No one at the White House was willing to put their name on the denial of the Comey memo

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer
(Image credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

The New York Times reported Tuesday that former FBI Director James Comey shared with associates that President Trump asked him to end the FBI investigation into ousted National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Comey apparently had a conversation with Trump in mid-February, just one day after Flynn resigned, and in a memo he wrote about the exchange revealed that Trump asked him to "let this go." Flynn was being investigated as part of the bureau's probe into ties between Trump, his associates, and Russia.

The Times did not view the memo in question; one of Comey's associates read parts of the document to a Times reporter. In a statement, the White House denied the description of the conversation between Trump and Comey as relayed in Comey's memo via the Times report — but no one in the administration was willing to put their name on the statement. The entire denial was issued anonymously:

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Kimberly Alters

Kimberly Alters is the news editor at TheWeek.com. She is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.