Exclusive: Comey will stop short of saying Trump obstructed justice in Flynn probe, source sayshttp://abcnews.go.com/Politics/exclusive-comey-stop-short-trump-obstructed-justice-flynn/story?id=47865739There will be much in former FBI Director James Comey’s upcoming congressional testimony that will make the White House uncomfortable, but he will stop short of saying the president interfered with the agency's probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, a source familiar with Comey's thinking told ABC News.
Although Comey has told associates he will not accuse the President of obstructing justice, he will dispute the president’s contention that Comey told him three times he is not under investigation.
The president allegedly said he hoped Comey would drop the Flynn investigation, a request that concerned Comey enough that he documented the conversation in a memo shortly after speaking with the president. In the memo, according to sources close to Comey who reviewed it, Trump said: "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go," during a February meeting.
The request made Comey uncomfortable, but the source tells ABC News that Comey has told associates he will not accuse the President of obstructing justice.
“He is not going to Congress to make accusations about the President’s intent, instead he’s there to share his concerns,” the source said, and tell the committee “what made him uneasy” and why he felt a need to write the memo documenting the conversation.
Some legal experts told ABC News that Trump's requests as detailed in the memo, which ABC News has not seen, could meet the legal definition of obstruction.
Comey told associates he plans to testify that despite the unusual request from the president he believed strongly that if he did his job properly he could conduct the investigation in an honest way.
However, Comey has told associates he will not corroborate Trump's claim that on three separate occasions Comey told the president he was not under investigation as part of the probe into Russian meddling in the U.S. election,
a source familiar the former director’s thinking told ABC News.
