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Trump rips Comey on TV
On Fox, president slams Comey, probe, defends Cohen
In a phone call to “Fox and Friends,” the president derided the former FBI director as “a leaker and a liar.”
WASHINGTON — In a grievance-filled interview, President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to intervene in the Justice Department’s Russia investigation, again derided former FBI Director James Comey as “a leaker and … a liar,” and defended allies now under investigation.
Trump also used the wide-ranging half-hour phone conversation with the hosts of “Fox & Friends” to praise his handling of Iran and North Korea, and said his accomplishments as president were unparalleled. “I would give myself an A-plus,” he said.
Yet even in that friendly territory, the focus came back again and again to what Trump called the “phony cloud” of controversy surrounding him.
He flared with anger at the Justice Department, which he said should be investigating his enemies instead of him. “I’m very disappointed in my Justice Department,” he said.
The FBI’s actions in investigating his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, were an “absolute disgrace,” Trump added, citing particularly the ways federal officials searched for evidence at their homes and offices. “That’s not the FBI, that’s a fix,” he said.
He also suggested that his pledge not to intrude on the Russia investigation — a vow he has broken many times with verbal suggestions to Attorney General Jeff Sessions — could be reversed.
“I have decided that I won’t be involved. I may change my mind at some point, because what’s going on is a disgrace,” he said.
The president also perhaps stoked concerns among some members of Congress from both parties that he might try to fire the two men in charge of the Russia probe, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and special counsel Robert Mueller. He referred caustically to the “witch hunt with people in the Justice Department who shouldn’t be there.”
Trump indicated that he watched some of CNN’s Wednesday night town hall discussion with Comey, whom the president fired last spring and who has resurrected his criticisms of Trump on a book tour for his new memoir.
“I did a great thing for the American people by firing him,” Trump said. “Look, Comey is a leaker and he’s a liar and not only on this stuff — he’s been leaking for years.”
Trump insisted that memos Comey had given a friend recounting conversations with Trump were not only false but classified, a charge the former FBI director has denied.
“He is guilty of crimes and if we had a Justice Department that was doing their job … ” Trump said before being interrupted by the Fox News hosts, who struggled to keep the president on topic.
Trump also defended Cohen, who said in court papers on Wednesday that he would decline to testify in upcoming proceedings, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The president called him “a good person, a great guy” who did only a “tiny, tiny, little fraction” of Trump’s legal work.
With that, Trump likely caused some shudders among his legal team, by undercutting their argument that Cohen was acting as Trump’s lawyer and anything seized in the raids on his property is protected by attorney-client privilege. Indeed, prosecutors in New York quickly cited Trump’s remarks to legally counter the Trump team’s privilege claim. Yet Trump said of federal investigators and Cohen: “They’re looking at something that has to do with his business. This doesn’t have to do with me.”
The president did say that Cohen represented him in “this crazy Stormy Daniels deal,” referring to the $130,000 payment made to an adult film star shortly before the election to silence her allegations that she and Trump had an affair a dozen years ago.
“From what I see, he did absolutely nothing wrong,” Trump said of the deal, which Cohen has said was financed by his own home equity loan. “There were no campaign funds going in, which would have been a problem.”
On policy, Trump once again criticized the Iran nuclear deal; he faces a May 12 deadline to decide whether to pull out of the agreement.
Trump called Iran “a real problem for this country” but said that he has forced Iran into behaving better than it did under President Barack Obama.
He also said he was looking forward to meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
“It was very, very nasty with ‘Little Rocket Man’ and with the buttons — ‘my button’s bigger’ ” he said, recounting his tweeted gibes at Kim. “Everyone says, ‘This guy is going to get us into nuclear war.’ Let me tell you: Nuclear war would happen if you had weak people.”
Trump also touched on topics as diverse as entertainer Kanye West’s support of him — “He’s got good taste” — and his wife’s 48th birthday on Thursday.
“I may get in trouble, maybe I didn’t get her so much,” Trump said of first lady Melania Trump, citing his busy schedule. “I got her a beautiful card and some beautiful flowers.”