WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump said Sunday in a tweet that he never asked former FBI Director James Comey to stop investigating his ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn, issuing a fresh denial amid a shifting timeline on when he may have known that Flynn had lied to the FBI.
Trump said on Twitter before dawn, “I never asked Comey to stop investigating Flynn. Just more Fake News covering another Comey lie!” The president reiterated his version of events after Comey testified before Congress in June that Trump had asked him in a one-on-one meeting if he could see to “letting Flynn go.”
Trump shifted his story Saturday on why he fired Flynn, lumping in the retired Army lieutenant general’s lies to the FBI along with his untruthfulness with Vice President Mike Pence. The president’s initial explanation was that Flynn had to go because he hadn’t been straight with Pence about contacts with Russian officials.
Lying to the FBI is a crime, and one that Flynn acknowledged Friday in pleading guilty and agreeing to cooperate with the special counsel’s Russia investigation.
Trump tweeted Saturday: “I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!”