Apparently, reporters don't hear so well these days.
Former FBI Director James Comey testified Thursday that former Attorney General Loretta Lynch encouraged him to refer to the bureau's probe of Hillary Clinton's private email server as a "matter" rather than an "investigation."
Comey said the request made him uneasy, explaining further that it was one of the reasons he went ahead without the Justice Department in July 2016 when he recommended that no charges be brought against Clinton.
However, one New York Times editor managed somehow to mangle this portion of the former FBI director's testimony.
"Comey says Attorney General Sessions told him not to call Russia probe an investigation but ‘a matter.' Let [Comey] to step away from DOJ," New York Times editor Jonathan Weisman said on social media.
How did he even get that? Literally, none of that was said during that portion of Comey's testimony. That's not even close to reflecting what was said.
The ex-FBI director told lawmakers that Lynch's behavior during the email investigation greatly troubled him, especially the time she met privately on a tarmac with former President Bill Clinton. Comey also said he was made uneasy by her request that he call the investigation a "matter," explaining that her stated preference closely mirrored Clinton campaign rhetoric.
"[I]t concerned me because we were at the point where we refused to confirm the existence as we typically do of an investigation for months. And was getting to a place where that looked silly because the campaigns were talking about interacting with the FBI in the course of our work. The Clinton campaign at the time was using all kinds of euphemisms, security matters, things like that for what was going on," he said Thursday.
He added, "We were getting to a place where the attorney general and I were both going to testify and talk publicly about it I wanted to know was she going to authorize us to confirm we have an investigation. She said 'Ues, don't call it that, call it a matter.' I said 'Why would I do that?' She said, 'Just call it a matter.'"
Comey and the FBI agreed to Lynch's wish.
The former director told lawmakers Thursday that he didn't put up a fight because he didn't see the point. After all, he said, the press would ignore the carefully chosen word.
Comey was right. The press ignored Lynch's preferred euphemism, and newsrooms everywhere referred to the "matter" as an investigation.
Still, Comey said, Lynch's request, "concerned me because that language tracked with how the campaign was talking about how the FBI was doing its work."
"I don't know whether it was intentional or not but it gave the impression that the attorney general was looking to align the way we talked about our work with the way it was describing that. It was inaccurate," he said.
He added, "We had an investigation open for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, we had an investigation open at the time. That gave me a queasy feeling."
Attorney General Jeff Sessions' name wasn't mentioned once during Comey's remarks on the Lynch request.
Weisman eventually deleted his erroneous tweet and posted a note accurately reflecting Comey's remarks on Lynn's preference for characterizing the Clinton investigation:
The New York Times editor did not issue any sort of tweet notifying his more than 56,000 followers that he had made a big mistake.
