The New York Times has talked at length with Benjamin Wittes, a friend of former FBI Director James Comey, about Comey’s accounts of uncomfortable encounters with Donald Trump. The lede:

WASHINGTON — President Trump called the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, weeks after he took office and asked him when federal authorities were going to put out word that Mr. Trump was not personally under investigation, according to two people briefed on the call.

Mr. Comey told the president that if he wanted to know details about the bureau’s investigations, he should not contact him directly but instead follow the proper procedures and have the White House counsel send any inquiries to the Justice Department, according to those people.

Wittes himself has written about it on Lawfare blog.

The account is even humorous at times. At one White House event, Comey talked of trying to blend into the curtains to avoid being seen by Trump and stiffly resisting a Trump embrace when he was spotted.

Wittes is a fellow at Brookings and a former Washington Post editorial writer. Call it fake news from a bad source if you will. FYI: Wittes once wrote a somewhat sympathetic book about Kenneth Starr (though critical of him on some jurisdictional grounds), who knows a thing or two about witch hunts.

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