{"slug":"trump-first-term-sarah-huckabee-sanders-lies","title":"White House Press Briefings: Documented Lies to Press and Public Under Oath Admission","date":"2017-01-21","lastUpdated":"2019-06-14","description":"Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump's White House Press Secretary from July 2017 to June 2019, made numerous documented false statements to the press and public from the White House podium. The Mueller Report revealed Sanders admitted under oath that her claims about FBI rank-and-file agents having 'lost confidence' in James Comey were false and were not based on anything — she acknowledged they were 'a slip of the tongue' made 'in the heat of the moment.' This was among the most explicit admissions by a senior official that public statements from the White House press briefing room had no factual basis.","summary":"Sanders told reporters in May 2017 that the reason Trump fired Comey was that FBI rank-and-file agents had lost confidence in him — a claim supported by the White House's stated justification for the firing. When Mueller's investigators interviewed Sanders, she acknowledged that statement had not been based on anything, that she had made it up in the moment, and that it was a 'slip of the tongue.' The Mueller Report quoted her directly: the claim was not based on 'any of the things you heard.' Other documented false claims from the briefing room included statements about the Trump Tower meeting, Trump's involvement in drafting a misleading statement about the meeting, and numerous false claims about immigration, trade, and policy matters that fact-checkers documented.","category":"rule-of-law","severity":"significant","ongoing":false,"sources":[{"url":"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/18/us/politics/mueller-report-sarah-sanders.html","title":"Mueller Report Reveals Sanders Admitted Her Comey Claim Was False","publisher":"The New York Times"},{"url":"https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/04/18/sarah-sanders-admitted-her-claim-about-fbi-rank-and-file-was-false-mueller-says/","title":"Sarah Sanders admitted her claim about FBI rank and file was false, Mueller says","publisher":"The Washington Post"},{"url":"https://apnews.com/article/sanders-mueller-report-false-statements-comey-fbi","title":"Mueller Report: Sanders admitted FBI rank-and-file claim was not based on anything","publisher":"The Associated Press"}],"draft":false,"status":"published","tags":["Sanders","Spicer","press-briefing","first-term","rule-of-law","Mueller","Comey","false-statements"],"relatedEntries":[],"timeline":[{"date":"2017-01-21","title":"Spicer makes first documented false statement — inauguration crowd size","summary":"Sean Spicer holds the administration's first press briefing and falsely claims Trump's inauguration attracted the largest crowd in history. Photographs and transit data directly contradict the claim. The administration dismisses the photos and offers 'alternative facts' as a description of Spicer's statements."},{"date":"2017-05-11","title":"Sanders tells press FBI rank-and-file lost confidence in Comey","summary":"Sanders tells reporters she has heard from 'countless' FBI agents who are happy Comey was fired, and that rank-and-file agents had lost confidence in him. She will later admit under oath these statements were not based on anything."},{"date":"2017-08-01","title":"Sanders denies Trump drafted misleading Trump Tower statement","summary":"Sanders tells reporters Trump was not involved in drafting the statement about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting. The Mueller Report later finds this was false — Trump personally dictated the statement."},{"date":"2019-04-18","title":"Mueller Report reveals Sanders admitted FBI claim was false","summary":"The Mueller Report, released on April 18, 2019, quotes Sanders acknowledging to investigators that her May 2017 claim about FBI agents losing confidence in Comey was not based on any conversations, not based on information from anyone, and was a 'slip of the tongue' made 'in the heat of the moment.'"},{"date":"2019-06-14","title":"Sanders leaves White House — 94 days between last briefings","summary":"Sanders departs the White House as Press Secretary. During her tenure, the administration went 94 days between press briefings at one point, and the daily briefing format was effectively abandoned. Her final months saw no regular public briefings at all."}],"location":{"name":"White House Press Briefing Room, Washington, D.C.","lat":38.8977,"lng":-77.0365},"custom":{"era":"first-term","posture":"judicial-finding","warCrimeClassification":"enabling","internationalLaw":[],"iccRelevance":false,"victims":"The American press corps and through them the public, who were misled from the official White House podium about the reasons for the FBI director's firing and other consequential matters; the institutional credibility of the White House press operation","structuredPerpetrators":[{"name":"Sarah Huckabee Sanders","role":"White House Press Secretary July 2017 to June 2019; told press that FBI rank-and-file had lost confidence in Comey; admitted under Mueller investigation oath that the claim was false and not based on anything; made numerous other documented false statements from the briefing podium","institution":"White House"},{"name":"Donald Trump","role":"President; directed or approved false public justifications for the Comey firing; his administration conducted press briefings that produced documented false statements","institution":"White House"}],"updateLog":[{"date":"2019-06-14","summary":"Based on Sanders departure and Mueller Report documentation."}]}}