GOP senator: Comey ‘doesn’t strike me as someone who would lie under oath’

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) on Sunday said he doesn’t believe former FBI Director James Comey would lie under oath.

“No, he doesn’t strike me as someone who would lie under oath,” Lee said on ABC’s “This Week.”

“Nonetheless, I’m not wild about the fact that he had these memos leaked, leaked specifically with the intent of prompting the appointment of a special counsel. That doesn’t seem to me to be the kind of thing we want out of an FBI director.”

{mosads}When asked whether he believes Comey committed a crime, the Republican senator said it “appears to have been inappropriate” but said he doesn’t know whether it was a crime.

Comey in testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee last week said he leaked notes of his conversations with the president to the media through a friend in the hopes it would lead to the appointment of a special prosecutor.

The former FBI director said his decision was prompted by Trump’s suggestion, made on Twitter three days after Comey’s firing, that he may have secret recordings of their conversations — something the White House has neither confirmed nor denied. 

“My judgment was, I need to get that out into the public square,” Comey told the intelligence panel. “I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter. Didn’t do it myself for a variety of reasons. I asked him to because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel.”