On Tuesday night, in a written statement, the White House said Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey “based on the clear recommendations of both Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.” The same evening, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the decision was the Justice Department’s.On Wednesday morning, Sarah Sanders added that Trump “made a decision based on” the DOJ’s recommendations, and in light of Rosenstein’s memo, the president had “no choice” but to fire Comey. Kellyanne Conway made similar comments to a national audience.According to Donald Trump, his own White House is wrong. The president sat down today with NBC News’ Lester Holt, who asked about how Trump’s decision came to fruition. Here was the exchange:
HOLT: Monday you met with the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein–TRUMP: Right.HOLT: Did you ask for a recommendation [on Comey]?TRUMP: What I did is, I was going to fire [Comey]. My decision, it was not–HOLT: You had made the decision before they came in the room.TRUMP: I was going to fire Comey.
When the NBC anchor noted the White House’s written claim about the recommendations from the Justice Department, Trump couldn’t have been clearer about his intentions.”Oh, I was gonna fire regardless of [the] recommendation,” the president said.In other words, according to Trump himself, what the Trump White House told the public wasn’t true. The entire narrative created by the West Wing has been discredited by the person the narrative was intended to protect.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."