Neither Vice President Mike Pence nor White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer were accurately informed in advance about President Trump's plan to fire FBI Director James Comey, weekend reports from The Washington Post and The New York Times reveal.
Pence was apparently tasked with sharing the official White House account of Comey's ouster, a story Trump himself would thouroughly undercut:
[Pence on Wednesday] went to Capitol Hill and in a brief scrum with reporters described the decision-making process that led to Comey’s dismissal as one that originated at the Justice Department and moved up to the chain of command to the president for action. This wasn’t a statement made in passing. Four different times he pointed to the Justice Department as the catalyst and cited Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein’s memo critiquing Comey’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state as being critically influential. Everyone now knows there was much more to the sequence of events ... [The Washington Post]
"Pence has prided himself on being a truth-teller," the Post story notes, a difficult reputation to maintain when the president publicly repudiates his remarks.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
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.
Spicer's situation was different. Citing "a half-dozen West Wing officials," the Times reports he was deliberately kept in the dark in advance of the firing because the president did not trust the discretion of the White House communications staff:
[Trump] has been especially critical of Mr. Spicer, they said, openly musing about replacing him and telling people in his circle that he kept his own press secretary out of the loop in dismissing Mr. Comey until the last possible moment because he feared that the communications staff would leak the news. [The New York Times]
As the Post comments, this week demonstrates that "Trump established a White House with few clear lines of authority, competing power centers and, as it turned out, fighting factions" plagued by poor communications. Read more of that analysis here.
-
House posts lewd Epstein note attributed to TrumpSpeed Read The estate of Jeffrey Epstein turned over the infamous 2003 birthday note from President Donald Trump
-
Supreme Court allows 'roving' race-tied ICE raidsSpeed Read The court paused a federal judge's order barring agents from detaining suspected undocumented immigrants in LA based on race
-
South Korea to fetch workers detained in Georgia raidSpeed Read More than 300 South Korean workers detained in an immigration raid at a Hyundai plant will be released
-
DC sues Trump to end Guard 'occupation'Speed Read D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb argues that the unsolicited military presence violates the law
-
RFK Jr. faces bipartisan heat in Senate hearingSpeed Read The health secretary defended his leadership amid CDC turmoil and deflected questions about the restricted availability of vaccines
-
White House defends boat strike as legal doubts mountSpeed Read Experts say there was no legal justification for killing 11 alleged drug-traffickers
-
Epstein accusers urge full file release, hint at own listspeed read A rally was organized by Reps. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie, who are hoping to force a vote on their Epstein Files Transparency Act
-
Court hands Harvard a win in Trump funding battleSpeed Read The Trump administration was ordered to restore Harvard's $2 billion in research grants
