Earlier today, Carl Arbogast noted President Trump’s frenetic morning Twitter tirade, including this accusation that James Comey lied under oath:

Wow, watch Comey lie under oath to Senator G when asked “have you ever been an anonymous source…or known someone else to be an anonymous source…?” He said strongly “never, no.” He lied as shown clearly on @foxandfriends.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2018

Note that Trump puts this inside quotes, thus claiming that Grassley asked precisely this question in these words: “have you ever been an anonymous source…or known someone else to be an anonymous source…?” The money quote is the second phrase, because Andy McCabe testified, as Jerry Dunleavy noted yesterday, that Comey was aware that McCabe had authorized leaks:

So I did some digging.

On the left is Comey’s testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on 5/3/17.

On the right is McCabe’s statement after being fired on 3/16/18.

The discrepancy here ***seems*** to indicate that, at the very least, either Comey or McCabe is lying. pic.twitter.com/KNJ8eNHKBP

— JERRY DUNLEAVY (@JerryDunleavy) March 17, 2018

The problem is that when you examine the actual testimony, it does not match up to what Trump put inside quotation marks:

GRASSLEY: Director Comey, have you ever been an anonymous source in news reports about matters relating to the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation?

COMEY: Never.

GRASSLEY: Question two, relatively related, have you ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation?

COMEY: No.

The question was not “have you … known someone else to be an anonymous source” but rather “have you ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source” about those matters.

In other words, Trump made up the money quote. “Authorized” is not the same as “known” — as I noted yesterday, and even Jerry Dunleavy conceded:

"Authorized" and "aware of" are not necessarily the same thing, exactly. But this is still troubling and a good catch. It should be followed up on.

— Patterico (@Patterico) March 17, 2018

Definitely. It ***seems*** contradictory which is why it needs to be nailed down for sure.

— JERRY DUNLEAVY (@JerryDunleavy) March 17, 2018

Indeed, McCabe’s position is that he had authority to authorize these leaks on his own.

This is not a total defense of Comey, of course. I agree with Dunleavy that there is an arguable contradiction there — indicating, if not an outright lie, then perhaps an, um, “lack of candor” on Comey’s part. It’s troubling and should be investigated further. You could argue that Comey’s knowledge constituted a sort of authorization (just as you could argue that it didn’t).

But that doesn’t give President Trump the right to make up quotes. Things inside quotation marks should be actual quotes. No matter how you feel about whether Comey lied, or whether his knowledge amounted to authorization — none of that changes the fact that Trump made up a quote that was not actually said in Comey’s testimony.

Neither President Trump nor anyone else should make up quotes. Period.

If he does so — and he unquestionably did here — he should be called out, just like we would call out someone on the left who did the same.

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