Tipsheet

Secret Service: We Don't Have Any Trump Tapes

Well, if there are any recordings from the Trump White House, the U.S. Secret Service does not have them. The question about the existence of taped conversations were brought up when the former FBI director was fired by the president in early May.

“James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” tweeted the president at the time. The Secret Service said they have no recordings, but that doesn’t mean some other party has done so (via WSJ):

The U.S. Secret Service has no audio copies or transcripts of any tapes recorded within President Donald Trump’s White House, the agency said on Monday.
The agency’s response to a freedom of information request submitted by The Wall Street Journal doesn’t exclude the possibility that recordings could have been created by another entity.
The Secret Service handled recording systems within the White House for past presidents, including Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy.
[…]
In recent days, the two men [Comey and Trump] have offered differing accounts of whether Mr. Trump asked Mr. Comey in private conversations within the White House complex to ease off the FBI’s probe of former national security adviser Mike Flynn.
On Friday, Mr. Trump kept the tapes mystery alive, telling reporters in the White House Rose Garden, “I’ll tell you about that maybe sometime in the very near future.” He added, “Oh, you’re going to be very disappointed when you hear the answer, don’t worry.”

Mr. Comey became the subject of discussion in Washington over his testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee last week over Russian interference during the 2016 election. He also drafted a memo on instances where he felt President Trump was acting improperly when it came to possibly influencing an ongoing federal investigation into Michael Flynn. Mr. Flynn, who served as national security adviser, was fired by the Trump White House for misleading the vice president concerning conversations he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. He’s also being investigated for his ties to Russia.