President Donald Trump. AP

It’s difficult to describe the feeling of seeing the president of the United States lie, in the moment, about ongoing events and testimony. To watch the White House declare that you should believe it over your lying eyes, even as you witness reality unfold in real time.

It’s not the usual spin or political dishonesty; it feels transgressive, like some critical line has been crossed, and a new world entered where Donald Trump and his allies contest the nature of truth itself, with the presidency as their platform for action.

That’s exactly what happened, on Monday, during a hearing of the House Intelligence Committee. Testifying on alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, FBI Director James Comey confirmed the existence of an investigation into that interference and the Trump campaign itself.

“I have been authorized by the Department of Justice,” Comey said, “to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.”

Comey also affirmed the view that Russia favored Trump with this interference. “I think that was a fairly easy judgment for the community,” he said. “Putin hated Secretary Clinton so much that the flip side of that coin was he had a clear preference for the person running against the person he hated so much.”

James Comey. Alex Wong/Getty Images

Insofar that normal people watch congressional hearings, any casual viewer would have read this as confirmation of election “hacking” and undue influence from the Russian government. But President Trump, perhaps interested in shaping the narrative of this hearing and investigation, offered a different interpretation on Twitter, through the official POTUS account. “The NSA and FBI tell Congress that Russia did not influence the electoral process,” he said , adding a brief clip of the hearing for readers to watch.