During an interview with NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt, Trump admitted that the reasoning his own White House gave for the firing of James Comey was a lie.
Video of Trump:
Trump was asked if he asked for a recommendation, and he answered, “what I did is I was going to fire Comey. My decision….I was going to fire Comey. There’s no good time to do it by the way….I was going to fire regardless of recommendation.”
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
That three-page memo that the White House first used as the rationale for Comey’s firing was a lie. The White House has offered 3-5 differing and contradictory stories about how and why Comey was fired.
The White House is claiming that Comey lost the support of the rank and file FBI, but the acting FBI Director said while testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee that this is not true. The White House claimed that Trump was following the recommendations of experts. This was also not true.
No matter what excuse Trump invents, he can’t tell the American people the real reason why he fired Comey. Trump wanted to fire Comey. He needed a cause to fire the FBI Director, so his administration invented one. The decision to fire Comey was all about Russia.
Trump is only digging the hole deeper for himself by admitting that his White House lied about why Comey was fired.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association