Trump's Latest Tweet on Comey Shifts the Story

A Wednesday morning tweet by President Trump is being branded a contradiction. "Slippery James Comey, the worst FBI Director in history, was not fired because of the phony Russia investigation where, by the way, there was NO COLLUSION (except by the Dems)!" the president tweeted. As CNN and Reuters point out, Trump was contradicting his earlier comments on Comey's dismissal, which touched on the FBI's investigation into Russian collusion in the 2016 election. "When I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story," Trump told NBC News' Lester Holt of the firing last May, per Politico.

The official White House narrative at the time was that Trump had fired Comey on the recommendation of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who'd penned a memo criticizing Comey's handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server. But "regardless of the recommendation, I was going to fire Comey," Trump told Holt. Highly critical of Trump in his new memoir, Comey told ABC News on Tuesday that he can no longer be associated with the Republican Party, of which he's long considered himself a member. It "reflects now entirely Donald Trump's values. It doesn't reflect values at all," Comey said. (Trump also tweeted Wednesday about this police sketch.)