New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt pushed back Friday morning against former FBI Director James Comey's claim that a story of his from February was "not true."
Schmidt co-wrote an article published Feb. 14 that reported, "Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election." The piece cited "four current and former American officials."
Comey said during his congressional testimony on Thursday that the Times story was "not true."
Schmidt appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," where host Joe Scarborough asked why he believed the story was still accurate.
"Let's talk about the February 14 article that you're still standing by it, that Comey said was inaccurate," Scarborough said. "Why are you standing by the story? What can you tell us about it?"
"Comey said it was mostly not true," Schmidt said. "We spent an enormous amount of time re-reporting this story since the 14th, including yesterday, and what our reporting shows is that there's indeed been contacts between the Trump associates and Russian officials. And we've cited, we wrote a whole story today that laid out the case of why we still think that this is."
"Comey did not say specifically what issues he had with the story. We went to the FBI and asked them," Schmidt continued. "They did not, we think maybe the FBI may be putting a fine definition on intelligence officials. They may be saying that the amount of intercepted calls that we think there were was wrong, but our reporting still supports it."
Comey said during Thursday's Senate Intelligence Committee hearing that the Times' sources were likely not in a position to have correct information, adding that individuals who talk to the media about classified information "often don't really know what's going on."