Former FBI Director James Comey said Thursday news reports on classified information, such as recent ones related to President Trump and Russia, are often wrong because the sources are not informed on the matters they’re discussing.
Comey was asked at Thursday’s Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about a specific report in the New York Times that said Trump and his associates “had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election,” based on phone records and “intercepted” communications.
Comey said that report was wrong and so are many reports that relate to intelligence material.
“In the main, it was not true,” he said. “And again, all of you know this, many of the American people don’t. The challenge — and I’m not picking on reporters — about writing on classified information is the people talking about it often don’t really know what’s going on. And those of us that know what’s going on aren’t talking about it. And we don’t call the press to say, ‘hey, you got that thing wrong about this sensitive topic.’ We just have to leave it there.”
Later asked by Republican Sen. Tom Cotton if he would classify the story as “entirely wrong,” Comey said, “Yes.”
Comey testified Thursday he was often “concerned” and “confused” about conversations he had with President Trump, who fired him in May.
