Ex-FBI Director James Comey excoriated President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday after the pair both repeated denials of Kremlin-linked interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
“This was the day an American president stood on foreign soil next to a murderous lying thug and refused to back his own country. Patriots need to stand up and reject the behavior of this president,” Comey wrote on Twitter.
This was the day an American president stood on foreign soil next to a murderous lying thug and refused to back his own country. Patriots need to stand up and reject the behavior of this president.
— James Comey (@Comey) July 16, 2018
Trump drew bipartisan ire following a press conference held at the conclusion of his first official bilateral meetings with Putin in Helsinki in which he said that he has yet to see any compelling reason why the Russian government would have meddled in the 2016 election.
The U.S. intelligence community concluded in a January 2017 assessment that Russia was behind the meddling operation.
[Related: Trump’s own intelligence chief distances himself from Russian meddling comments]
Trump’s comments come after special counsel Robert Mueller issued an indictment in federal court on Friday that alleged 12 Russian military officials hacked Democratic email servers during the campaign.
Trump added on Monday that Mueller’s federal Russia investigation was a “disaster” for the country, reiterating that he ran a “clean campaign” and there had been “no collusion.”
Comey was head of the FBI when the agency started probing possible links between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. He was later dismissed by Trump last year in a series of events that eventually led to Mueller’s appointment as special counsel.
