Former FBI Director James Comey's contemporaneous memos of his interactions with President Donald Trump show that the president questioned the judgement of former national security adviser Michael Flynn -- and now a new report from the Wall Street Journal reveals why.
According to Comey's redacted memos, Trump berated Flynn because he waited days to inform him about a phone call to the White House from an unspecified world leader. Although the leader's name was blacked out in the memos, the Journal has independently confirmed that the president was referring to Russian president Vladimir Putin.
"People familiar with the matter say that the call was from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was the first foreign leader to call the White House to congratulate Mr. Trump after his inauguration," the Journal reports. "The call wasn’t brought to Mr. Trump’s attention until he was in the middle of a lunch with British Prime Minister Theresa May and was thanking her for being the first to call him. Mr. Flynn piped up and explained that it was Mr. Putin, not Ms. May, who the first to call... according to the memo, Mr. Trump was furious 'because six days was not an appropriate period of time to return a call.'"
Comey’s memos, which were leaked to the media on Thursday night, offered a slew of new details surrounding his interactions with the Trump White House.
Among other things, they show that Trump talked with his former FBI director about Russian prostitutes on three separate occasions; that the FBI had been granted a FISA warrant to surveil former national security adviser Michael Flynn while he was working in the White House; that Trump, despite his professed love for Flynn, questioned his judgement; and that Trump had pitched jailing reporters as a way to stop leaks coming from the White House.
