“In a credibility battle between Trump and Comey, everybody knows Comey is going to win<br />that war,” said Adam W. Goldberg, who was an associate special White House counsel under Mr. Clinton during Kenneth W. Starr’s investigation<br />“This was a devastating day for the Trump White House,<br />and when the history of the Trump presidency is written, this will be seen as a key moment,” said Peter H. Wehner, who was White House adviser to President George W. Bush.<br />For Trump, the ‘Cloud’ Just Grew That Much Darker -<br />By PETER BAKERJUNE 8, 2017<br />WASHINGTON — Upset about the investigation into Russian interference in last year’s<br />election, President Trump sought relief from James B. Comey, then the F. B.I.<br />director accusing the White House of “lies, plain and simple” and asserting<br />that when the president suggested dropping an investigation into his former national security adviser, “I took it as a direction.”<br />Mr. Comey gave ammunition to the president’s side, too, particularly by admitting<br />that he had orchestrated the leak of his account of his most critical meeting with Mr. Trump with the express purpose of spurring the appointment of a special counsel, which he accomplished.<br />Indeed, Mr. Comey highlighted the difference by noting<br />that he had never taken notes of his conversations with either of those presidents because he trusted their basic integrity, but he did write memos about each of his one-on-one encounters with Mr. Trump because “I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting.”<br />In any other presidency, the events laid out by Mr. Comey — Mr. Trump asking for “loyalty” from the F. B.I.
