President Trump accused fired FBI Director James Comey Sunday of lying to Congress when he told lawmakers last year that he never leaked information anonymously to the media or knew anyone else who did.
Referring to a news report about a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Mr. Trump tweeted, “Wow, watch Comey lie under oath to Senator G [Chairman Charles Grassley] when asked ’have you ever been an anonymous source…or known someone else to be an anonymous source…?’ He said strongly ’never, no.’ He lied as shown clearly on @foxandfriends.”
Mr. Comey, who was fired by Mr. Trump last year, told the committee in May 2017 that he had never been an anonymous source in news reports about the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server or the probe into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.
Some analysts are saying that former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, who was fired Friday by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, may have incriminated Mr. Comey over the leaking of sensitive information and lying to Congress.
Mr. McCabe was fired for allegedly not being “forthcoming” to FBI investigators about his talking to the media about the Clinton email probe and the Clinton family’s charitable foundation. In a lengthy statement defending himself, Mr. McCabe said he had been authorized to talk to the media anonymously, and that Mr. Comey knew about it.
“I chose to share with a reporter through my public affairs officer and a legal counselor,” Mr. McCabe said. “As deputy director, I was one of only a few people who had the authority to do that. It was not a secret, it took place over several days, and others, including the director, were aware of the interaction with the reporter.”
Mr. Comey, who is preparing to go on tour for his soon-to-be-released book, told Mr. Trump in a tweet Saturday that “the American people will hear my story very soon.”
“They can judge for themselves who is honorable and who is not,” Mr. Comey said on Twitter.
In January, Mr. Grassley, Iowa Republican, asked Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein whether Mr. Comey had leaked to the media any memos that were classified. The lawmaker noted that Mr. Comey had written seven memos, and shared four of them with a professor he was using as an intermediary to defend him.
Of the seven, Mr. Grassley said, four were marked at the confidential or secret — meaning at least one of the memos Mr. Comey shared contained information that should not have been made public.
“Has there been any review of whether the disclosure of the memoranda by Mr. Comey was otherwise improper, such as whether it violated his employment agreement or any Department rule or policy? If so, what is the status of the review? If not, why not?” Mr. Grassley wrote.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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