Trump: 'I Did Not Make, And Do Not Have' Comey Tapes
BALTIMORE (WJZ/AP) -- President Donald Trump tweeted Thursday that he "did not make, and [does] not have" any recordings of his conversations with fired FBI Director James Comey.
The saga of the apparently non-existent tapes began last month, just days after Trump fired Comey, who was leading the investigation into contacts between the president's campaign and Russian officials.
A New York Times report cited two unnamed Comey associates who recounted his version of a January dinner with the president in which Trump asked for a pledge of loyalty. Comey declined, instead offering to be "honest." When Trump then pressed for "honest loyalty," Comey told him, "You will have that," the associates said.
Trump tweeted the next day that Comey "better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!"
That immediately evoked the secret White House recordings that led to Richard Nixon's downfall during Watergate. Under a post-Watergate law, the Presidential Records Act, recordings made by presidents belong to the people and can eventually be made public. Destroying them would be a crime.
Comey has claimed that any recordings would support his claims that Trump asked him to pledge loyalty and to drop the investigation into Trump's former national security adviser.
"Lordy, I hope there are tapes," Comey declared at a congressional hearing.
Two weeks ago, the president teased reporters in the White House Rose Garden by saying that he'd explain "maybe sometime in the very near future."
He cryptically added: "You are going to be very disappointed when you hear the answer." White House deputy press secretary Lindsay Walters said Wednesday that an answer would be provided this week.
The Secret Service also has no audio copies or transcripts of any tapes recorded within Trump's White House, according to a freedom of information request submitted by The Wall Street Journal.
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