Updated at 11:13 p.m.
The notes of a former top Justice Department official discussing what ex-FBI Director James Comey told him about being pressured by President Trump to lay off the Russia investigation were revealed in a MSNBC report Tuesday evening.
The notes from Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente were dated March 30, 2017, and would appear to be the first hard evidence to corroborate Comey’s testimony that he Trump had asked him to “lift the cloud” put over his administration by the Russia inquiry looking into his ties to Russia.
“Immediately after that conversation, I called Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente, to report the substance of the call from the President, and said I would await his guidance. I did not hear back from him before the President called me again two weeks later,” Comey said of the late-March encounter to the Senate Intelligence Committee during a hearing June of 2017. Sessions had already by that point recused himself of all Russia-related investigations.
In the Boente’s handwritten notes obtained by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Boente said, “cloud as a result of Russia business. This makes running the country difficult,” echoing the exact words Comey had told congressional investigators.
Maddow went on to list other examples where Boente’s notes closely track what Comey had said in testimony last year.
The notes were one of a few documents that Maddow shared on her show, saying that had previously not been brought to light. One of the certified that Boente’s notes were not classified. “We have authenticated them to the best of our ability,” she said.
Boente served as acting attorney general after Sally Yates was fired and was also acting deputy attorney general before the appointment and confirmation of Rod Rosenstein.
The 33-year-old veteran of the Justice Department announced his resignation as U.S. attorney overseeing in the Eastern District of Virginia in October 2017, though he made it clear that this would only become effective when his successor, John Demers, was confirmed.
In January, Boente was picked by FBI Director Christopher Wray to be the agency’s general counsel. At the time he was still U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia and the acting head of the Justice Department’s national security division.
Another document obtained by Maddow shows Boente was contacted by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team in early January, asking him to agree to an interview.
Maddow said it so far unclear whether Boente agreed to talk with Mueller’s prosecutors.
Comey was fired by Trump in the spring of 2017, after which Rosenstein appointed Mueller to lead the federal Russia investigation.
It was in the aftermath of Comey’s ouster, after he says Trump asked him to lay off the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn and asked him for loyalty, that the Washington Post reported Mueller had expanded his investigation to look at possible obstruction of justice.
Trump himself teased last summer that there might be “tapes” of his conversations with Comey, but later denied there were any recordings. In response to Trump’s tease, Comey famously said, “Lordy, I hope there are tapes,” while testifying to the Senate Intelligence Committee in June 2017.
Comey is now poised to release a memoir next week and during the accompanying book tour is expected to open up about his time serving in the FBI, including under Trump.
