President Trump accused James Comey of breaking the law and leaking classified information, but the source for his claim wasn’t from the intelligence community, but from a Fox and Friends report that contained multiple factual errors.
Trump tweeted:
Report accuses material James Comey leaked to a friend contained top secret information pic.twitter.com/Hkg4cAb6o9
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) July 10, 2017
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Fox and Friends described a story from The Hill, “It turns out, he may actually have broken the rules. A brand-new bombshell report accuses Comey of putting our national security at risk. According to the Hill, the former FBI director’s personal memos detailing private conversations with President Trump contained top secret information.”
This is not true. Comey gave one memo to a friend that contained no classified info. As The Washington Post pointed out, “During his testimony, Comey refers to the memo he gave to his friend in the singular — ‘the memo.’ There’s no indication that he asked that one of the classified memos be leaked. In fact, his testimony — under oath, remember — was the opposite.”
Trump took an inaccurate Fox News report and used to attack someone that he views as a political enemy. Trump has done this often as a candidate, and as president. The conservative media echo chamber creates false information that the president uses to attack his enemies real or imagined.
As the President Of The United States, Donald Trump could easily find out if Comey leaked classified information. The fact that Trump dropped his threat to take legal action against the former FBI Director speaks volumes. Comey’s memos could be government documents or personal memos. There is an ongoing dispute over their legal classification, but Comey only gave one memo to a friend, and that memo did not contain classified information.
Conservative media is creating fake news, and Donald Trump is trying to use the presidency to legitimize it, and in the process, he is trashing the credibility of the Executive Branch of the US government.
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
