warranty to spy on the trump campaign. despite acknowledging dossier allegations as being salacious and unverified, former fbi director james comey briefed those allegations to president obama and president-elect trump. those briefings conveniently leaked to the press, resulting in the publication of the dossier and launching thousands of false press stories based on the word of a foreign ex-spy, one who admitted he was desperate that trump lose the election and who was eventually fired as an fbi source for leaking to the press. after comey was fired, by his own admission, he leaked derogatory information to the press and successfully so of engineering the appointment of a special counsel, who sits here before us today.
the trump tower deal? i can t speak to that. i yield back, chairman. mr. hurt. thank, you mr. chairman. director mueller, you ve been asked many times this afternoon about collusion, obstruction of the justice, and impeachment in the steele dossier, and i don t think your answers are going to change if i ask you about those questions, so i m going to ask about a couple press stories, a lot of what the american people have received about this have been on press stories, some of that has been wrong, and some of those press stories have been accurate. on april 13th, 2018, mcclatchy reported that you had had evidence michael cohen made a secret trip to prague during the 2016 presidential election. i think he told the committees in congress that was incorrect. is that story true? i can t well, i can t go into it. got you. on october 31st, 2016, slate
new york times ? again, i have no idea. i counted about 75 times. how many times did you cite fox news? as with the other two, i have no idea. about 25 times. i ve got to say, it looks like volume two is mostly regurgitated press stories. honestly, there s almost nothing in volume two that i couldn t already hear or know simply by having a $50 cable news subscription. however, your investigation caused the american taxpayers $25 million. you cited media reports nearly 200 times in your report. then in a footnote, a small footnote, number seven, page 15, volume two of your report, i quote, this section summarizes and cites various news stories not for the truth of the information contained in the stories but rather to place candidate trump s response to those stories in context.
i can t speak to that. i yield back, chairman. thank you, mr. chairman. director mueller, you ve been asked many times this afternoon about collusion, obstruction of justice and impeachment and the steele dossier. i don t think your answers are going to change if i ask you about those questions. so i m going to ask about a couple of press stories. a lot of what the american people have received about this have been on press stories. some of that has been wrong. some of those press stories have been accurate. april 13, 2018, mcclatchy reported that you had evidence michael cohen made a secret trip to prague during the 2016 presidential election. i think he told one of the committees here in congress that was incorrect. is that story true? i can t go into it. got you. on october 31, 2016, slate
warrant to spy on the trump campaign. despite acknowledging dusty allegations as being salacious and unverified, former fbi director james comey briefed those allegations to president obama and president-elect trump. this briefings conveniently leaked to the press. launching thousands of false press stories based on the word of a foreign ex-spy. one who admitted he was desperate that trump lose the election and who was eventually fired as an fbi source for leaking to the press. after combing himself was fired, by his own admission, he leaked derogatory information on president trump to the press for the specific purpose and successfully so, as engineering the appointment of a special counsel who sits here before us today.