The Justice Department on Thursday turned over to Congress declassified copies of former FBI director James Comey's memos - his contemporaneous notes about his conversations and encounters with President Donald Trump before he was fired last year.
The 15-page disclosure includes Comey's account of the briefing he gave Trump at Trump Tower about some of the allegations about his contacts with Russia, as well as his later meetings with Trump at the White House, during one in which Comey said that the president asked him for his loyalty and in another in which Comey says Trump told him: “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.”
Comey says he took that as the president wanting him to end the investigation into retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump’s fired former national security adviser.
Comey also said that then-chief of staff Reince Priebus asked him whether Flynn was under government surveillance and that Trump claimed Russian President Vladimir Putin told him Russia had "some of the most beautiful hookers in the world."
Trump, who has previously dismissed the memos as "fake," claimed on Thursday night that the memos exonerated him in the ongoing Russia investigation while criticizing Comey's conduct.
You can read the declassified and partially redacted memos here: