Lawyers for President Trump shot down ex-FBI Director James Comey’s claim that a tweet from the commander-in-chief prompted him to leak a memo detailing a private conversation with Trump – and a close examination of a pre-tweet New York Times story may bolster their claim.
During testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, Comey said he was spurred to orchestrate the release of the detailed memo he wrote about a one-on-one talk with Trump after the president tweeted May 12: “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”
“I woke up in the middle of the night … because it didn’t dawn on me originally that there might be corroboration for our conversation,” Comey told senators. “And my judgment was, I needed to get that out into the public square. And so I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter … because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel.”
The admission itself was dramatic, and drew the scorn of Trump allies. Trump’s personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, read a statement blasting Comey for admitting “he unilaterally and surreptitiously made unauthorized disclosures to the press of privileged communications.”
Originally published by Fox News.
