and his father was, first, that Mr. Trump had frequently told me and others that his son Don Jr. had the worst judgment of anyone in the world. And also, that Don Jr. would never set up any meeting of any significance alone – and certainly not without checking with his father.

I also knew that nothing went on in Trump world, especially the campaign, without Mr. Trump’s knowledge and approval. So, I concluded that Don Jr. was referring to that June 2016 Trump Tower meeting about dirt on

Hillary with the Russian representative when he walked behind his dad’s desk that day -- and that Mr. Trump knew that was the meeting Don Jr. was talking about when he said, “That’s good...let me know.”

Kavanaugh Evaded Answering Too Many Hearing Questions

The Senate Republicans (and Donald Trump) said they were proud of Kavanaugh's performance before the Senate Judiciary Committee last Thursday. They were evidently living in some kind of dream world, because Kavanaugh (in addition to be strident and angry) evaded answering far too many questions.

Here is how Axios.com called it:

We went through the transcript of the hearing and noted every single time a question was asked of Ford and Kavanaugh. (We didn’t include the times a questioner didn’t ask an explicit question.) Then we noted every instance in which answered the question or said they didn’t know the answer — and we also noted every time they either refused to answer or gave an answer that didn’t address the question. Here are the results:

Trump Testifying Really Is A "Fake" News Story

We have been subjected to months of a "fake" news story -- the discussion by cable news talking heads on whether Donald Trump will testify in the Mueller investigation.

The latest from the Trump lawyers is that, while Trump really wants to testify, they believe Mueller is just trying to lay a perjury trap for Trump. That may be the stupidest argument they have come up with in all these many months. Former Michigan Rep. John Dingell puts it most succinctly by saying, "It's only a perjury trap if you're a damn liar".

That's the problem that Trump and his lawyers have though -- Trump is a liar. He lies incessantly about every thing.

The truth is that Trump is not going to testify. He has never testified under oath in his life without being forced to do so by a court. And he's not going to do it this time either, because he is guilty of crimes (obstruction, conspiracy, and probably more).

Why all the talk about how much he wants to testify? Pure public relations garbage. He wants to be able to claim that he wanted to testify, but was not able to do so because the investigators wouldn't treat him fairly. That will probably be accepted by his deplorable base, but most Americans will know that he can't testify because he's a lair and guilty as sin.

The whole thing is a public relations dance between Trump and Mueller. Why is Mueller participating? Because when Trump claims he wanted to testify, Mueller can come back with the fact that he was given every chance to do so. And Mueller also knows it would be useless to subpoena Trump. Even if the subpoena was upheld, Trump would just plead the Fifth -- making the whole endeavor useless.

The media needs to stop covering this "fake" story. Anyone with half a brain has known for quite a while that Trump is NOT going to testify.

Most People Want Trump Questioned By Mueller (Under Oath)

Trump has been all over the map when questioned about whether he would testify in the Mueller investigation of his possible collusion and other illegal activities. He has said he'd love to testify (and would do it under oath), but also said he doesn't see that his testimony should be needed.

I think one of the reasons he wanted the silly memo of Devin Nunes to be released is because he thought he could use it to avoid testifying -- either by firing Mueller or by claiming that the investigation was tainted and unfair. But if this poll is to be believed (and I think it should be), then Trump's excuses or avoidance of testifying is not going to sit well with the general public.

By a 49 point margin, the general public thinks Trump should submit to an interview by Mueller -- and by a 70 point margin, they think Trump should do that interview under oath.

The survey is the latest Monmouth University Poll -- done between January 28th and 30th of a random national sample of 806 adults, with a margin of error of 3.5 points.

Public Wants Trump To Testify Under Oath For Mueller

The Mueller investigation has started to interview (under oath) some of the people highest up in the Trump administration. They just finished interviewing Attorney General Sessions, and will be interviewing Steve Bannon next week. That means they are getting close to wanting an interview with Donald Trump.

For his part, Trump has backed off his earlier claim that he would be happy to testify under oath. He is now claiming that it's not necessary for him to testify (since he claims no collusion has been proven). That's not going to fly though. His lawyers know that, and they are doing their best to either limit his testimony, or have it done in written form. That is silly. Clinton testified under oath when being investigated, and you can bet that Mueller will want Trump to do the same.

That's also what the American people want. They say, that if asked by Mueller to testify, Trump should do it in person and under oath. About 78% want that, while only 18% don't -- an enormous gap of 60 points.Trump is already the most unpopular president since World War II, and trying to get out of testifying is not going to help him.

The chart above is from a new CNN / SSRS Poll -- done between January 14th and 18th of a random national sample of 1,005 adults, with a margin of error of 3.7 points.

Transcript Of Comey's Statement To Intelligence Committee

(This caricature of ex-FBI Director James Comes is by DonkeyHotey.)

James Comey testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee today. I'm sure he'll face a lot of tough questions from senators, but here is the transcript of the prepared statement he'll deliver to that committee before the questioning begins. It concerns his interactions with Donald Trump.

Chairman Burr, Ranking Member Warner, Members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. I was asked to testify today to describe for you my interactions with President-Elect and President Trump on subjects that I understand are of interest to you. I have not included every detail from my conversations with the President, but, to the best of my recollection, I have tried to include information that may be relevant to the Committee.

January 6 Briefing

I first met then-President-Elect Trump on Friday, January 6 in a conference room at Trump Tower in New York. I was there with other Intelligence Community (IC) leaders to brief him and his new national security team on the findings of an IC assessment concerning Russian efforts to interfere in the election. At the conclusion of that briefing, I remained alone with the President Elect to brief him on some personally sensitive aspects of the information assembled during the assessment.

The IC leadership thought it important, for a variety of reasons, to alert the incoming President to the existence of this material, even though it was salacious and unverified. Among those reasons were: (1) we knew the media was about to publicly report the material and we believed the IC should not keep knowledge of the material and its imminent release from the President-Elect; and (2) to the extent there was some effort to compromise an incoming President, we could blunt any such effort with a defensive briefing.

The Director of National Intelligence asked that I personally do this portion of the briefing because I was staying in my position and because the material implicated the FBI’s counter-intelligence responsibilities. We also agreed I would do it alone to minimize potential embarrassment to the President-Elect. Although we agreed it made sense for me to do the briefing, the FBI’s leadership and I were concerned that the briefing might create a situation where a new President came into office uncertain about whether the FBI was conducting a counter-intelligence investigation of his personal conduct.

It is important to understand that FBI counter-intelligence investigations are different than the more-commonly known criminal investigative work. The Bureau’s goal in a counter-intelligence investigation is to understand the technical and human methods that hostile foreign powers are using to influence the United States or to steal our secrets. The FBI uses that understanding to disrupt those efforts. Sometimes disruption takes the form of alerting a person who is targeted for recruitment or influence by the foreign power. Sometimes it involves hardening a computer system that is being attacked. Sometimes it involves "turning" the recruited person into a double-agent, or publicly calling out the behavior with sanctions or expulsions of embassy-based intelligence officers. On occasion, criminal prosecution is used to disrupt intelligence activities.

Because the nature of the hostile foreign nation is well known, counterintelligence investigations tend to be centered on individuals the FBI suspects to be witting or unwitting agents of that foreign power. When the FBI develops reason to believe an American has been targeted for recruitment by a foreign power or is covertly acting as an agent of the foreign power, the FBI will "open an investigation" on that American and use legal authorities to try to learn more about the nature of any relationship with the foreign power so it can be disrupted.

In that context, prior to the January 6 meeting, I discussed with the FBI’s leadership team whether I should be prepared to assure President-Elect Trump that we were not investigating him personally. That was true; we did not have an open counter-intelligence case on him. We agreed I should do so if circumstances warranted. During our one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower, based on PresidentElect Trump’s reaction to the briefing and without him directly asking the question, I offered that assurance. I felt compelled to document my first conversation with the President-Elect in a memo. To ensure accuracy, I began to type it on a laptop in an FBI vehicle outside Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the meeting. Creating written records immediately after one-on-one conversations with Mr. Trump was my practice from that point forward. This had not been my practice in the past. I spoke alone with President Obama twice in person (and never on the phone) – once in 2015 to discuss law enforcement policy issues and a second time, briefly, for him to say goodbye in late 2016. In neither of those circumstances did I memorialize the discussions. I can recall nine one-on-one conversations with President Trump in four months – three in person and six on the phone.

January 27 Dinner

The President and I had dinner on Friday, January 27 at 6:30 pm in the Green Room at the White House. He had called me at lunchtime that day and invited me to dinner that night, saying he was going to invite my whole family, but decided to have just me this time, with the whole family coming the next time. It was unclear from the conversation who else would be at the dinner, although I assumed there would be others.

It turned out to be just the two of us, seated at a small oval table in the center of the Green Room. Two Navy stewards waited on us, only entering the room to serve food and drinks.

The President began by asking me whether I wanted to stay on as FBI Director, which I found strange because he had already told me twice in earlier conversations that he hoped I would stay, and I had assured him that I intended to. He said that lots of people wanted my job and, given the abuse I had taken during the previous year, he would understand if I wanted to walk away.

My instincts told me that the one-on-one setting, and the pretense that this was our first discussion about my position, meant the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship. That concerned me greatly, given the FBI’s traditionally independent status in the executive branch.

I replied that I loved my work and intended to stay and serve out my ten-year term as Director. And then, because the set-up made me uneasy, I added that I was not "reliable" in the way politicians use that word, but he could always count on me to tell him the truth. I added that I was not on anybody’s side politically and could not be counted on in the traditional political sense, a stance I said was in his best interest as the President.

A few moments later, the President said, "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty." I didn’t move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence. The conversation then moved on, but he returned to the subject near the end of our dinner.

At one point, I explained why it was so important that the FBI and the Department of Justice be independent of the White House. I said it was a paradox: Throughout history, some Presidents have decided that because "problems" come from Justice, they should try to hold the Department close. But blurring those boundaries ultimately makes the problems worse by undermining public trust in the institutions and their work.

Near the end of our dinner, the President returned to the subject of my job, saying he was very glad I wanted to stay, adding that he had heard great things about me from Jim Mattis, Jeff Sessions, and many others. He then said, "I need loyalty." I replied, "You will always get honesty from me." He paused and then said, "That’s what I want, honest loyalty." I paused, and then said, "You will get that from me." As I wrote in the memo I created immediately after the dinner, it is possible we understood the phrase "honest loyalty" differently, but I decided it wouldn’t be productive to push it further. The term – honest loyalty – had helped end a very awkward conversation and my explanations had made clear what he should expect.

During the dinner, the President returned to the salacious material I had briefed him about on January 6, and, as he had done previously, expressed his disgust for the allegations and strongly denied them. He said he was considering ordering me to investigate the alleged incident to prove it didn’t happen. I replied that he should give that careful thought because it might create a narrative that we were investigating him personally, which we weren’t, and because it was very difficult to prove a negative. He said he would think about it and asked me to think about it.

As was my practice for conversations with President Trump, I wrote a detailed memo about the dinner immediately afterwards and shared it with the senior leadership team of the FBI.

February 14 Oval Office Meeting

On February 14, I went to the Oval Office for a scheduled counterterrorism briefing of the President. He sat behind the desk and a group of us sat in a semi-circle of about six chairs facing him on the other side of the desk. The Vice President, Deputy Director of the CIA, Director of the National CounterTerrorism Center, Secretary of Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and I were in the semi-circle of chairs. I was directly facing the President, sitting between the Deputy CIA Director and the Director of NCTC. There were quite a few others in the room, sitting behind us on couches and chairs.

The President signaled the end of the briefing by thanking the group and telling them all that he wanted to speak to me alone. I stayed in my chair. As the participants started to leave the Oval Office, the Attorney General lingered by my chair, but the President thanked him and said he wanted to speak only with me. The last person to leave was Jared Kushner, who also stood by my chair and exchanged pleasantries with me. The President then excused him, saying he wanted to speak with me.

When the door by the grandfather clock closed, and we were alone, the President began by saying, "I want to talk about Mike Flynn." Flynn had resigned the previous day. The President began by saying Flynn hadn’t done anything wrong in speaking with the Russians, but he had to let him go because he had misled the Vice President. He added that he had other concerns about Flynn, which he did not then specify.

The President then made a long series of comments about the problem with leaks of classified information – a concern I shared and still share. After he had spoken for a few minutes about leaks, Reince Priebus leaned in through the door by the grandfather clock and I could see a group of people waiting behind him. The President waved at him to close the door, saying he would be done shortly. The door closed.

The President then returned to the topic of Mike Flynn, saying, "He is a good guy and has been through a lot." He repeated that Flynn hadn’t done anything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but had misled the Vice President. He then said, "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go." I replied only that "he is a good guy." (In fact, I had a positive experience dealing with Mike Flynn when he was a colleague as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the beginning of my term at FBI.) I did not say I would "let this go."

The President returned briefly to the problem of leaks. I then got up and left out the door by the grandfather clock, making my way through the large group of people waiting there, including Mr. Priebus and the Vice President.

I immediately prepared an unclassified memo of the conversation about Flynn and discussed the matter with FBI senior leadership. I had understood the President to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December. I did not understand the President to be talking about the broader investigation into Russia or possible links to his campaign. I could be wrong, but I took him to be focusing on what had just happened with Flynn’s departure and the controversy around his account of his phone calls. Regardless, it was very concerning, given the FBI’s role as an independent investigative agency.

The FBI leadership team agreed with me that it was important not to infect the investigative team with the President’s request, which we did not intend to abide. We also concluded that, given that it was a one-on-one conversation, there was nothing available to corroborate my account. We concluded it made little sense to report it to Attorney General Sessions, who we expected would likely recuse himself from involvement in Russia-related investigations. (He did so two weeks later.) The Deputy Attorney General’s role was then filled in an acting capacity by a United States Attorney, who would also not be long in the role. After discussing the matter, we decided to keep it very closely held, resolving to figure out what to do with it down the road as our investigation progressed. The investigation moved ahead at full speed, with none of the investigative team members – or the Department of Justice lawyers supporting them – aware of the President’s request.

Shortly afterwards, I spoke with Attorney General Sessions in person to pass along the President’s concerns about leaks. I took the opportunity to implore the Attorney General to prevent any future direct communication between the President and me. I told the AG that what had just happened – him being asked to leave while the FBI Director, who reports to the AG, remained behind – was inappropriate and should never happen. He did not reply. For the reasons discussed above, I did not mention that the President broached the FBI’s potential investigation of General Flynn.

March 30 Phone Call

On the morning of March 30, the President called me at the FBI. He described the Russia investigation as "a cloud" that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country. He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia. He asked what we could do to "lift the cloud." I responded that we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be great benefit, if we didn’t find anything, to our having done the work well. He agreed, but then re-emphasized the problems this was causing him.

Then the President asked why there had been a congressional hearing about Russia the previous week – at which I had, as the Department of Justice directed, confirmed the investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. I explained the demands from the leadership of both parties in Congress for more information, and that Senator Grassley had even held up the confirmation of the Deputy Attorney General until we briefed him in detail on the investigation. I explained that we had briefed the leadership of Congress on exactly which individuals we were investigating and that we had told those Congressional leaders that we were not personally investigating President Trump. I reminded him I had previously told him that. He repeatedly told me, "We need to get that fact out." (I did not tell the President that the FBI and the Department of Justice had been reluctant to make public statements that we did not have an open case on President Trump for a number of reasons, most importantly because it would create a duty to correct, should that change.)

The President went on to say that if there were some "satellite" associates of his who did something wrong, it would be good to find that out, but that he hadn’t done anything wrong and hoped I would find a way to get it out that we weren’t investigating him.

In an abrupt shift, he turned the conversation to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, saying he hadn’t brought up "the McCabe thing" because I had said McCabe was honorable, although McAuliffe was close to the Clintons and had given him (I think he meant Deputy Director McCabe’s wife) campaign money. Although I didn’t understand why the President was bringing this up, I repeated that Mr. McCabe was an honorable person.

He finished by stressing "the cloud" that was interfering with his ability to make deals for the country and said he hoped I could find a way to get out that he wasn’t being investigated. I told him I would see what we could do, and that we would do our investigative work well and as quickly as we could.

Immediately after that conversation, I called Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente (AG Sessions had by then recused himself on all Russia related matters), to report the substance of the call from the President, and said I would await his guidance. I did not hear back from him before the President called me again two weeks later.

April 11 Phone Call

On the morning of April 11, the President called me and asked what I had done about his request that I "get out" that he is not personally under investigation. I replied that I had passed his request to the Acting Deputy Attorney General, but I had not heard back. He replied that "the cloud" was getting in the way of his ability to do his job. He said that perhaps he would have his people reach out to the Acting Deputy Attorney General. I said that was the way his request should be handled. I said the White House Counsel should contact the leadership of DOJ to make the request, which was the traditional channel.

He said he would do that and added, "Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know." I did not reply or ask him what he meant by "that thing." I said only that the way to handle it was to have the White House Counsel call the Acting Deputy Attorney General. He said that was what he would do and the call ended.

That was the last time I spoke with President Trump.