NEW YORK CITY — President Donald Trump's attempts to gain FBI Director James Comey's unqualified loyalty, a move that has drawn suspicion from congressional investigators, was just "normal New York City conversation," New Jersey Governor Chris Christie argued.
"I think what people don't understand is that they elected an outsider president. They elected someone who'd never been inside government," Christie said in an interview with Nicolle Wallace on MSNBC Wednesday.
"What you're seeing is a president who is now very publicly learning about the way people react to what he considers to be normal New York City conversation," the governor added.
Chris Christie: Trump's comments to Comey were 'normal' NYC conversation https://t.co/E26llMLpXz https://t.co/3ZCmJ2tnfe
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) June 7, 2017
Christie was interpreting written testimony Comey planned to present to the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday in which the FBI director, whom Trump fired in May, outlines a series of "awkward" conversations with the Commander in Chief.
Comey relayed to the president that he was investigating his campaign's ties to Russia, but not the president himself, but Trump asked him to drop the investigation because it was a "cloud" that was affecting his ability to govern and "make deals for the country," the former director wrote.
On Jan. 27, the president hosted Comey at a private one-on-one dinner in which Trump seemed to want the FBI director to ask to stay in his position, he wrote.
“My instincts told me that the one-on-one setting, and the pretense that this was our first discussion about my position, meant the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship,” Comey wrote.
Trump then said, "I need loyalty. I expect loyalty," according to Comey.
“I didn’t move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed,” Comey wrote. “We simply looked at each other in silence."
In a later conversation, Trump directly asked the FBI director in another one-on-one meeting to drop his agency's investigation into National Security Advisor Michael Flynn's ties to Russia.
"He is a good guy and has been through a lot. ... I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go," the president said, according to Comey.
The former FBI director is scheduled to testify before the Senate's committee at 10 a.m.
