Trump changes story again on firing of Comey
PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Donald Trump is attempting to rewrite history on his rationale for firing James Comey as FBI director last year.
In a Wednesday morning tweet sent as Comey promotes his criticismfilled new book, Trump said Comey “was not fired because of the phony Russia investigation.” But in an interview days after the sudden firing, Trump said the probe into potential collusion during the 2016 campaign was on his mind at the time he made the decision.
The White House’s initial explanation for Trump’s decision was Comey’s handling of the Clinton email investigation, and it released a memo from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein justifying the decision. But two days after firing Comey, Trump undercut that rationale.
In the interview with NBC on May 11, 2017, Trump said, “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.’”
Comey’s firing, and Comey
Trump’s subsequent suggestion that the Russia investigation was a factor in the decision, led Rosenstein to appoint special counsel Robert Mueller to oversee the investigation. Mueller is now investigating the Comey firing as part of an investigation of potential obstruction by the president.
Appearing Wednesday on ABC’s “The View,” Comey said he doesn’t know why Trump fired him. But he said the president’s Wednesday tweet that Comey was not dismissed because of the “phony Russia investigation” illustrates a problem the former FBI director said he’s been trying to highlight during his book-promotion tour.
“It matters that the president is not committed to the truth as a central American value,” Comey said.
In another tweet Wednesday, Trump accused adult-film actress Stormy Daniels of a “con job” for releasing a sketch of a man McDougal
she claims threatened her to remain silent about an alleged, decade-old sexual encounter with the president.
Daniels appeared on “The View” on Tuesday and released a sketch of a man who she said approached her in a Las Vegas parking lot in 2011, shortly after she had sought to sell a tabloid magazine her story alleging the sexual liaison.
“A sketch years later about a nonexistent man,” Trump wrote Wednesday morning on Twitter. “A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)!”
The tweet was the first from Trump that explicitly referred to Daniels’ allegations since the Wall Street Journal reported in January that Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, had arranged a $130,000 payment to Daniels shortly before the 2016 election. Cohen has acknowledged making the payment from his own funds.
In the nondisclosure agreement, Daniels agreed to remain silent about Trump and the sex she says she had with him in 2006, when they met at a Lake Tahoe celebrity golf tournament.
Taking questions from reporters on Air Force One recently, Trump denied having an affair with Daniels and said he did not know about Cohen’s payment to her.
Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, took to Twitter shortly after Trump’s tweet Wednesday morning, suggesting the president has become “unhinged” over Daniels, who is suing Trump to get out of the nondisclosure agreement.
Representatives for Trump and Cohen have said both men believe Daniels is making up her account about being threatened in 2011.
Meanwhile, another woman who says she had sex with Trump, former Playboy model Karen McDougal, reportedly has been released from a contract with American Media Inc. that prevented her from discussing the alleged affair.
The settlement agreement, reached Wednesday, ends a lawsuit McDougal brought against the tabloid news company, which owns The National Enquirer, according to The New York Times.
In August 2016, American Media purchased the rights to McDougal’s story about Trump but never published it. McDougal alleged in her lawsuit that American Media chairman and Trump ally David Pecker tricked her into signing the contract through which McDougal earned $150,000. She also alleges that Cohen improperly intervened in the negotiations.
The settlement agreement states that American Media is entitled to up to $75,000 of any profits McDougal makes from her story about the alleged affair. McDougal can keep the original $150,000 payment under the terms of the agreement, according to her lawyer, Peter Stris.
McDougal said she has no immediate plans to sell her story to a new buyer.
“It’s one step at a time for me,” she said. “Today, I’m doing my victory dance.”