WASHINGTON, DC, May 12, 2017 – Today, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the Ranking Member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, released the following statement:
“Today, the President made two extraordinary statements, one intended to threaten the FBI Director he just fired in the middle of the Russia investigation – and who may now be a witness – and the other to justify the misleading and conflicting explanations that he and his staff have given for that firing.
“If the President has “tapes” of his conversations with Director Comey, it is because the President himself made them. For a President who baselessly accused his predecessor of illegally wiretapping him, that Mr. Trump would suggest that he, himself, may have engaged in such conduct is staggering. The President should immediately provide any such recordings to Congress or admit, once again, to have made a deliberately misleading – and in this case threatening – statement.
“Finally, and with respect to the President’s suggestion that as a very busy person, he doesn’t have time to ensure that his spokespeople are accurately portraying his actions – it is difficult to know how to respond – except to say, being truthful with the American people is a core responsibility of the job. If he did not want to willingly undertake even the minimal requirements of the Presidency, it would have been far better for him to have considered that before he chose to run for the highest office in the land.”