"I was going to fire regardless of recommendation," Trump said in an interview with "NBC Nightly News." "Regardless of recommendation, I was going to fire Comey, knowing there was no good time to do it." Discussing his thought process, Trump told NBC that, "I said, ‘I probably, maybe will confuse people ... I might even lengthen out the [Russia] investigation, but I have to do the right thing for the American people. Despite dismissing the investigation into his campaign, Trump did say "if Russia did anything having to do with our election, I want to know about it."

Source: Fox News May 11, 2017 23:47 UTC