President Trump on Thursday said he considered how firing former FBI Director James Comey would look to the media and public amid the intelligence agency’s investigation into any connection between Russia and the Trump campaign.
“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,'” Trump told NBC “Nightly News” host Lester Holt. “So everybody was thinking, they should have won the election. This was an excuse for having lost an election.”
The White House has spent the past two days downplaying claims that Trump fired Comey to kill the FBI’s investigation into Russia. Trump originally said he decided to terminate at the recommendation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. By Wednesday evening, a new report said Trump had instructed the two attorneys to come up with a reason to get rid of him.
On Thursday, Trump’s story had further evolved. The president insisted to Holt that he knew he was not being investigated by the FBI, but wanted reassurance from Comey and made that clear in his termination letter.
Trump said he still intends to investigate Russia’s role in the 2016 election, but maintains his innocence and insisted the FBI ought to look into the Obama administration’s alleged spying on his campaign.
“As far as I’m concerned, I want that thing to be absolutely done properly. When I did this now I said, I probably, maybe will confuse people, maybe I’ll expand that, you know, lengthen the time because it should be over with, in my opinion, should have been over with a long time ago. Cause all it is, is an excuse but I said to myself, ‘I might even lengthen out the investigation but I have to do the right thing for the American people,'” Trump said.
