The Dept. of Justice Thursday night released to congressional leaders redacted copies of the memos FBI Director Jim Comey wrote detailing his interactions with President Trump before being fired. It was an unprecedented move made only to appease Republicans seeking to discredit Comey.
It backfired.
It also revealed previously undisclosed remarks by Trump, exposing more to the American people how his mind works.
Trump has been besieged by leaks from within his own White House from the start, and he was furious about them.
In one portion of a memo from February 14, 2017, President Trump suggested to his then FBI Director that prison rape would be an effective method of convincing reporters to reveal their sources – the people who are leaking to them.
“The president then wrapped up our conversation by returning to the issue of finding leakers,” Comey wrote, as HuffPost reports. “I said something about the value of putting a head on a pike as a message. He replied by saying it may involve putting reporters in jail.”
″‘They spend a couple days in jail, make a new friend, and they are ready to talk,’” Comey recounted the president saying. “I laughed as I walked to the door Reince Priebus had opened.”
Some on social media expressed disgust: