Sarah Huckabee Sanders faced the press on May 10, 2017, to explain Donald Trump’s firing of James Comey as FBI director. Surprise—she lied! We knew that at the time, of course, but the Mueller report’s account of Sanders’s defense is a good look at what it takes to survive as Trump’s mouthpiece:
When a reporter indicated that the "vast majority" of FBI agents supported Comey, Sanders said, "Look, we've heard from countless members of the FBI that say very different things." Following the press conference, Sanders spoke to the President, who told her she did a good job and did not point out any inaccuracies in her comments. Sanders told this Office that her reference to hearing from "countless members of the FBI" was a "slip of the tongue." She also recalled that her statement in a separate press interview that rank-and-file FBI agents had lost confidence in Comey was a comment she made "in the heat of the moment" that was not founded on anything.
That’s actually not all. In addition to claiming that “we've heard from countless members of the FBI” saying they didn’t support Comey, Sanders said that “most importantly, the rank and file of the FBI had lost confidence in their director.” She said that “most of America had decided on their own that Director Comey was not the person that should be leading the FBI, as evidenced by the numerous comments that we've seen from Democrat members in the House and Senate, Republican members, members of the FBI, and people across the board.” She said that Trump “had countless conversations with members from within the FBI.”
That was not a slip of the tongue. Four separate times in a single press briefing, Sanders said that Comey had lost confidence within the FBI. Two of those times she used the word “countless.” And then she went ahead and said the same thing in a separate interview, and that, rather than being a slip of the tongue, was supposedly said in the heat of the moment.
Liar, liar, pearl necklace and statement sleeves on fire.