White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders admitted that she lied to reporters in 2017 when she said “countless” FBI agents and officials supported President Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey, according to the Mueller report released Thursday.
Responding to a question at that White House news conference, Sanders said, “I can speak to my own personal experience — I’ve heard from countless members of the FBI that are grateful and thankful for the president’s decision” to fire Comey.
Here’s that moment from Politico:
In a skeptical follow-up question, Sanders was pressed for details about her claim of hearing from so many people in the bureau supporting Trump’s action.
“Between, like, emails, text messages, absolutely,” she said, adding that “we’re not going to get into a numbers game. I’ve heard from a large number of individuals that work at the FBI that said that they’re happy with the president’s decision.”
Speaking to the Mueller investigators, the report says, Sanders called her reference to hearing from “countless members of the FBI” was a “slip of the tongue.”
“She also recalled that her statement in a separate press interview that rank-and-file FBI agents had lost confidence in Comey was a comment she made ‘in the heat of the moment’ that was not founded on anything,” it continued.
Trump’s decision to fire Comey is cited in the report as one of 10 occurrences that Mueller’s team investigated while trying to determine if the president obstructed justice. In the end, the report says, no conclusion could be reached on that matter for lack of evidence.
