Trump says Comey tried to ‘leverage’ dossier: report

President Trump says he believes former FBI Director James Comey tried to leverage the controversial dossier assembled by a former British spy in order to keep his job.

In a new interview with The New York Times, Trump said Comey informed him about the dossier, which allegedly contained damaging information about Trump, during a meeting at Trump Tower two weeks ahead of his inauguration.

According to the Times, Trump said it seemed that Comey viewed the information as something he could hold over Trump’s head.

“In my opinion, he shared it so that I would think he had it out there,” Trump said.

{mosads} When asked by the Times if it was as leverage, Trump responded: “Yeah, I think so. In retrospect.”

“When he brought it to me, I said this is really, made-up junk. I didn’t think about any of it. I just thought about, man, this is such a phony deal,” Trump said, denying the dossier’s claims.

The unverified dossier claiming Russia had compromising information on Trump was published ahead of Trump’s inauguration. It was later reported that both the Trump team and members of the Obama administration had been briefed on the intelligence.

Comey detailed all of his meetings with Trump in an opening statement ahead of his June testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, including their discussions about the dossier.

According to Comey’s testimony, Trump called him earlier this year to tell him he was not involved with “hookers” in Russia.

Trump told Comey “he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia.”