From the very start of Tuesday’s White House press briefing, press secretary Sarah Sanders had no real answers on former national security adviser Michael Flynn. White House hopes that a judge would rebuke the FBI for its treatment of Flynnquickly and rather spectacularly fell apart. Flynn himself told the judge that he didn’t feel duped into lying, as his and Trump’s supporters have alleged. It all rendered Sanders’s argument earlier in the daythat Flynn had been “ambushed"pretty well undercut.
So she changed the subject to James B. Comey — and butchered what Comey actually said.
Flynn didn’t make the case the White House desired, so Sanders suggested Comey had. Here’s what she said about Comey, who was FBI director when Flynn lied repeatedly as he was interviewed in January 2017 (emphasisadded):
“What we do know that was inappropriate by own self-admittance of James Comey is that the FBI broke standard protocolin a way that they came in and ambushed General Flynn and in the way that they questioned him and in the way that they encouraged him not to have White House counsel’s office present.And we know that because James Comey told us that, and he said that the very reason that they did was because—the only reason that they did it—it was the Trump administration and they thought they could get away with it.Those are facts, and certainly there may be other issues there but that we don’t have any reason to want to walk that back.
The first problem with this is that Comey never said the Flynn interview was inappropriate, or anything of the sort. Inan interview with MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallacelast week, he said FBI agents would normally go through the White House Counsel’s Office to interview the likes of Flynn. But he never said that was FBI “protocol” or even required. Instead, he was remarking on the lack of organization in the Trump White House, especially in its early days.
“[It’s] something we — I — probably wouldn’t have done or maybe gotten away with in a more organized investigation — a more organized administration,” Comey said, adding: “I thought, ‘It’s early enough; let’s just send a couple guys over.'”
Comey wasn’t saying that the agents didn’t run through the proper channels; he’s saying theWhite Housedidn’t run it through the proper channels. Comey’s “gotten away with” phrasing does make it sound somewhat nefarious, but his point was broadly about how the White House would normally stand in the way of such things — not that there was anything wrong with what the agents did. If there was a protocol that was broken, it was the White House’s own.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...t-james-comey-instead/?utm_term=.350191019e85
So she changed the subject to James B. Comey — and butchered what Comey actually said.
Flynn didn’t make the case the White House desired, so Sanders suggested Comey had. Here’s what she said about Comey, who was FBI director when Flynn lied repeatedly as he was interviewed in January 2017 (emphasisadded):
“What we do know that was inappropriate by own self-admittance of James Comey is that the FBI broke standard protocolin a way that they came in and ambushed General Flynn and in the way that they questioned him and in the way that they encouraged him not to have White House counsel’s office present.And we know that because James Comey told us that, and he said that the very reason that they did was because—the only reason that they did it—it was the Trump administration and they thought they could get away with it.Those are facts, and certainly there may be other issues there but that we don’t have any reason to want to walk that back.
The first problem with this is that Comey never said the Flynn interview was inappropriate, or anything of the sort. Inan interview with MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallacelast week, he said FBI agents would normally go through the White House Counsel’s Office to interview the likes of Flynn. But he never said that was FBI “protocol” or even required. Instead, he was remarking on the lack of organization in the Trump White House, especially in its early days.
“[It’s] something we — I — probably wouldn’t have done or maybe gotten away with in a more organized investigation — a more organized administration,” Comey said, adding: “I thought, ‘It’s early enough; let’s just send a couple guys over.'”
Comey wasn’t saying that the agents didn’t run through the proper channels; he’s saying theWhite Housedidn’t run it through the proper channels. Comey’s “gotten away with” phrasing does make it sound somewhat nefarious, but his point was broadly about how the White House would normally stand in the way of such things — not that there was anything wrong with what the agents did. If there was a protocol that was broken, it was the White House’s own.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...t-james-comey-instead/?utm_term=.350191019e85
