President Trump on Thursday denied ever asking FBI Director James B. Comey to back off his agency’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, as well as into the role played by former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Asked whether he urged Comey to ease up on the Flynn investigation, Trump said at a news conference, “No, no,” before ordering the media to move on to the “next question.” Earlier this week there were several news reports that Trump made the request regarding Flynn during a February meeting in the Oval Office. These accounts were based on a memo Comey drafted at the time, first reported by the New York Times, in which Comey wrote that Trump, according to officials familiar with the memo, called Flynn “a good guy” and urged him, “I hope you can let this go.” Trump fired Comey last week. At the news conference, the president also reiterated his claim that the Justice Department's decision Wednesday to appoint a special counsel to look into possible collusion with Russia was “a witch hunt,” saying he had never colluded with the Russians. “I respect the move, but the entire thing has been a witch hunt, and there is no collusion between — certainly myself and my campaign, but I can only speak for myself and the Russians. Zero,” Trump said, at the joint news conference Thursday afternoon with President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia. “Believe me, there’s no collusion. Russia is fine, but whether it’s Russia or anybody else, my total priority, believe me, is the United States of America.” In addition to contradicting Comey's account of the encounter, Trump's comments also put him into stark opposition with Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, who appointed the special counselor and whose memo criticizing Comey was initially used as justification by the White House to explain the president's decision to fire his FBI director. The president himself later said he had long disliked Comey and made up his mind to fire him before Rosenstein presented him with his memo, and on Thursday Rosenstein also told the full Senate that he knew Comey would be fired before he wrote his controversial memo. But during the news conference, Trump contradicted both his own account and that of Rosenstein. “Director Comey was very unpopular with most people,” Trump said. “I also got a very, very strong recommendation, as you know, from the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein.” The president also expressed surprise that he had not received bipartisan support for his decision to fire Comey; called the suggestion he had done anything potentially worthy of criminal charges “totally ridiculous;” and repeated his assertion that he had never helped the Russians interfere in the 2016 presidential election. “There was no collusion,” he said. “And everybody, even my enemies have said, there is no collusion.”
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