The facts

This requires context.

Mr. Trump and his aides have given a number of conflicting reasons — sometimes within hours of each other or even in the same interview — for why he fired Mr. Comey from his position as F.B.I. director on May 9, 2017. At the time, Mr. Comey was leading the investigation into whether Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign had coordinated with Russian election meddling.

Initially, the White House cited a recommendation from Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, who criticized Mr. Comey’s handling of the conclusion of a separate investigation into whether Hillary Clinton mishandled classified emails.

On May 10, 2017, Mr. Trump informed Russian officials in an Oval Office meeting that he had fired Mr. Comey. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off,” Mr. Trump told the Russians, as The New York Times has reported.

And in an NBC News interview that was broadcast on May 11, 2017, Mr. Trump said he had made up his mind to fire Mr. Comey — even before Mr. Rosenstein’s recommendation — at least partly because of the Russia investigation:

“But regardless of recommendation, I was going to fire Comey knowing there was no good time to do it And in fact, 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. It’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should’ve won.”

However, in that same interview with the NBC News anchor Lester Holt, Mr. Trump also said Mr. Comey was fired because of his incompetence — a decision the president acknowledged could drag out the Russia investigation:

“As far as I’m concerned, I want that thing to be absolutely done properly. When I did this now, I said I probably maybe will confuse people. Maybe I’ll expand that — you know, I’ll lengthen the time because it should be over with. It should — in my opinion, should’ve been over with a long time ago because it — all it is an excuse. But I said to myself I might even lengthen out the investigation. But I have to do the right thing for the American people. He’s the wrong man for that position.”

A few months later, Mr. Trump again said he would have fired Mr. Comey regardless of Mr. Rosenstein’s recommendation. “Now, perhaps I would have fired Comey anyway, and it certainly didn’t hurt to have the letter, O.K. But he gives me a very strong letter, and now he’s involved in the case,” the president said in a July 2017 interview with The Times.