Trump floats canceling White House press briefings

President Trump defended on Friday morning the slew of contradictions in the White House’s account of FBI Director James Comey’s firing, suggesting he might cancel “all future ‘press briefings'” in the name of accuracy.

“As a very active President with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy!” Trump tweeted.

As a very active President with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy!….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017

…Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future “press briefings” and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017

Prominent inconsistencies emerged in the White House’s version of Comey’s ouster on Tuesday evening. Trump and his team first said the FBI director was fired after the recommendation of the attorney general and his deputy, but the president himself contradicted that version only a day later.

“I was going to fire regardless of the recommendation,” Trump told NBC’s Lester Holt. 

{mosads}Trump’s account on Thursday not only ran counter to his letter, but to the narrative recounted by Vice President Pence and White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders, both of whom sought to portray Comey’s ouster as a carefully made decision rooted in the Justice Department’s recommendation. 

Sanders also claimed Wednesday that Comey had lost the faith of the rank-and-file FBI and that the agency’s probe into Russian election meddling was a minor matter, claims that were both contradicted by congressional testimony from new acting FBI chief Andrew McCabe.

Sanders on Thursday acknowledged that she had briefed reporters on Comey’s firing at the White House a day earlier using incomplete information. But she insisted that the administration’s account of the episode has remained consistent, despite a number of contradictions. 

“If you want to talk about people in the dark, our story is consistent,” she said. “The people that are in the dark today are the Democrats.”