Former FBI general counsel James Baker said he and other officials were concerned that disgraced former FBI director James Comey appeared to be blackmailing then President-elect Trump during a 2017 meeting.
Fox News reports that Baker appeared on Yahoo News’ Skullduggery podcast on Tuesday where he said he and others were “quite worried” about Comey briefing Trump on January 6, 2017 on the Steele dossier and Russia collusion allegations. Baker claims “analogies” were made to former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover who is known for blackmailing his foes.
“We were quite worried about the Hoover analogies, and we were determined not to have such a disaster happen on our watch.”
Baker also discussed the discredited Steele dossier, claiming the FBI took it “seriously.”
Fox reports: Baker did not recall the moment he first heard about the Steele dossier but remembered the bureau taking it “seriously” and said that they were “obligated to deal with it” and determine whether or not anything about it was true, but insisted they didn’t accept it “as gospel.” He did, however, believe Trump had to be briefed on the dossier because it was “about to be disclosed to the press.”
