Following the release of excerpts of former FBI Director James Comey’s interview with ABC in which he suggests “it’s possible” that the salacious and “still unverified” Russian prostitutes allegation in the notorious Democrat-funded Steele dossier is true, President Trump took to Twitter to unload on “slimeball” Comey, whom he says “should be prosecuted” for his leaking of classified information.
“James Comey is a proven LEAKER & LIAR,” Trump wrote in a series of tweets. “Virtually everyone in Washington thought he should be fired for the terrible job he did-until he was, in fact, fired. He leaked CLASSIFIED information, for which he should be prosecuted. He lied to Congress under OATH. He is a weak and untruthful slime ball who was, as time has proven, a terrible Director of the FBI. His handling of the Crooked Hillary Clinton case, and the events surrounding it, will go down as one of the worst ‘botch jobs’ of history. It was my great honor to fire James Comey!”
Trump’s reference to Comey’s leaking of classified information refers to memos the former FBI director gave to one of his friends in the media. Those documents were deemed to be government material and to have contained classified information, making Comey’s distribution of them a violation of the law. The Hill reported the story in July 2017 (formatting adjusted):
More than half of the memos former FBI Director James Comey wrote as personal recollections of his conversations with President Trump about the Russia investigation have been determined to contain classified information, according to interviews with officials familiar with the documents. This revelation raises the possibility that Comey broke his own agency’s rules and ignored the same security protocol that he publicly criticized Hillary Clinton over in the waning days of the 2016 presidential election. …
FBI policy forbids any agent from releasing classified information or any information from ongoing investigations or sensitive operations without prior written permission, and it mandates that all records created during official duties are considered to be government property. “Unauthorized disclosure, misuse, or negligent handling of information contained in the files, electronic or paper, of the FBI or which I may acquire as an employee of the FBI could impair national security, place human life in jeopardy, result in the denial of due process, prevent the FBI from effectively discharging its responsibilities, or violate federal law,” states the agreement all FBI agents sign.
Trump’s explosive tweets came in response to Comey’s statements to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in an interview that will be aired in full on Sunday. In teaser excerpts released Friday morning, Comey describes two meetings in which he discussed the scandalous contents of the Democrat-funded dossier with Trump. During the interview, Comey suggests that even though Trump at one point asked him to investigate the dossier to prove it wasn’t true, he believes it’s “possible” that the most over-the-top of all the claims in it is true.
“I started to tell him about the allegation was that he had been involved with prostitutes in a hotel in Moscow in 2013 during the visit for the Miss Universe pageant and that the Russians had filmed the episode, and he interrupted very defensively and started talking about it, you know, ‘Do I look like a guy who needs hookers?'” said Comey. “And I assumed he was asking that rhetorically. I didn’t answer that, and I just moved on and explained, ‘Sir, I’m not saying that we credit this, I’m not saying we believe it. We just thought it very important that you know.’ I said … ‘I’m not saying that I believe the allegations, I’m not saying that I credit it.’ I never said, ‘I don’t believe it,’ because I couldn’t say one way or another.'”
“And then he says something that distracted me because he said, you know, ‘If there’s even a 1 percent chance my wife thinks that’s true, that’s terrible,'” Comey said. “And I remember thinking, ‘How could your wife think there’s a 1 percent chance you were with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow?’ I’m a flawed human being, but there is literally zero chance that my wife would think that was true. So, what kind of marriage to what kind of man does your wife think [that] there’s only a 99 percent chance you didn’t do that?”
Asked by Stephanopoulos if he believed Trump’s denials, Comey said “it’s possible” that the wild golden showers story is true. “I honestly never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but I don’t know whether the current president of the United States was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013,” he said. “It’s possible, but I don’t know.”
In the interview, Comey also admitted that he didn’t bother telling Trump that the dossier was funded by the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton Campaign as part of their opposition research against him.
Here’s the teaser of the interview released by ABC: