NY Times: Trump Demanded FBI Director's "Loyalty" At Private Dinner

Former FBI Director James Comey

The New York Times is reporting a slightly different version of the Trump/Comey dinner meeting back in January than what Trump revealed last night on NBC:

Only seven days after Donald J. Trump was sworn in as president, James B. Comey has told associates, the F.B.I. director was summoned to the White House for a one-on-one dinner with the new commander in chief. The conversation that night in January, Mr. Comey now believes, was a harbinger of his downfall this week as head of the F.B.I., according to two people who have heard his account of the dinner.

As they ate, the president and Mr. Comey made small talk about the election and the crowd sizes at Mr. Trump’s rallies. The president then turned the conversation to whether Mr. Comey would pledge his loyalty to him. Mr. Comey declined to make that pledge. Instead, Mr. Comey has recounted to others, he told Mr. Trump that he would always be honest with him, but that he was not “reliable” in the conventional political sense.

By Mr. Comey’s account, his answer to Mr. Trump’s initial question apparently did not satisfy the president, the associates said. Later in the dinner, Mr. Trump again said to Mr. Comey that he needed his loyalty. Mr. Comey again replied that he would give him “honesty” and did not pledge his loyalty, according to the account of the conversation.

The Times goes on to state that Comey shared the dinner conversation with folks close to him on the condition that they not share the chat publicly while he was serving as FBI Director.

Apparently, now that Comey has been dismissed, those folks felt free to share.

FYI - FBI officials take an oath to the Constitution, not a president.