Fox & Friends admits its report on the Comey memos was 'mistaken'

(Image credit: Screenshot/Mediaite/Fox News)

published 11 July 2017

Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy took a moment Tuesday to "straighten" out the show's incorrect claims from the previous morning about former FBI Director James Comey's leaked memos. "Yesterday on this program we aired and tweeted a story saying former FBI Director James Comey leaked memos containing top secret information. We were mistaken in that," Doocy said. "According to a report, half of the memos contained information classified at the secret or confidential level, not top secret."

Doocy noted that the classified markings on the documents that Comey leaked "are at this point unclear." He did not offer an apology for overstating the level of classified information potentially contained in the Comey memos.

Top Senate Intelligence Committee Democrat Sen. Mark Warner (Va.) has said there's "no evidence" that Comey leaked classified information, and Comey's friend who leaked the memos to the media has denied that the memos he shared contained any classified information whatsoever. NBC News reported that "three of the memos were classified from the beginning," but "were never shared" with Comey's friend. Other reports have indicated that information in the memos may have been "retroactively classified."