DAY 112: Trump lied about why he fired Comey and admits it was because of Russia investigation

Donald Trump contradicted his own official excuse for firing James Comey as FBI director, supposedly because of a recommendation by the Justice Department because of how Comey handled the Hillary Clinton emails. In an interview with NBC's Lester Holt, Trump ended up saying he fired Comey because he is a "showboat". But when confronted with Trump's letter to Comey saying he was following the recommendation of the Deputy Attorney General, Trump claimed he was going to fire Comey anyway.

Then, when confronted with the fact that Comey said there is an ongoing investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, Trump said he isn't under investigation and then repeated his claim from his letter to Comey that Comey told him three times Trump wasn't under investigation, which is a lie, as we will see shortly. Here's the video:



https://youtu.be/3QImPqK33fU

The full interview is even worse. Trump says literally this when he said why he fired comey:Notice how Trump said the following: "And in fact, when I decided to do it [fire Comey] I said to myself, I said, you know, This Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story."


https://youtu.be/5Wvuw_Zmubg

Thus, literally, Trump is admitting he fired Comey because of the Russia investigation.

So Trump's letter to Comey was a lie. One has to ask why did he lie?

It seems like Trump thought that by claiming he was firing Comey for the Clinton emails the Democrats would not question the firing. But EVERYBODY, even Republicans, questioned the firing because it reeks of obstruction of justice. Thus, now Trump is claiming he was going to fire Comey anyway.

And as per the claim that Comey told Trump three times that he, Trump, wasn't under investigation, that was contradicted by Comey's associates at the FBI, who said Comey told no such thing to Trump. From the Wall Street Journal article:

Mr. Comey’s associates also denied the claim made by Mr. Trump, in his letter firing Mr. Comey, that the director told him on three occasions that he wasn’t under investigation. They said Mr. Comey never gave Mr. Trump any such guidance, which would violate longstanding policies on criminal investigations. “That is literally farcical,” said one associate.

So yes, Trump was lying yet again. And yet again he got caught.

By the way: In the Trump also says HE was not colluding with Russia when confronted with the fact that his campaign is under investigation. Why would Trump say that? It suggests he knows his campaign did collude with Russia.

UPDATE: MSNBC put together a reel of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Mike Pence lying about why James Comey was fired, blaming the Deputy Attorney General for the decision, only to be thrown under teh bus by Trump during the Lester Holt interview:


https://youtu.be/oi8HrGazUDw