In the afternoon of May 10, 2017, deputy press secretary Sarah Sanders spoke to the President about his decision to fire Comey and then spoke to reporters in a televised press conference. Sanders told reporters that the President, the Department of Justice, and bipartisan members of Congress had lost confidence in Comey, " [a]nd most importantly, the rank and file of the FBI had lost confidence in their director. Accordingly, the President accepted the recommendation of his Deputy Attorney General to remove James Comey from his position." In response to questions from reporters, Sanders said that Rosenstein decided “on his own” to review Comey’s performance and that Rosenstein decided “on his own” to come to the President on Monday, May 8 to express his concerns about Comey. When a reporter indicated that the “vast majority” of FBI agents supported Comey, Sanders said, "Look, we’ve heard from countless members of the FBI that say very different things. " Following the press conference, Sanders spoke to the President, who told her she did a good job and did not point out any inaccuracies in her comments. Sanders told this Office that her reference to hearing from “countless members of the FBI” was a “slip of the tongue.” She also recalled that her statement in a separate press interview that rank-and-file FBI agents had lost confidence in Comey was a comment she made “in the heat of the moment” that was not founded on anything.<doc-sep>On May 10, 2017, Sarah Sanders, then the White House deputy press secretary, told reporters that "countless" FBI agents had told the White House that they had lost confidence in James Comey, who had been fired as FBI director the day before by President Donald Trump. But special counsel Robert Mueller's report, released Thursday, says that she simply made the assertion up. The report says Sanders, since promoted to press secretary, told investigators she had no evidence to make that claim. Sanders, who was interviewed by Mueller’s team as part of its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, said the claim was a “slip of the tongue.” Sanders did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Mueller report underscored the extent to which the White House created an unreliable narrative about Comey’s firing, with Sanders’ statements deflecting questions about Trump’s justification for the move. “She also recalled that her statement in a separate press interview that rank-and-file FBI agents had lost confidence in Comey was a comment she made ‘in the heat of the moment’ that was not founded on anything,” the report stated. Sanders told reporters at the 2017 press conference “the President, the Department of Justice, and bipartisan members of Congress had lost confidence in Comey," as did the rank and file of the FBI. When a reporter indicated that the "vast majority" of FBI agents supported Comey, Sanders said, "Look, we've heard from countless members of the FBI that say very different things." While Sanders’ claim was widely scrutinized at the time, the revelation in the Mueller report that she admitted to having no evidence for the claim sparked renewed criticism. “They all lie. Lie. Lie,” tweeted Preet Bharara, a former U.S. attorney for New York’s Southern District, on Thursday. Sarah Sanders admits in the Mueller report she lies to the press and the American people. She should resign today. — Pete Souza (@PeteSouza) April 18, 2019 The report also details how Jeff Sessions, then attorney general, and Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, expressed concern to then-White House counsel Don McGahn about the White House’s effort to push the narrative that Comey’s firing was Rosenstein’s decision. McGahn later asked attorneys in the White House to work with the press to “correct the narrative.” During an interview with NBC News anchor Lester Holt the day after the Sanders news conference, Trump admitted that he had made the decision to fire Comey because "of this Russia thing with Trump."<doc-sep>White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders admitted to the special counsel’s investigators that she misled the media about why President Trump canned top G-man James Comey. “The president’s draft termination letter … stated that morale in the FBI was at an all time low and Sanders told the press after Comey’s termination that the White House had heard from ‘countless’ FBI agents who had lost confidence in Comey,” the report said. “But the evidence does not support those claims. The president told Comey at their January 27 dinner that ‘the people of the FBI really like [Comey],’” Mueller’s 448-page report continued. “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.” The report also asserted that Trump fired Comey because the FBI director would not publicly exonerate him. “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,” the report said. Trump fired Comey in May 2017, claiming at the time that it was over his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. He later told Russians during an oval office visit that Comey was “a nut job” and the pressure from the Russia probe had ended as a result of his firing. He said the same thing to NBC News days later, explaining that he was thinking about Russia when he made the decision. Sanders did not immediately return a request for comment from The Post.<doc-sep>
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders made unfounded remarks to the press about former FBI Director James Comey after he was fired. Sanders admitted this to the special counsel Robert Mueller's office, saying her remarks were a "slip of the tongue" and "not founded on anything." A redacted version of Mueller's report on Russian election interference was released on Thursday. Visit BusinessInsider.com for more stories. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders admitted to the office of special counsel Robert Mueller that comments she made to the press on former FBI Director James Comey's firing were "not founded on anything," according to a redacted version of Mueller's report released on Thursday. After President Donald Trump fired Comey in May 2017, Sanders in a press conference told reporters "countless members of the FBI" had told the White House they'd lost confidence in the former FBI director. "Following the press conference, Sanders spoke to the President, who told her she did a good job and did not point out any inaccuracies in her comments," Mueller's report said. "Sanders told this Office that her reference to hearing from 'countless members of the FBI' 'was a 'slip of the tongue.'" The report added that Sanders "also recalled that her statement in a separate press interview that rank-and-file FBI agents had lost confidence in Comey was a comment she made 'in the heat of the moment' that was not founded on anything." Sanders' tenure as White House press secretary has been marked by a contentious relationship with the media that has at times resulted in shouting matches with reporters. Over the course of Trump's time in the White House, the number of Trump administration press briefings have declined precipitously, which has sparked concerns from the White House Correspondents' Association about a "retreat from transparency."