This Is the Most Powerful Moment (So Far) From the James Comey Hearing

”Those were lies, plain and simple.”


James Comey’s voice broke just a little as he recounted an effort by the White House to “defame” him and “lie” about the reasons for his firing from the FBI. 

In his opening statement to the Senate intelligence committee on Thursday, the former FBI director told members of the panel that Trump had assured him that he was doing a “good job”—and said he was surprised by the reasons the White House then used to justify his firing, including the claim that his agents had lost confidence in him.

“The administration then chose to defame me and more importantly the FBI by saying the organization was in disarray, it was poorly led, and that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader,” Comey said. “Those were lies, plain and simple.”

Watch the video highlight above.

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In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

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