FBI Director James Comey confided in James Clapper before having dinner with Donald Trump

| 8:23 pm EDT May 12, 2017
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When FBI Director James Comey was fired this week, he gained something in common with recently retired Director of National Intelligence James Clapper: they’re both no longer government employees. But it turns out they already had something very specific in common: a private conversation between the two of them just before Comey reluctantly agreed to have dinner with Donald Trump.

This brings James Clapper, a straight shooter from the intel community who spent decades serving U.S. Presidents of both parties, right back into focus in the Trump Russia investigation – just days after he publicly testified about it alongside Sally Yates. Now that Trump has fired Comey, it’s Clapper who’s speaking up Comey’s defense. First, Clapper is making clear that Trump is wrong for claiming that Clapper said there was no evidence of Trump-Russia collusion. But then Clapper went into something that may ultimately be more crucial.

Trump is now claiming that James Comey asked him to dinner in late January and asked to be allowed to keep his job as FBI Director. But James Clapper is shooting all of that down. Clapper says that Trump set up the dinner, and that Comey confided in him just before the dinner because he was uneasy about the prospect (source: NBC News). Clapper says that Comey only ultimately agreed to have the dinner with Trump out of obligation.

And so even as the political left and right both try to figure out whether or not they ever trusted James Comey or should trust him now, the universally trusted James Clapper is defending Comey by making clear that Trump is lying. It’s also worth pointing out that Clapper was already retired by the time of this conversation. So Comey wasn’t merely running the dinner past a supervisor first; he was concerned enough about that he confided in his retired former boss. Look for Trump to begin attacking Clapper momentarily. Help fund Palmer Report