A day after both he and James Comey made their cases on Fox News, Donald Trump tweeted on Friday that the man he fired as FBI director was “either very sick or very dumb”.



On Thursday, Trump called into the morning show Fox & Friends. Comey appeared on Special Report with Bret Baier.

The same day, the Republican-led Senate judiciary committee approved a measure to protect special counsel Robert Mueller, investigating Russian election interference and alleged collusion between Trump aides and Moscow, from being fired by the president.

That came shortly after Trump, speaking to Fox & Friends, blasted the department which oversees the special counsel.

“I am very disappointed in my justice department,” he said. “But because of the fact that it’s going on, and I think you’ll understand this, I have decided that I won’t be involved.” But then he said: “I may change my mind at some point, because what’s going on is a disgrace.”

Comey said: “I hope he didn’t mean that he is going to decide by executive fiat to direct the actions of what is supposed to be an impartial law enforcement function. Lady justice has a blindfold. It should stay on.”

Comey, who was fired last May, created a series of contemporaneous memos – some classified, some not – to document his interactions with Trump. He wrote in the memos that Trump repeatedly brought up allegations contained in an unverified document, compiled by a former British spy in 2016, that explored ties between Trump’s orbit and Russia.

Comey caused content from the memos to reach the New York Times and wrote about them in his bestselling book, A Higher Loyalty. On Fox, he said Trump’s accusations of leaking were “just wrong”.

“Facts really do matter,” he said, “which is why I’m on this show to answer your questions. That memo was unclassified then, it’s still unclassified, it’s in my book. The FBI cleared that book before it could be published. That’s a false statement.”

On Friday, regardless, Trump tweeted: “Is everybody believing what is going on. James Comey can’t define what a leak is. He illegally leaked CLASSIFIED INFORMATION but doesn’t understand what he did or how serious it is. He lied all over the place to cover it up. He’s either very sick or very dumb. Remember sailor!”

It was not immediately clear which sailor Trump was referring to, although he has pardoned a US navy sailor, Kristian Saucier, for taking photographs inside a restricted area of a nuclear submarine.

Comey has acknowledged that the justice department inspector general, who has been investigating FBI actions during the Hillary Clinton email investigation, was examining whether he complied with FBI policy in producing and storing the memos. That inquiry was not looking at whether he mishandled classified information, he said.



“The bottom line is, I see no credible claim by any serious person that that violated the law,” Comey said on CNN on Wednesday.

Four Republicans joined Democrats in a 14-7 vote to approve the Senate measure to protect Mueller. Nearly all Republican senators say Trump should not fire the special counsel. But the majority leader, Mitch McConnell, has said he will not bring the legislation up for a full Senate vote.

Trump has increased his criticism of the Russia investigation since FBI raids on an office and hotel room used by Michael Cohen, his personal attorney who is under federal criminal investigation for business dealings reportedly including a payment to an actor in pornographic films who claims to have had a relationship with Trump.

On Fox & Friends, Trump again called the Mueller investigation “a witch-hunt” and insisted there was “no collusion”. He called Comey “a leaker” and “a liar”.

Among the most salacious parts of the private research dossier compiled in 2016 is an unverified claim that Trump consorted with prostitutes overnight during the Miss Universe pageant in 2013. Trump has denied the claim. Comey wrote in his memos that Trump told him he had never stayed the night in Moscow. Flight records and social media posts from the week concerned indicate Trump did spend at least one night in Russia.

“He said I didn’t stay there a night,” Trump told Fox & Friends. “Of course I stayed there. I stayed there a very short period of time but of course I stayed.”

Comey said on CNN on Wednesday he was always concerned when someone lied to the FBI, particularly if it was about something an agent never asked about, as he said was the case with Trump.



“It tends to reflect consciousness of guilt as we would say in law enforcement,” Comey said. “If they bring things up you didn’t ask about, and if they bring it up and make a false statement about it, it’s not definitive, but it certainly makes you very concerned about what might be going on there.”

Mueller has indicted several former Trump officials, including the former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who is charged with financial crimes, which he denies.

On Friday a federal judge in Washington threw out a civil lawsuit brought by Manafort that sought to challenge the authority of the special counsel. Manafort has made similar arguments in moving to dismiss the two criminal cases against him.

Trump, who recently added the former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani to his legal team, has not committed to sitting for an interview with Mueller.