President Donald Trump ridiculed the Washington Post on Wednesday for publishing a story reporting that Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire threatened to resign in protest of the Trump administration’s response to the “whistleblower” sounding an alarm about his call with the Ukrainian president.
“The Amazon/Washington Post just put out a fake article that acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, who I’ve gotten to know and he’s a tough cookie and I was surprised, I was shocked to hear this, was going to quit,” Trump said.
The Post reported that Maguire threatened to step down if he was not allowed to testify to Congress on Thursday.
Trump referred to a statement from Maguire whom he said denied the report.
“At no time have I considered resigning my position since assuming this role on Aug. 16, 2019,” Maguire said in a statement. “I have never quit anything in my life, and I am not going to start now. I am committed to leading the Intelligence Community to address the diverse and complex threats facing our nation.”
White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham also blasted the Post for running with the story without getting comment from the White House.
“This is actually not true. And we would have gone on the record to say that if the Washington Post had given us more than six minutes (literally) to respond,” she said on Twitter.
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