Comey’s testimony causes problems for some media

WASHINGTON — Former FBI Chief James Comey gave a few news editors headaches in the course of his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

CNN had to correct a multiple-bylined story it had run earlier in the week, in which the network reported that Comey would refute claims that he had told President Donald Trump that he was not personally under investigation in the FBI’s Russia probe. In a statement released Wednesday, Comey said he had so informed Trump three times. CNN corrected the story, which was based on an anonymous source.

On Thursday, Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, asked Comey about a Feb. 14 story in the New York Times that “suggested that the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians.”

Comey agreed that he called Democrats and Republicans to tell them that he didn’t know where the story came from. “In the main,” Comey confirmed, “it was not true.”

In a story about those remarks, the Times noted that the Feb. 14 story “said there was no evidence of collusion” — the story merely reported that there had been contacts between Russians and Trump campaign aides, “which are now at the heart of FBI and congressional investigations.” Neither Comey nor the FBI revealed what they believed was incorrect in the Feb. 14 story.