On Sunday morning, President Trump blistered former FBI director James Comey after Comey’s disastrous appearance in an interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace, in which Comey admitted he was wrong about the FBI’s misconduct in surveilling the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Trump tweeted, “So now Comey’s admitting he was wrong. Wow, but he’s only doing so because he got caught red handed. He was actually caught a long time ago. So what are the consequences for his unlawful conduct. Could it be years in jail? Where are the apologies to me and others, Jim?”
So now Comey’s admitting he was wrong. Wow, but he’s only doing so because he got caught red handed. He was actually caught a long time ago. So what are the consequences for his unlawful conduct. Could it be years in jail? Where are the apologies to me and others, Jim?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 15, 2019
During the interview, Wallace asked, “Would you agree that the FISA court was also given false information by the FBI?”
Comey admitted, “ I think that’s fair. The FBI should have included – or at least pushed to the lawyers, so they could make a decision – information that you just said, things like that, that another agency – not a source relationship, but some kind of contact relationship –”
As The Federalist noted, Comey stated, “(Inspector General Horowitz) is right; I was wrong. I was overconfident in the procedures that the FBI and the Justice [Department] had built up over 20 years. I thought they were robust enough. It’s incredibly hard to get a FISA. I was overconfident in those, and he’s right. There was real sloppiness—17 things that either should’ve been in the applications or at least discussed and characterized differently. It was not acceptable, and so he’s right, and I was wrong.”
Wallace cut through the billowing smoke, responding, “But, you make it sound like you were a bystander, an eyewitness. You were the director of the FBI while a lot of this was going on, sir.” Comey then admitted, “Sure. I’m responsible. That’s why I’m telling you, I was wrong. I was overconfident as director of our procedures, and it’s important that a leader be accountable and transparent.”
Last week, during Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, Senator Lindsey Graham asked Horowitz, “The former FBI Director James Comey said this week that your report vindicates him. Is that a fair assessment of your report?”
Horowitz answered, “You know, I think the activities we found here don’t vindicate anyone who touched this.”
Graham continued by citing a reporter asking Comey if he had “ total confidence in the dossier when you used it to secure a surveillance warrant and also in the subsequent renewals.” Comey answered, “I have total process that the FISA process that the FISA process was followed. That the entire case was followed in a thoughtful, responsible way by DOJ and the FBI. I think the notion that FISA was abused here is nonsense.” When Graham asked Horowitz if he would “take issue with that statement,” Horowitz answered, “Certainly, our findings were that there were significant problems.”
Fox News noted:
In an April 2018 interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Comey claimed that the FISA process is “incredibly rigorous” and claimed that Republicans’ criticism of the Page FISA warrant was “a political deal” that was not “based in substance or law.” Following the report’s release, Comey essentially claimed vindication, declaring in the wake of the report that the criticism of the bureau’s actions “was all lies.”