During his April 15, 2018, ABC News interview with George Stephanopoulos, former FBI Director James Comey described Steele as a "credible source": "It was coming from a credible source, someone with a track record, someone who was a credible and respected member of an allied intelligence service during his career, and so it was important that we try to understand it, and see what could we verify, what could we rule in or rule out."
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James Comey wrote in his book A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership that Trump asked him to have the FBI investigate the pee tape allegation "because he wanted to convince his wife that it wasn't true":[227]
He brought up what he called the 'golden showers thing' … adding that it bothered him if there was 'even a 1 percent chance' his wife, Melania, thought it was true." Comey then wrote: "In what kind of marriage, to what kind of man, does a spouse conclude there is only a 99 percent chance her husband didn't do that?[227]
Comey did not know if the "golden showers" allegation was true, but he came to believe it was possible. In an interview for ABC News, he told George Stephanopoulos:
I honestly never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but I don't know whether the current president of the United States was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013. It's possible, but I don't know.[228]