CNN’s Chris Cuomo missed some key facts during a Monday morning interview with White House deputy press secretary Raj Shah.
During the wide-ranging interview, Cuomo and Shah discussed a report from The Washington Post that claimed President Donald Trump asked acting FBI director Andrew McCabe who he voted for in the 2016 election.
WATCH:
Cuomo claimed that Trump asked McCabe about his vote during an interview for permanent FBI director. The Washington Post report, however, indicates that the alleged discussion occurred when Trump was interviewing McCabe for acting — not permanent — FBI director.
“I’m told he was interviewing him to see if he would be permanent director and there was no chance of that,” Cuomo said.
“Well, look, the president did promote Andrew McCabe to become the acting director,” Shah corrected.
Elsewhere in the interview, Cuomo claimed that there exists a transcript of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s interview with the FBI about her use of a private email server.
WATCH:
“They didn’t even take a transcript,” Shah correctly said.
“You just said something that’s not true,” Cuomo retorted. “She wasn’t put under oath, it doesn’t matter… and there was a transcript of the proceeding.”
“There wasn’t!” Shah exclaimed. “Show me the transcript.”
According to an NBC News report, the FBI took notes of the interview but they did not produce an official transcript.
“The FBI does not produce verbatim transcripts of its investigative interviews. Under the FBI’s long-standing policy, agents do not make audio or video recordings of their interviews,” the NBC article explains. “Instead, summaries of the interviews are written on FBI Form 302, and have come to be known as ‘302’s.'”
“Two years ago the Justice Department said FBI agents should begin recording interviews, but only involving ‘individuals in federal custody, after they have been arrested but before their initial appearance’ in court,” the report continued. “That rule did not apply to the Clinton interview, which was voluntary.”
