- The Washington Times - Friday, April 13, 2018

President Trump wasted no time in firing back at former FBI Director James B. Comey on Friday, after a release of preview clips from Mr. Comey’s upcoming interview regarding his new tell-all book.

“James Comey is a proven LEAKER & LIAR. Virtually everyone in Washington thought he should be fired for the terrible job he did-until he was, in fact, fired. He leaked CLASSIFIED information, for which he should be prosecuted. He lied to Congress under OATH. He is a weak and…..” Mr. Trump tweeted.

“….untruthful slime ball who was, as time has proven, a terrible Director of the FBI. His handling of the Crooked Hillary Clinton case, and the events surrounding it, will go down as one of the worst ’botch jobs’ of history. It was my great honor to fire James Comey!” he added.

The newly released clips of the interview show Mr. Comey detailing how he told Mr. Trump about the unverified dossier, the president’s reaction and what made him uncomfortable in the interactions.

Mr. Comey explains that when he went to Trump Tower in January 2017 to tell Mr. Trump about the dossier after intelligence agency officials had already explained that the Russians tried to meddle in the 2016 election, and the Trump team immediately began a public relations debate, which Mr. Comey said made him uneasy.

“President-elect Trump’s first question was to confirm that it had no impact on the election … and then the conversation, to my surprise, moved into a PR conversation about how the Trump team would position this, and what they could say about this, with us still sitting there,” Mr. Comey said to ABC News.

“And the reason that was so striking to me [is] that’s just not done. That the intelligence community does intelligence, the White House does PR and spin.”

Mr. Comey’s interview with ABC News comes just ahead of his book release “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership,” which also describes his long tenure at the FBI and interactions with Mr. Trump.

• Sally Persons can be reached at spersons@washingtontimes.com.

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