Trump told Comey he had ‘other concerns’ about Flynn

President Trump told fired FBI Director James Comey in February that he had “other concerns” about Michael Flynn even as he urged Comey to end his agency’s investigation into the former national security adviser, Comey plans to tell lawmakers Thursday.

“When the door by the grandfather clock closed, and we were alone, the President began by saying, ‘I want to talk about Mike Flynn,’ ” Comey is expected to tell lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee, according to his opening statement released Wednesday.

“Flynn had resigned the previous day. The President began by saying Flynn hadn’t done anything wrong in speaking with the Russians, but he had to let him go because he had misled the Vice President,” Comey recalled. “He added that he had other concerns about Flynn, which he did not then specify.”

{mosads}Comey’s testimony before the Intelligence panel on Thursday will be his first such appearance since his abrupt firing last month.

While Trump never publicly made clear what concerns he may have had about Flynn, Comey’s account of the Feb. 14 Oval Office meeting confirms earlier news reports that the president had asked him to shut down the law enforcement probe of Flynn.

According to Comey’s prepared statement, Trump told him at the February meeting that Flynn had done nothing wrong, saying: “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.”

Flynn was forced to resign amid revelations that he had misled Vice President Pence about the nature of his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about sanctions in the month before Trump took office.

Since leaving the White House, Flynn has emerged as one of the central figures in the FBI’s ongoing investigation into Russian efforts to meddle in the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow.