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COMEY: Well, in looking at any witness, you look at consistency, track record, demeanor, record over time,
that sort of thing.
HEINRICH: Thank you.
So there are reports that the incoming Trump administration, either during the transition and/or after the
inauguration, attempted to set up a sort of back-door communication channel with the Russian government
using their infrastructure, their devices or facilities.
What would be the risks particularly for a transition, someone not actually in the office of the president
yet, to setting up unauthorized channels with a hostile foreign government, especially if they were to evade
our own American intelligence services?
COMEY: I'm not going to comment on whether that happened in an open setting. But the risk is -- primary
risk is obvious: you spare the Russians the cost and effort of having to break into our communications
channels by using theirs.
And so you make it a whole lot easier for them to capture all of your conversations, and then to use those
to the benefit of Russia against the United States.
HEINRICH: The memos that you wrote -- you wrote, did you write all nine of them in a way that was
designed to prevent them from needing classification?
COMEY: No. And -- and, on a few of the occasions, I wrote -- I sent e-mails to my chief of staff or others on
some of the brief phone conversations that I recall. The first one was a classified briefing.
Although it wasn't in a SCIF, it was in a conference room at Trump Tower. It was a classified briefing and
so I wrote that on a classified device. The one I started typing...
HEINRICH: Got you.
COMEY: ... in the car -- that was a classified laptop that I started working on.
HEINRICH: Any reason, in a classified environment, in a SCIF, that this committee would -- it would not be
appropriate to see those communications, from -- at least from your perspective as the author?
COMEY: No.
HEINRICH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
BURR: Senator Blunt.
BLUNT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Comey, when you were terminated at the FBI, I said, and still continue to feel, that you have
provided years of great service to the country.
I also said that I'd had significant questions, over the last year, about some of the decision you made. If
-- if the president hadn't terminated your service, would you still be, in your opinion, the director of the FBI
today?
COMEY: Yes, sir.
BLUNT: So you took as a direction from the president something that you thought was serious and
troublesome, but continued to show up for work the next day?
COMEY: Yes, sir.