White House press secretary slams public vs private claims by officials on Russian collusion

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Friday slammed government officials for making public media statements claiming collusion between Donald Trump's campaign and Moscow while privately testifying under oath that they had no evidence of collusion.

The House Intelligence Committee on Thursday released thousands of pages of declassified interview transcripts from the Russia investigation that show that more than a year into the probe senior FBI and intelligence officials could offer no specific proof of collusion between Trump's campaign and Russia and instead offered rambling explanations of why the probe had persisted.

"I'm very grateful that those transcripts were released yesterday." McEnany said during a White House press briefing Friday. "Because those individuals were saying much different things publicly than they were saying privately."

McEnany called for the press to report about "Jim Clapper who said 10 days before he privately told investigators there was no evidence of collusion, that Watergate pales in comparison to the Russia probe. I'd encourage them to look at Samantha Powers, who was privately saying 'I'm not in possession of any evidence of collusion.' Ambassador Rice, 'I don't recall intelligence or evidence of any collusion. Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, 'I do not recall that being briefed to me.' And for three years, two years, probably more than that, CNN ran with the collusion. And if the American people are watching right now, they're probably very confused as to some of the quotes I read."

McEnany was responding to a reporter's question about CNN reporters Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck's article in the "K File" section on how McEnany called a Trump speech "racist," "hateful" and "not the American way" in 2015. 

"I would encourage the individual who did that analysis of my past, rather than focusing on me, he really should be focused on some of the very guests CNN chose to have on their network," McEnany said. "And perhaps the K File should do an analysis of that."

McEnany praised a decision Thursday by the Justice Department to drop charges against Michael Flynn, accusing the FBI of seeking to "manufacture a crime" by Flynn. McEnany referred to a report saying Media Research Center analyzing a dearth of media coverage about Flynn's exoneration.

"It is encouraging to see that justice finally prevailed," McEnany said. "These facts are important ... I hope the media will take these questions very seriously, will report the facts. There was heavy interest in the first iteration of Flynn news from many years ago, that got four times the coverage that the exoneration of Michael Flynn got today."