President Donald J. Trump and Attorney General William Barr depart after delivering remarks on citizenship and the census in the Rose Garden at the White House on Thursday, July 11th, 2019 in Washington, DC.
Jabin Botsford | The Washington Post | Getty Images
President Donald Trump on Thursday slammed a new report about his call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky as a “Fake Washington Post con job,” but did not deny a key piece of the story.
The president had indirectly asked Attorney General William Barr to hold a news conference declaring that Trump had broken no laws in his July 25 call with Zelensky, which is now at the center of the House impeachment inquiry, The Washington Post reported Wednesday night, citing people familiar with the matter.
The Post reports that Barr decided not to hold the presser. But Trump tweeted Thursday morning that “Bill Barr did not decline my request to talk about Ukraine” — disputing Barr’s reported refusal while appearing to acknowledge that he did ask Barr to discuss Ukraine publicly.
White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said that Trump “has nothing but respect for AG Barr and greatly appreciates the work he’s done on behalf of the country — and no amount of shady sources with clear intent to divide, smear, and slander will change that.”
A senior White House official also pushed back on the report, telling NBC News that Trump “publicly praises AG Barr all the time … and the idea he’s upset about a phantom request for a press conference is ridiculous.”
“The DOJ did in fact release a statement about the call and the claim that it resulted in tension because it wasn’t a news conference is completely false,” the official added to NBC.
One of the authors of the Post report, Matt Zapotosky, tweeted after Trump’s denial that the president “now seems to concede he made a request for Barr to ‘talk about Ukraine,’ but disputes it was rejected.”
This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.
