Comey's story 'may have changed' when he heard about tapes - Trump

  • 24/06/2017

Donald Trump says he mentioned there might be "tapes" of his meetings with ex-FBI director James Comey in order to get him to tell the truth.

Mr Trump admitted earlier this week he had no recordings of their meetings. He told Fox News on Friday (US time) his plan to keep Mr Comey in line "wasn't very stupid".

"Well, I didn't tape him. You never know what's happening when you see what the Obama administration - and perhaps longer than that - was doing all of this unmasking and surveillance and you read all about it and I've been reading about it for the last couple of months, about the seriousness of the - and horrible situation with surveillance all over the place," said Mr Trump.

"You've been hearing the word unmasking, a word you've probably never heard before. So you never know what's out there, and I didn't tape and I don't have any tape and I didn't tape. But when he found out that there maybe are tapes out there, whether it's governmental tapes or anything else or who knows. I think his story may have changed and you'll have to look into that because then he'll have to tell what actually took place at the events.

"My story didn't change. My story was always a straight story, my story was always the truth, but you'll have to determine for yourself whether or not his story changed. But I did not tape."

Mr Comey, asked if there were recordings of their conversations, earlier this month said: "Lordy, I hope there are tapes."

Mr Trump has also hinted he may fire special counsel Robert Mueller, the man investigating him and his campaign over alleged Russian election meddling.

"He's very, very good friends with Comey, which is very bothersome," Mr Trump told Fox News.

"The people that have been hired are all Hillary Clinton supporters. Some of them worked for Hillary Clinton. I mean the whole thing is ridiculous, if you want to know the truth, from that standpoint."

Tweet not good enough

The head of the US House of Representatives' Russia investigation says he wants a formal response from Mr Trump to a request for records about conversations with Mr Comey.

The House panel said on June 9 it had written to Don McGahn, the White House counsel, asking about the existence of any recordings or memos covering Mr Comey's conversations with Mr Trump and asked that copies of the materials be provided to the panel by June 23.

Mr Trump wrote on Twitter on Thursday, a day before the deadline, that he did not know if there were recordings of his conversations with Mr Comey, but he did not make or have any such recordings.

Republican Representative Mike Conaway, who is leading the House Intelligence Committee's investigation, told reporters Friday morning that Mr Trump's tweet was not a sufficient response.

Adam Schiff, the committee's top Democrat, said in a statement on Thursday that Mr Trump's Twitter comment stopped short of denying that the White House had tapes or recordings, and said the White House must respond in writing.

Representatives for Conaway and Schiff did not respond on Friday afternoon to queries about whether the White House had met the deadline to provide the materials.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said at a news briefing that the administration would respond.

Reuters / Newshub.