Former FBI Director James B. Comey juiced his book tour Sunday with more blasts at President Trump and House Republicans, calling their extensive Russia investigation a “wreck.”
The House Intelligence Committee released Friday a 253-report that found no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential race, but Mr. Comey dismissed the findings.
“This strikes me as a political document,” Mr. Comey said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
WATCH: Former FBI Director James @Comey says he finds the House Republicans’ report on Russia collusion “a political document.” #MTP pic.twitter.com/WZr7F86yyS
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) April 29, 2018
House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes defended Sunday the probe and its conclusions.
.@DevinNunes: “We found no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.” pic.twitter.com/2158HvhNZ4
— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 29, 2018
“We spent over a year looking at this,” Mr. Nunes told Fox News. “We produced a 250-page report. We interviewed 75 people. We found no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.”
As far as Mr. Comey was concerned, however, the investigation “wrecked the committee and it damaged relationships with the FISA court, the intelligence communities. It’s just a wreck.”
Mr. Comey, who was fired last year by the president, said he had doubts about whether the president could be trusted to tell the truth.
“I have serious doubts about his credibility,” Mr. Comey said.
“Sometimes people who have serious credibility problems can tell the truth when they realize the consequences of not telling the truth in an interview or in grand jury would be dire, but you have to go in with a healthy sense that he might lie to you,” he added.
The interview came with Mr. Comey, who was fired a year ago by Mr. Trump, plugging his newly released book, “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership.”
At a post-election meeting in Trump Tower, Mr. Comey said it appeared that Mr. Trump was unfamiliar with the most “salacious” details of the Fusion GPS dossier.
“My assignment was to brief him on a small part of it that was salacious and personal,” Mr. Comey said. “I didn’t get a sense he knew about those [allegations].”
Even before the meeting, Mr. Comey said he had his doubts about the president-elect.
“I was concerned about the nature of his commitment to truth-telling based on some of the things I had seen during the campaign,” he said. “But I went in trying to see what he was like as a leader, and didn’t see things that disturbed me until the lack of questions about what do we do next to protect the country.”
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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