Former FBI Director James Comey blasted fake news and leakers during his Thursday testimony in front of the Senate Intel committee, calling reports of collusion “nonsense.”
Sen. James Risch (R-ID) asked Comey about a New York Times report that suggested the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia using electronic surveillance, and Comey shot down that there was any truth to the reports.
In fact, Comey said the false report distressed him so much that he surveyed the intelligence community to see if he was missing something.
When he discovered that the report was inaccurate, he convened with Republicans and Democrats to alert them of the falsehoods.
“It was not true. … The challenge, and I’m not picking on reporters, about writing stories about classified information is the people talking about it often don’t really know what’s going on, and those of us that actually know what’s going on are not talking about it,” Comey explained.
“And we don’t call the press to say, ‘hey, you got this thing wrong about this sensitive topic,'” he continued. “We just have to leave it there … nonsense. But I can’t go on explaining why it’s nonsense.”
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