Trump back to contradicting himself on decision to fire James Comey

Almost a year after James Comey was fired, the president tweeted his way into another contradictory explanation for the decision.

Early Wednesday morning, Trump tweeted that Comey was “not fired because of the phony Russia investigation.”

Compare that directly to what Trump told Lester Holt about the decision in an interview on May 11: “And in fact when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story — it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.'”

There is absolutely no way around the contradiction in those two statements. They cannot both be true.

Of course, there’s always the possibility Trump can qualify the strong language in his tweet to say Comey wasn’t fired only because of the Russia investigation. But that’s simply not what he said. And his tweet has effectively resurrected the conversation about all the White House’s shifting explanations for Comey’s dismissal last spring.

After the White House insisted for days the decision was made on the recommendation of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Trump went out and told Holt, “I was going to fire regardless of recommendation” and then cited the investigation as a factor in that choice.

Trump’s use of imprecise language is often wrongfully met with hysteria by his detractors, but when the president fires an FBI director who’s investigating his campaign, there’s just no room for imprecision. This is an unnecessary problem for the White House, and another example of why Comey’s book tour would have been better left ignored by Trump.