April 20, 2018

Enraged By Comey Memos, Trump Defends Michael Flynn

It’s Twitter o’clock.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

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On Thursday night, the Justice Department sent Congress the declassified and redacted version of James Comey’s famous memos, in which the then-FBI director memorialized his conversations with Donald Trump in the months leading up to his unceremonious firing by the president. The documents were quickly leaked to the press, and Trump soon took to Twitter to simultaneously denounce Comey and maintain that the memos vindicate him and his campaign. (They don’t. In his memos, Comey notes that allegations in the Steele dossier had been corroborated by other intelligence sources.)

In Comey’s memos, he recounted an exchange with Trump in which the president questioned Michael Flynn’s judgement. But on Friday morning Trump tweeted sympathetically about his former national security adviser, who was fired last year for allegedly misleading Vice President Mike Pence and has since pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about those conversations. Trump also trashed Comey’s book, A Higher Loyalty. 

This is just the latest in a series of tweets attacking Comey, who’s on a media tour promoting his new book. Earlier this week, Trump once again suggested the former FBI director should be prosecuted.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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