President Trump’s explanation for why he fired FBI Director James Comey has shifted again, the Associated Press reports. Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump’s new attorneys, told Fox News that Trump fired Comey last year “because Comey would not, among other things, say that he wasn’t a target” of the special counsel’s Russia investigation. The explanation foreshadows a likely defense to the May 2017 dismissal, but it was at least the third offered by Trump and his advisers. It comes as the president’s legal team is debating whether to allow Trump to be interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team. Mueller has shown an interest in questioning Trump about his motivation for firing Comey as his investigators probe possible obstruction of justice.
In announcing the firing, the White House initially cited the FBI director’s handling of the probe into Democratic rival Hillary Clinton’s emails. Trump later told NBC’s Lester Holt that he was thinking of “this Russia thing.” On Fox News Wednesday night, Giuliani said Trump did the Lester Holt interview “to explain to the American people the president was not the target of the investigation.” Comey has acknowledged that he told Trump on multiple occasions that he was not personally under investigation. Yet when asked that same question by Congress at a public hearing last year, he declined to provide the same reassurance.