“He fired [James] Comey because Comey would not, among other things, say that he wasn’t a target of the investigation,” Rudy Giuliani said Wednesday of President Donald Trump's decision. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo Giuliani: Trump fired Comey because former FBI director wouldn't say he wasn't a target in investigation

Rudy Giuliani on Wednesday night said President Donald Trump fired James Comey because the former FBI director wouldn’t offer public assurances that Trump wasn’t a target of an investigation.

“He fired Comey because Comey would not, among other things, say that he wasn’t a target of the investigation,” the former New York mayor, who recently joined Trump’s legal team, told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “He’s entitled to that. Hillary Clinton got that and he couldn’t get that. So he fired him and he said, ‘I’m free of this guy.’”


Comey had previously said that he told Trump he wasn't the focus of an investigation but that the president pressed him to make a public statement. The former FBI director said he never made a public statement for several reasons, including the possibility that Trump’s actions would eventually come under review by the FBI.

The president has changed his reason for firing Comey since he dismissed the former FBI director in May 2017. The White House initially said Trump fired Comey at the recommendation of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who penned a memo suggesting firing Comey over his handling of the investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server.

However, several days later, the president told NBC’s Lester Holt that he fired Comey over the investigation into Russian collusion.

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"When I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story," Trump said at the time of the decision to dismiss Comey.

More recently, Trump tweeted in April that Comey “was not fired because of the phony Russia investigation.”

