House Oversight Committee chair Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) on Sunday said he hopes a report that President Donald Trump disparaged former FBI Director James Comey to Russian officials is not true.
Asked on ABC’s “This Week” to respond to a report that Trump told Russian officials Comey was a “nut job,” Chaffetz said, “Well, I hope that’s not true.”
“I don’t know if that was said or not said,” he said. “You would like, I would think, the President to kind of beat them over the head with the fact that if they did, the Russians, if they actually did interfere in any way, shape, or form, how wrong that is and how outraged America is on both sides of the aisle.”
The New York Times reported on Friday that Trump told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak that Comey was “crazy, a real nut job.”
“I faced great pressure because of Russia,” Trump said, according to the Times. “That’s taken off.”
The White House did not dispute the accuracy of those quotes.
Rep. Chaffetz on Oval Office meeting with Russians: "You would like the president to beat them over the head" over electoral interference. pic.twitter.com/3toUOsYwh5
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) May 21, 2017