During his train wreck of an interview on Hannity on Wednesday night, new Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani explained that the president fired then-FBI director James Comey because Comey refused to publicly announce that Trump “wasn’t a target” of the FBI’s investigation of his campaign.
There’s just one problem. Giuliani’s explanation for Comey’s firing differs from two previous ones that have already been offered by the White House — the official line, which was that Comey mishandled the Hillary Clinton email investigation; and the one Trump offered NBC’s Lester Holt, which was that he fired Comey because he was frustrated with the Russia investigation.
On Thursday, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to reconcile team Trump’s shifting rationales for Comey’s firing. She responded with the verbal equivalent of the shrug emoji.
“There were a number of reasons that James Comey was fired. The president has named several of them,” Sanders said. “But the bottom line is, the president doesn’t have to justify his decision. The president has the authority to fire and hire, and I think every single day we’ve seen that he made the right decision in firing James Comey.”
Despite what Sanders would have you believe, the White House’s changing story could cause problems for Trump. Part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation pertains to whether Trump obstructed justice when he fired Comey amid an active FBI investigation into his campaign. The answer hinges on Trump’s motivations.
Trump himself has said contradictory things about why he fired Comey. Though he initially admitted he fired him because of the Russia investigation, Trump recently tried to walk that back in a tweet proclaiming that “the worst FBI Director in history, was not fired because of the phony Russia investigation where, by the way, there was NO COLLUSION (except by the Dems)!”
Slippery James Comey, the worst FBI Director in history, was not fired because of the phony Russia investigation where, by the way, there was NO COLLUSION (except by the Dems)!
In that tweet, Trump did not cite a reason for Comey’s firing. The implication, however, is that Comey’s poor character justified his termination. Giuliani furthered that effort during his interview with Hannity, at one point calling Comey “a very perverted man.”
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani has contradicted Mr. Trump’s rationale for firing James B. Comey as the F.B.I. director, saying he was dismissed because he would not say publicly what he had told the president privately: that Mr. Trump was not under scrutiny in the Russia investigation at the time.
“He fired Comey because Comey would not, among other things, say that he wasn’t a target of the investigation,” Mr. Giuliani said in an interview late Wednesday with Sean Hannity of Fox News. “He’s entitled to that.”
Mr. Giuliani’s assertion contradicted the myriad explanations that the president and his aides have given for the firing, and was the first public acknowledgment by a Trump adviser for what Mr. Comey has maintained: that he was fired for his handling of the Russia investigation.
At the time of Mr. Comey’s dismissal last May, both Mr. Trump and his aides cited his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and his decision to say publicly during the 2016 presidential campaign that Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic candidate, would not be charged with a crime.
Mr. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, said that Mr. Comey’s handling of the Clinton investigation “was a total disgrace.” Later in the interview, Mr. Giuliani added: “I’m sorry, Hillary. I know you’re very disappointed you didn’t win. But you’re a criminal. Equal justice would mean you should go to jail. I do not know why the Justice Department is not investigating her.”
Mr. Comey said in July 2016 that Mrs. Clinton’s handling of classified information was “extremely careless” but fell short of criminal behavior and that he was not recommending charges.
Mr. Giuliani’s comments about Mr. Comey were overshadowed by his disclosure that Mr. Trump reimbursed his longtime lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, for hush money paid before the election to Stephanie Clifford, a pornographic film actress who has said she had an affair with Mr. Trump. Mr. Giuliani’s comments directly contradicted Mr. Trump, who had said he had no knowledge of the payments.
Mr. Giuliani’s assertion that Mr. Comey was fired over the Russia inquiry did line up with accounts from both Mr. Comey and White House officials who have been interviewed by the office of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, whose appointment was prompted in part by the abrupt firing of Mr. Comey.
Those people said that Mr. Trump became increasingly frustrated in the spring of 2017 with Mr. Comey’s reluctance to say publicly that the president was not under investigation.
Mr. Comey testified to Congress that during calls to him that spring, the president asked him to get out word that he was not being investigated. Mr. Comey responded — and memorialized his answer later in memos — that such a matter needed to be considered through proper channels between the White House and the Justice Department, rather than by the two of them.
Mr. Comey was reluctant at the time to publicly exonerate Mr. Trump in case he were to be investigated later. Mr. Comey’s top lawyer at the F.B.I. had argued that as the bureau’s inquiry into links between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russia progressed, investigators were almost certainly going to examine Mr. Trump’s conduct.
Since then, the special counsel has begun examining Mr. Trump’s actions, including his firing of Mr. Comey, and whether they constitute an effort to obstruct the investigation itself.
On Thursday, Mr. Comey criticized Mr. Giuliani’s description of F.B.I. agents who raided Mr. Cohen’s office and home as “storm troopers,” though he did not address his firing.
