President Donald Trump says he did not tape recordings of conversations with former FBI Director James Comey during meetings at the White House.
...whether there are "tapes" or recordings of my conversations with James Comey, but I did not make, and do not have, any such recordings.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 22, 2017
Shortly after firing Comey in May, Trump implied conversations with the former FBI Director may have been taped.
James Comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017
During a recent White House press conference, Trump was asked by reporters if the tapes exist. He responded by saying the press would be "very disappointed."
Testifying recently on Capitol Hill, Comey said he hoped Trump had recordings of their conversations and that if he did, they should be released to the public. Comey also admitted he purposely gave memos containing notes about his meetings with the president to a friend, knowing they would be given to the New York Times for a story.
"I woke up in the middle of the night on Monday night, because it didn't dawn on me originally, that there might be corroboration for our conversations, might be a tape, my judgement was that I needed to get that out into the public square and so I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter," Comey said. "I didn't do it myself for a variety of reasons, but asked him to, because I thought that it might prompt the appointment of a Special Counsel. I asked a close friend of mine to do that."
The memos have been turned over to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who was appointed by Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein last month to lead an independent investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
This is a developing story, stay tuned for updates. This post has been updated with additional information.
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