--- title: Comey Testimony: Trump Claims 'Complete Vindication' description: President Trump broke his silence on James Comey's congressional testimony, tweeting that he feels "complete vindication." canonical: https://time.com/4812412/comey-testimony-trump-vindication/ author: Tessa Berenson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-06-09T11:41:11.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-08T09:06:38.048Z article:section: Politics og:title: Trump Claims 'Complete Vindication' After Comey's Testimony og:description: The president finally took to Twitter to share his thoughts og:url: https://time.com/4812412/comey-testimony-trump-vindication/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt73dcf3555de53756/6988d0a0196cf4b26d040789/donald-trump-approval-rating.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: President Trump Departs White House En Route To Cincinnati, Ohio og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trump Claims 'Complete Vindication' After Comey's Testimony twitter:description: The president finally took to Twitter to share his thoughts twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt73dcf3555de53756/6988d0a0196cf4b26d040789/donald-trump-approval-rating.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # President Trump Claims 'Complete Vindication' After James Comey's Testimony > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=cb76bb11-0bc1-4a05-90d8-f5a8be6fba32&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Watch Former FBI Director James Comey Testimony's In Under 4 Minutes [Watch (HLS stream): Watch Former FBI Director James Comey Testimony's In Under 4 Minutes](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/2q2ri9od.m3u8) (3:58)  _Published 2017-06-08. Former FBI Director James Comey spoke in public for the first time about his relationship with President Donald Trump and the circumstances that led to his firing. He called White House descriptions of his firing as "lies, plain and simple."_  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Jun 9, 2017 11:41 AM UTC Former FBI Director James Comey spoke in public for the first time about his relationship with President Donald Trump and the circumstances that led to his firing. He called White House descriptions of his firing as "lies, plain and simple."  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Jun 9, 2017 11:41 AM UTC President Trump broke his silence on former FBI Director [James Comey](http://time.com/4811525/comey-testimony-capitol-hill-hearing/)‘s congressional testimony, tweeting that he feels “complete vindication.” “Despite so many false statements and lies, total and complete vindication…and WOW, Comey is a leaker!” Trump tweeted around 6 a.m. ET Friday. > [](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/873120139222306817) Trump’s tweet echoes key language from his lawyer’s Thursday afternoon [statement](http://time.com/4811712/comey-testimony-marc-kasowitz-transcript/), which said in part, “The President feels completely vindicated and is eager to continue moving forward with his agenda with this public cloud removed.” It also continues the trend of Trump and his allies selectively reading Comey’s multiple hours of testimony, trumpeting the parts they like (Comey confirmed that he told Trump that Trump was not under FBI investigation, and he admitted to having a friend [leak a memo](http://time.com/4811044/james-comey-testimony-media-leaks/) to the press) and [dismissing ](http://time.com/4811189/comey-testimony-marc-kasowitz-trump-lawyer/)the parts they don’t (Comey said Trump [asked him for loyalty](http://time.com/4809221/james-comey-testimony-donald-trump-loyalty/?iid=sr-link2), which may lead to an obstruction of justice investigation, among [other revelations](http://time.com/4811175/comey-testimony-donald-trump-highlights/?xid=homepage)). ## Transcript You solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, the nothing but the truth, so help me God. I do. Please be seated. When I was appointed FBI Director in 2013, I understood that I served at the pleasure of the President. And although the law required no reason at all to fire an FBI Director, the adminstration then chose To defame me, and more importantly, the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader. Those were lies, plain and simple and I am so sorry that the FBI workforce had to hear them. And I'm so sorry that the American people were told them. I don't think it's for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct. I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning, but that's a conclusion I'm sure the special counsel will work towards to try and understand what the intention was there, and whether that's an offense. I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, and so I thought it really important to document. You've seen the picture of me walking across the Blue Room, and what the President whispered in my ear was, " I really look forward to working with you ." So after those encounters... And that was just a few days before you were fired. Yeah, that was on the 20... the sunday after the inauguration. The next Friday I have dinner and the president begins by wanting to talk about my job. And so I'm sitting there thinking, wait a minute, three times we've already, you've already asked me to stay or talked about me staying. And my common sense, again I could be wrong, but my common sense told me what's going on here is Hes looking to get something in exchange for granting my request to stay in the job. My impression was something big is about to happen I need to remember every single word that is spoken and again I could be wrong I am 56 years old I've been I've seen a few things my sense was the attorney general knew. He shouldn't be leaving, which is why he was lingering. And I don't know Mr. Kushner well, but I think he picked up on the same thing. And so I knew something was about to happen, and I need to know very close attention to. So look I've seen a tweet about tapes, Lordy I hope they are tapes. President tweeted on Friday after I got fired, that I better hope there's not tapes I woke up in the middle of the night on Monday night, cuz it didn't dawn on me originally, that there might be corroboration for our conversation. There might be a tape, and my judgement was, I needed to get that out into the public square. So I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter. Didn't do it myself for a variety of reasons, but I asked him to because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special council. And so I asked a close friend of mine to do it. And then you made a comment earlier about the attorney general, previous attorney general, asking you about the investigation on the Clinton emails saying that you'd been asked not to ask to call it an investigation anymore but to call it a matter. And you said that confused you. Can you give us additional details on that? Well it concerned me because we were at the point where we had refused to confirm the existence, as we typically do, of an investigation for months. And it was getting to a place where that looked silly because the campaigns were talking about interacting with the FBI in the course of our work. The Clinton campaign at the time was using all kinds of euphemisms. Security review, matters, things like that for what was going on. We were getting to a place where the attorney general and I were both gonna have to testify and talk publicly about it. And I wanna know what she gonna authorize us to confirm we had an investigation. And she said yes, but don't call it that. Call it a matter. And I said why would I do that? And she said, just call it a matter. And so that concerned me, because that language tracked the way the campaign was talking about the FBI's work, and that's concerning. All I can do is hope. The President, surely, knows whether he taped me. And if he did, my feelings aren't hurt, release all the tapes. I'm good with it. 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