In May 2017, around the time Special Counsel Robert Mueller was appointed to lead the investigation into Russian election interference, Sarah Huckabee Sanders stood at the podium in the White House’s press room and … well, apparently she lied, Mueller’s newly released report reveals.
On that day, President Donald Trump’s press secretary told the room of reporters that the White House had heard from “countless members of the FBI” who, according to her, had lost faith in former FBI director James Comey. The remark was made in the wake of Comey’s termination, and in response to a reporter’s statement that FBI staff were apparently upset to lose him. Here’s video of the moment, if you’d like to see it yourself:
And deep in Volume II of Mueller’s 400-plus-page document, the special counsel writes that Sanders admitted that this was a lie. The report reads:
Sanders told the press after Comey’s termination that the White House had heard from “countless” FBI agents who had lost confidence in Comey. But the evidence does not support those claims. The President told Comey at their January 27 dinner that “the people of the FBI really like [him],” no evidence suggests that the President heard otherwise before deciding to terminate Comey, and Sanders acknowledged to investigators that her comments were not founded on anything.
According to the report, Sanders later told investigators that her comment was a “slip of the tongue,” and that a similar statement made “in the heat of the moment” was also not founded on anything. Shocking!
