The Department of Justice rejected reports that former FBI Director James Comey last week asked officials for more money for the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election, just days before he was fired by Trump.
“Totally false,” DOJ Spokesman Ian Prior told the Washington Examiner just minutes after the New York Times reported that Comey made that request.
According to the Times, officials said Comey asked for more money and more personnel for the Russia probe, and that his request came in a meeting with Deputy Attorney Rod Rosenstein last week. Rosenstein, the newly-confirmed number two official in the department, wrote the agency’s memo used by President Trump to fire Comey on Tuesday.
The Times’ report prompted speculation that President Trump fired Comey because he wanted to shut down the investigation into his alleged ties with Russia.
Democrats seized on the initial report as a sign that Trump fired Comey in order to avoid a well-resourced probe into his ties to Russia. Democrats have charged for months that Russia aided Trump directly, although there has been no evidence of collusion between Russia and Trump’s campaign so far.
The intelligence community does believe that Russia tried to influence the campaign, and the House and Senate committees on intelligence are looking into that question.
Republican supporters of the Trump administration, however, argue that the Democratic charges are just sour grapes for losing the election and that their calls for an investigation are just a way to derail the GOP agenda.
