Speaking to reporters at the National Press Club Thursday, President Trump's longtime personal attorney Marc Kasowitz issued a response to former FBI Director James Comey's testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
"Contrary to
numerous false press accounts leading up to today’s hearing, Mr. Comey has now
finally confirmed publicly what he repeatedly told the President privately:
The President was not under investigation as part of any probe into Russian
interference. He also admitted that there is no evidence that a single
vote changed as a result of any Russian interference," Kasowitz said.
During his testimony
Comey admitted to leaking a memo he wrote after a meeting with President Trump
to a friend, who then gave it to the New York Times. Comey justified the
action by saying he thought it would trigger the appointment of special
counsel.
"I didn't do it
myself for a variety of reasons, but asked him to, because I thought that it
might prompt the appointment of a Special Counsel. I asked a close friend of
mine to do that," Comey said.
Kasowitz took notice,
denied President Trump had demanded loyalty as Comey claimed in a written
statement published before
the hearing and implied Comey should be investigated along with others for
improper disclosure of privileged information.
"The President also
never told Mr. Comey, “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty” in form or substance.
Of course, the Office of the President is entitled to expect loyalty from those
who are serving in an administration, and, from before this President took
office to this day, it is overwhelmingly clear that there have been and
continue to be those in government who are actively attempting to undermine
this administration with selective and illegal leaks of classified information
and privileged communications. Mr. Comey has now admitted that he is one of
these leakers," he said. "We will leave it the appropriate authorities
to determine whether this leaks should be investigated along with all those
others being investigated."
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2017/06/08/white-house-reaction-to-comey-testimony-n2338345?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=
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Comey: NY Times report on Russian contacts
with Trump campaign was mostly wrong
By John Sexton
Former FBI Director Comey said today that stories
leaked to the media about the Russia investigation are often wrong because the
people leaking the information don’t really understand what is going on.
Under questioning from Sen. Tom Cotton, Comey even agreed
one pivotal New York Times story on the topic was almost entirely wrong.
The specific article Comey disputed was this
one, published by the NY Times on February 14th. Titled “Trump Campaign
Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence” the article suggested an
opportunity for Trump campaign collusion with Russia, though it also said there
was no proof of any collusion so far. Here’s how it opened:
“Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of
Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had
repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before
the election, according to four current and former American officials. American
law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around
the same time they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt
the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee,
three of the officials said.”
Today Sen. James Risch of Idaho asked Comey about that
article specifically. “You talked with us shortly after February 14th, when the
New York Times wrote an article that suggested that the Trump campaign was
colluding with the Russians. You remember reading that article when it first
came out?” Risch said. “I do. It was about allegedly extensive electronic
surveillance communications,” Comey replied.
“And that upset you to the point where you actually went out
and surveyed the intelligence community to see whether you were missing
something in that. Is that correct?” Risch said. Comey replied, “That’s
correct.”
“After that, you sought out both Republican and Democrat
senators to tell them that, hey, I don’t know where this is coming from, but
this is not the case, this is not factual. Do you recall that?” Risch said.
“Yes,” Comey replied.
“So, again, so the American people can understand this,
that report by the New York Times was not true. Is that a fair statement?”
Risch asked. Comey then offered a lengthy answer:
“In the main, it was not true. And, again, all of you
know this, maybe the American people don’t. The challenge, and I’m not picking
on reporters, about writing stories about classified information is that people
talking about it often don’t really know what’s going on. And those of us who
actually know what’s going on are not talking about it. And we don’t call the
press to say, ‘hey, you got that thing wrong about this sensitive topic.’ We
just have to leave it there.”
Later, Sen. Tom Cotton raised the issue of the NY Times
story again. “Would it be fair to characterize that story as almost entirely
wrong?” Cotton asked. Comey replied, “Yes.”
After the hearing, the NY Times tweeted that it was
looking at Comey’s statements about the story and would “report back” when it
could.
The Washington Post points out how significant this story
was at the time and how adamant the Times was about it despite White House
denials:
“White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus told “Fox News
Sunday,” “The New York Times put out an article with no direct sources that
said that the Trump campaign had constant contacts with Russian spies,
basically, you know, some treasonous type of accusations. We have now all kinds
of people looking into this. I can assure you and I have been approved to say
this — that the top levels of the intelligence community have assured me that
that story is not only inaccurate, but it’s grossly overstated and it was
wrong. And there’s nothing to it.”… Attacks from folks such as Priebus prompted
New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet to issue this defense: “The Times
had numerous sources confirming this story. Attacking it does not make it less
true.”
Looking back, it sounds as if Reince Priebus was right,
but I guess we’ll see what the NY Times has to say for itself after taking a
3rd look at this piece.
Click
here to watch the video.
