Former deputy national security adviser K.T. McFarland accused former FBI director James Comey of blackmailing then-President-elect Donald Trump in January 2017, comparing Comey to the agency’s disgraced founder J. Edgar Hoover.
McFarland, appearing on Newsmax TV with former colleague Sean Spicer, described a Jan. 6, 2017, briefing by the national security officials for incoming White House staff – including McFarland and Spicer.
After the briefing, she said, Comey pulled Trump aside to privately inform him of documents gathered by former British government spy Christopher Steele as opposition research for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign against Trump.
While the other intelligence chiefs recommended against including it as part of the briefing, Comey acted on his own to do it anyway, McFarland said. The filed contained unverified accusations of “weird sexual behavior and stuff that (Trump) had done in Moscow,” she said on Spicer & Co. speaking as Comey.
The information was used to help justify a counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign which eventually was taken over by special prosecutor Robert Mueller.
McFarland said according to notes Comey took on the private meeting with Trump, the two explained pleasantries.
“And then Comey said, ‘I actually want to reassure you that I intend to stay as FBI director,’” McFarland said he told Trump. “And then Comey pulls out his file, his J. Edgar Hoover file.”
Trump denied the claims in the file.
“And Comey says, ‘Well, maybe not but the media is really hot for it. Only a few people in the intelligence community have a copy of this.’ Long pause,” McFarland said. “And then, what does President Trump do? He says, ‘Well I look forward to working with you.’
“And Comey says, ‘I assure you, I will stay.” What does that say to me? It was a shakedown. It was a J. Edgar Hoover classic shakedown.”
Trump fired Comey on May 9, 2017.
McFarland, who served for four months as deputy national security adviser and whose book “Trump, Washington and ‘We The People’ was published earlier this year, described Hoover as being able to maintain his position as FBI director from 1924 to 1972 because he would blackmail incoming presidents with similar tactics.
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