In the first moments of his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday morning, former FBI Director James Comey called the White House reasoning for his firing—that rank-and-file FBI employees had lost faith in him—was a lie.
Comey said the Trump administration “chose to defame me and more importantly the FBI by saying the organization was in disarray that it was poorly lead that the workforce has lost confidence in its leader. Those were lies, plain and simple.”
Comey on Trump's explanation for firing: 'Those were lies plain and simple' https://t.co/w03g6MrgTm
— NBC News (@NBCNews) June 8, 2017
Following Comey’s surprising firing by President Donald Trump, Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the “rank-and-file” members of the FBI had “lost confidence” in Comey as a justification for his ouster.
“I think it’s real simple, Director Comey had lost the confidence of the rank-and-file within the FBI. He’d certainly, I think, lost the confidence from members of both sides, Republicans and Democrats in the House and the Senate, and frankly, most importantly … he’d lost the confidence of the American people,” Huckabee Sanders said.
That reasoning was also debunked by acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe in front of a Senate panel last month.