Former FBI Director James Comey says he can’t be sure whether or not Donald Trump was involved in a sexually charged incident with Russian prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room in 2013.
“I honestly never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but I don’t know whether the current president of the United States was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013. It’s possible, but I don’t know,” Comey told George Stephanopoulos in an interviewed teased on “Good Morning America” Friday.
Comey also revealed that when he first told Trump about the rumors that Russia was in possession of a recording of the encounter, the president-elect initially wanted him to investigate it in order to disprove its existence.
“He said, ‘you know, If there’s even a 1 percent chance my wife thinks that’s true, that’s terrible,’” said Comey who added that Trump’s remark about odds has stuck with him.
“I remember thinking, ‘How could your wife think there’s a 1 percent chance you were with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow?’ I’m a flawed human being, but there is literally zero chance that my wife would think that was true. So, what kind of marriage to what kind of man does your wife think [that] there’s only a 99 percent chance you didn’t do that?”
Rumors that the Russians were in possession of such a tape — and that President Trump could be blackmailed from it — were first brought to light in a dossier compiled by former British intelligence operative Christopher Steele. The dossier was famously published by BuzzFeed last year. Comey was the first person to inform Trump the recording’s possible existence.
ABC has been teasing bits from Comey’s exclusive interview with Stephanopoulos as he begins a promotional tour for his new book, “A Higher Calling.” Earlier this week, ABC dropped another nugget suggesting that Comey compared President Trump to a “mob boss.”
Once a liberal villain for his role in the Clinton email investigation, Comey has increasingly become a lightning rod for Republicans after he turned his department towards an investigation of whether the Trump presidential campaign colluded with Russia. The president ultimately fired him in an effort to stem the probe, but the move backfired and resulted in the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller.
Watch above.