FBI Director James Comey once tried to blend in with the curtains so Donald Trump wouldn’t spot him

| 9:53 pm EDT May 18, 2017
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Now that Donald Trump has fired FBI Director James Comey in an admitted attempt at sabotaging the Russia investigation, Comey is now publicly pushing back – or at least his friends are. Comey’s associates have revealed this week that he kept detailed memos of his exchanges with Trump, and that Trump once asked him to let adviser Michael Flynn off the hook. Now comes a report that Comey once literally tried to blend in with the curtains, in the hope Trump wouldn’t spot him.

We all got to see the White House reception shortly after Donald Trump took office, in which he blew James Comey a kiss and then embraced him. But now Comey’s friend Ben Wittes from the site Lawfare is sharing Comey’s side of the story with the New York Times (link). Allegedly, Comey didn’t want to go to the White House Blue Room meeting to begin with, because he was looking to keep his independence from Trump. But when he ultimately decided to attend, he wore a blue suit and tried to blend in with the curtains on the far side of the room.

As we’ve all seen in the infamous video clip, that didn’t work for long. Trump called out Comey from across the room, blowing him the kiss which was widely interpreted as his way of thanking Comey for tilting the election in his favor. According to Wittes, as the two men approached, Comey got the sense that Trump was going for a hug, and preemptively stuck his hand out to try force it to be a handshake. The embrace ended up being a little bit of both.

Aside from the potentially amusing anecdote of James Comey hiding in the curtains from Donald Trump, what may be most notable about this latest leak is this: it signifies that even with Special Counsel Robert Mueller now in place, James Comey is still willing to leak damaging things about Trump – or at least his friends are.