NPR

Trump Says He Planned To Fire 'Grandstander' Comey 'Regardless Of Recommendation'

The president told NBC that he fired James Comey as FBI director, would have done so based on a recommendation or not and said he was told three times by Comey that he wasn't under FBI investigation.
WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 10: President Donald Trump meets with Dr. Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State and National Security Advisory under President Richard Nixon, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC on Wednesday, May 10, 2017. (Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Updated at 2 p.m.

Undermining the prior rationale laid out by the White House, President Trump said he fired James Comey as FBI director without regard to the Justice Department's recommendation.

"Regardless of recommendation, I was going to fire Comey," Trump told NBC's Lester Holt in his

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