Huckabee Sanders Admits To Lying About Why Trump Fired Comey: Mueller Report

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders might be on her way out after portions of the redacted report by former special counsel Robert Mueller confirmed she lied to media about the real reason why president Donald Trump fired former FBI director James Comey on May 9, 2017.

Speculation is growing Trump might fire Sanders instead of taking the heat for her confirmed lies revealed by the Mueller report. Sanders admitted that her claims on Comey's firing "were not founded on anything."

Democrats are already calling for her to be ousted.

Trump said he fired Comey over the latter’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. The Mueller report, however, disagrees. It asserted the real reason Trump fired Comey was because the FBI director wouldn’t publicly exonerate Trump and tell the public he wasn’t being investigated by Mueller.

According to the Mueller report, “Substantial evidence indicates that the catalyst for the president’s decision to fire Comey was Comey’s unwillingness to publicly state that the president was not personally under investigation, despite the president’s repeated requests that Comey make such an announcement.”

On May 11, Sanders held a press briefing to explain the White House’s take on Comey’s firing. In an answer to a reporter’s question, Sanders said Comey was fired not because the president was trying to stop the Russia investigation, but because “he was not fit to do the job. It’s that simple … the president knew that Director Comey was not up to the task. He decided he wasn’t the right person for the job. He wanted somebody that could bring credibility back to the F.B.I. that had been lost over the last several months.”

Several reporters then pressed Sanders further on the real reason, to which Sanders replied:

“I can speak to my own personal experience, I’ve heard from countless members of the F.B.I. that are grateful and thankful for the president’s decision,” she Sanders.

A disbelieving reporter asked her, “You personally have talked to ‘countless’ FBI officials, employees, since this happened?”

“Correct,” Sanders said.

“I mean, really?” the incredulous reporter asked.

Sanders then doubled down on the claims. “Between like e-mails, text messages, absolutely."

Saying she wasn’t going to “get into a numbers game” when asked to quantify just how many of these e-mails and text messages she’d received (“50, 60, 70?”), Sanders reiterated that she’d “heard from a large number of individuals who work at the F.B.I. who said that they are very happy with the president’s actions.”

Everything Sanders said was a lie, confirms the redacted Mueller report released Thursday. According to Mueller, Trump’s “draft termination letter also stated that morale in the F.B.I. was at an all-time low and Sanders told the press after Comey’s termination that the White House had heard from 'countless' F.B.I. 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 F.B.I. 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.”

This means Sanders misled the public by claiming the “countless” F.B.I. employees that allegedly e-mailed and texted her to say they’d lost confidence in Comey.