Former FBI Director James Comey said before his firing, he did not confront President Donald Trump about false statements because he wanted to keep his job.

"In my situation, my judgment was I'm trying to stay in a role for another six years, protect and represent an institution, so I need to find a way to build a relationship with the president and make sure the conduct lines are abided," Comey said in an interview with The Washington Post, The Hill reported.

"I'm standing there in the first five months of a president's tenure, where I expect to be there for his first four years and then beyond," Comey added.

Comey said that in meetings, Trump told falsehoods such as bragging about his inauguration crowd being the largest in history. Statements such as that led Comey to begin documenting his personal conversations with the president.

The former director said that the FBI could have done more to help guide Trump on protocols that exist between the Justice Department and the White House, but he said the president seemed "totally uninterested" in learning about such protocols.

He also criticized a judge who said he was skeptical about special counsel Robert Mueller's prosecution of Paul Manafort in Mueller's probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.



"I don't know how a federal judge could possibly know enough about an investigation… to offer a view like that," Comey told The Post.