Trump Says He Didn’t Fire Comey Over Russia Probe, Contradicting Past Claim

WASHINGTON, DC- JUNE 08: Former FBI Director, James Comey appears before the Senate Intelligence Committee in the Hart Office Building on Thursday June 08, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Matt McClain/The Washingto... WASHINGTON, DC- JUNE 08: Former FBI Director, James Comey appears before the Senate Intelligence Committee in the Hart Office Building on Thursday June 08, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images) MORE LESS
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President Donald Trump on Wednesday morning claimed that he did not fire James Comey as FBI director over his handling of the Russia investigation, even though the President admitted as much last year.

Trump’s tweet contradicts comments he made to NBC’s Lester Holt in May of last year. The President said he was thinking about the Russia investigation when he decided to fire Comey and said he would have fired the FBI director regardless of any recommendation from the Justice Department.

“And in fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won,” Trump told NBC at the time. “This was an excuse for having lost an election.”

Trump’s rage for Comey has been renewed recently with the publication of the former FBI director’s book and subsequent media interviews. The President fired off several angry tweets directed at Comey over the weekend, going so far as to suggest that Comey should be in jail.

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  1. Ah yes, that makes total sense. Let’s all move on.

  2. And, of course, when Spanky finally blows his stack and fires Mueller, it won’t be because of the Russian investigation either.

  3. Well, that should clear it up.

    But seriously folks, Jim Newell wrote a good piece in Slate yesterday about how all this talk of end stages is premature if you can’t say how the Trump presidency actually ends, what the steps are and how you figure they’re happening in the foreseeable future. He’s got an excellent point. But Jesus, this stuff, it’s just sad. No snark, I mean it, it’s just pathetic and sad. It feels like an end stage, like there’s no way back or forward from this pathetic wallowing in obvious guilt. Newell’s astute so he’d have a good comeback to that. Maybe he’d say we’re just in a weird place right now, like when Wilson had his stroke, and it’ll be over when it’s over.

  4. where, by the way, there was NO COLLUSION

    :bell::bell::bell:

    Never can resist deploying the LOOK OVER HERE, LOOK RIGHT HERE, HERE IS THE COLLUSION beacon.

    I wonder if he really understands what would and would not constitute collusion with the Russians, or if he’s just internalized it as a bad thing that therefore (because Donald Trump does not do bad, Donald Trump cannot coexist with bad, badness and Donald Trump are mutually exclusive) he did not do.

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