US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump has had his first public say on former FBI director James Comey’s testimony before a Senate intelligence committee yesterday, and he’s done it via his favourite medium – Twitter.
Trump had remained silent on the social media platform for two days, with his lawyer Marc Kasowitz instead releasing a statement last night suggesting that Comey’s submission to the committee (that Trump had asked him to stop investigating former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn regarding his ties to Russia) was false.
There had been suggestions that Trump had effectively been sequestered in the White House with Kasowitz in order to prevent him from tweeting during Comey’s testimony.
Now that silence has been well and truly broken.
“Despite so many false statements and lies, total and complete vindication… and WOW, Comey is a leaker!” the President said on Twitter this morning.
He followed up that pronouncement by tweeting his appreciation for the news coverage of the Fox News channel with regard to Comey.
Trump’s comment regarding Comey being ‘a leaker’ refers to the fact that the director admitted under oath that he had facilitated the leaking of classified information in the wake of his dismissal in an attempt to secure the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Trump’s connections with Russia – an appointment that has since come to pass.
It’s not as yet clear how Trump understands himself to have been vindicated entirely by Comey’s testimony, which suggested that the former FBI director believed that Trump had directed him to stop investigating Flynn.
Trump fired Comey from his position at the start of May, saying that director was ‘doing a bad job’.
As head of the FBI, Comey had been the figurehead for the investigation into alleged Russian meddling in last November’s US election.
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