Telling Congress that he was “mildly nauseous” at the thought of having influenced the presidential election may have won former FBI Director James Comey plaudits among Democrats and within the bureau. But his choice of words may have doomed him with President Donald Trump.

He found the testimony last week infuriating and griped about it extensively for at least two days, several associates and advisers said. “He was basically defending Hillary Clinton,” said one adviser, explaining Trump’s interpretation of Comey’s testimony. Another person said: “He couldn’t figure out why Comey would go out and say that.”


The firing — which shocked much of Washington, including many of Trump’s senior aides — came days after Comey asked Congress for more resources to pursue the investigation, which had stalled, according to officials briefed on the matter.

But senior aides and other associates who know the president say the firing was triggered not by any one event but rather by the president’s growing frustration with the Russia investigation, negative media coverage and the growing feeling that he couldn’t control Comey, who was a near-constant presence on television in recent days.

Trump did not appreciate that Comey declared his campaign to be under investigation on live TV, said two people who know the president well. He didn’t like that Comey contradicted his unsubstantiated accusation that President Barack Obama tapped his phone line at Trump Tower. And Trump was displeased that the FBI seemed uninterested in pursuing investigations into the leaks he believes are weakening his administration.

“He got tired of him,” one White House official said. “I think that’s how you would explain it. He got really tired of him.”

Publicly, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump made the Comey decision after meeting with top Department of Justice officials at the White House on Monday. Sanders said that Trump was offered a memo outlining a case for firing Comey — which largely hinged on the idea that Comey was too tough on Hillary Clinton, a position at odds with Trump’s many public statements about the investigation into Clinton’s private email server.

In the Sanders account, Trump changed his mind on Comey once he became the president: “I think you’re looking at two very different positions. The president was wearing a different hat at that time. He was a candidate — not the president. Those circumstances certainly change when you become the president.”

Sanders said she was not aware of Trump learning about the request for more funding but had lost confidence in Comey “over several months.” She said Comey had told the president on three occasions that he wasn’t the subject of an investigation, but she refused to say when, where or why the FBI director would do it.

Democrats and Republicans alike didn’t back Comey, she said.

Sanders told reporters that DOJ officials, including Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions were at the White House Monday on “other business” when the topic of Comey came up. They asked to speak to the president about the issue, Sanders said.

She said Trump asked them to put in writing what they told him about Comey and that, as far as she knew, neither Sessions nor Rosenstein had previously spoken to Trump about possibly removing the FBI director.

Others who know Trump say the dynamics were more complicated. He griped about Comey for several days, including in late-night calls from the White House residence. He was looking for a reason to fire the FBI director — and the memo was written in part to suit his desire, according to one adviser and one White House official.

Trump was warned about the firing by Reince Priebus, who believed the fallout could become problematic for the White House, according to two people close to the president. White House press secretary Sean Spicer robustly denied that in a late-night call Tuesday, saying the decision was made only on Tuesday.

Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and prized adviser, supported the move.

Internally, most advisers and aides didn’t know about the looming firing and were taken aback when it became public. “I learned about it on TV,” another administration official said Wednesday.

And the White House was unprepared for the firestorm that’s followed the firing. Within hours, Trump ordered Sanders and Kellyanne Conway to go on TV to defend him and later praised their performance.

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By Wednesday, White House officials had lined up outside surrogates, including ones who often don’t do interviews.

“I thought the president made the right decision, and I think that it’s obvious that he made the right decision because once he received the report from the deputy attorney general that said that Comey had violated all these rules, he had no choice but to do it,” said Trump adviser and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

By the end of the evening, a Senate committee had subpoenaed documents from former national security adviser Michael Flynn — and Rep. Jason Chaffetz, chair of the House Oversight Committtee, had asked for a probe into the Comey firing.

After Sanders finished her briefing Wednesday, top aides huddled in Trump’s office. After that meeting, one White House official described the past 24 hours inside the Trump White House like this: “Total chaos — even by our standards.”

Eliana Johnson, Annie Karni and Ali Watkins contributed to this report.

