In the end, [Trump] said, his goal was to let the public decide by seeing the documents that have been kept secret for more than two years. “All I want to do is be transparent.”
(John Solomon and Buck Sexton – The Hill) President Trump in an exclusive interview with Hill.TV [watch the video] said Tuesday he ordered the release of classified documents in the Russia collusion case to show the public the FBI probe started as a “hoax” and that exposing it could become one of the “crowning achievements” of his presidency.
“What we’ve done is a great service to the country, really,” Trump said in a 45-minute, wide-ranging interview in the Oval Office.
“I hope to be able to call this, along with tax cuts and regulation and all the things I’ve done … in its own way this might be the most important thing because this was corrupt,” he said.
Trump also said he regretted not firing former FBI Director James Comey immediately instead of waiting until May 2017, confirming an account his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, gave Hill.TV earlier in the day that Trump was dismayed in 2016 by the way Comey handled the Hillary Clinton email case and began discussing firing him well before he became president.
“If I did one mistake with Comey, I should have fired him before I got here. I should have fired him the day I won the primaries,” Trump said. “I should have fired him right after the convention, say I don’t want that guy. Or at least fired him the first day on the job. … I would have been better off firing him or putting out a statement that I don’t want him there when I get there.”