WASHINGTON – A New York Times reporter was relegated to the back row of a White House press conference on Friday, one day after fired FBI Director James Comey said a bombshell report about Russia by the major newspaper was “not true.”

Peter Baker, the Times’ chief White House Correspondent, found a placard bearing his publication’s name among the seats furthest away from President Trump during a joint press conference with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis in the Rose Garden.

Despite Trump’s frequent criticism of the outlet, the Times has been in the first few rows of every press conference the president has held since taking office.

The snub came just 24 hours after Comey told a Senate panel that an anonymously-sourced Times report from mid-February was false.

“In the main, it was not true,” Comey said of the article, which contained details about Trump associates having “repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election.”

The Times issued a statement late Thursday evening saying the publication would review any information that might disprove the original story but noting that “neither the FBI, nor Mr. Comey would comment or elaborate on what Mr. Comey believes to be incorrect.”

Comey later testified that he shared private memos of his conversations with Trump with a law professor at Columbia University.

The professor – a longtime friend of Comey’s named Daniel Richman – eventually recounted the content of the memos to the Times.

A White House official declined to comment on the seating arrangements.