White House press secretary Sarah Sanders is standing by her statement that “countless” FBI workers told the White House they had no confidence in former FBI Director James Comey — even though she told special counsel Robert Mueller’s team the assertion was unfounded.
Sanders reiterated the claim Friday on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” telling interviewer George Stephanopoulos that a “number” of former and current FBI officials “agreed with the president’s decision” to fire Comey in May 2017 and expressed that opinion to the White House. That prompted Stephanopoulos to ask, “Why can’t you acknowledge that what you said then was not true?”
Sanders said she only misspoke in using the word “countless.” “[I]t was in the heat of the moment, meaning that it wasn’t a scripted talking point,” Sanders told Stephanopoulos. “I’m sorry I wasn’t a robot like the Democrat Party,” which “stated time and time again there was definitely Russian collusion between the president and his campaign, that they had evidence to show it.”
A redacted version of Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion by Trump campaign officials was released Thursday. It examined possible obstruction by President Trump, including his firing of Comey, but came to no conclusion on his guilt.
[Related: MSNBC analyst Nicolle Wallace calls William Barr the new Sarah Sanders]
Watch:
“That’s not a slip of the tongue Sarah, that’s a deliberate false statement.”@GStephanopoulos presses @PressSec Sarah Sanders on the culture of lying, exposed by the #MuellerReport, in the White House. https://t.co/wBBIUQ2Xfo pic.twitter.com/d5A4MOgqi1
— Good Morning America (@GMA) April 19, 2019
“Sanders told the press after Comey’s termination that the White House had heard from ‘countless’ FBI agents who had lost confidence in Comey. But the evidence does not support those claims,” the report stated. “The President told Comey at their January 27 dinner that ‘the people of the FBI really like [him],’ no evidence suggests that the President heard otherwise before deciding to terminate Comey, and Sanders acknowledged to investigators that her comments were not founded on anything.”
[Also read: Mueller found Sarah Sanders lied about Comey firing]
