Will testify under oath, president says
Former FBI director’s testimony dismissed as politically motivated.
WASHINGTON— President Donald Trump on Friday accused James Comey, the fired FBI director, of lying under oath to Congress, saying he would gladly provide sworn testimony disputing Comey’s charge that the president forced him out because of his handling of the investigation into the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with Russia.
Trump asserted that the commen t s Thursday by Comey, whom he called “a leaker,” had proved that there was no collu- sion between his campaign and Moscow, nor any obstruction of justice by the president.
He hinted again that he had tapes of his private talks with the former FBI chief that would disprove Comey’s account, but declined to confirm the existence of any recordings.
“Yesterday showed no collusion, no obstruction,” Trump said in the White House Rose Garden, during a news conference with the visiting Romanian president, Klaus Iohannis.
He dismissed Comey’s testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intel
ligence, which is investigating whether his campaign worked with Russia to sway the election, as a politically motivated stunt orchestrated by adversaries bitter about his victory in November.
“That was an excuse by the Democrats, who lost an election that some people think they shouldn’t have lost,” he said. “But we were very, very happy, and, frankly, James Comey confirmed a lot of what I said, and some of the things that he said just weren’t true.”
The remarks were a defiant response from Trump, who had remained uncharacteristically silent on social media during Comey’s blockbuster day of testimony Thursday, as the former FBI chief laid out an account that sug- gested the president’s private exchanges with him had been an attempt to obstruct justice. They escalated an extraordinary public feud between a sitting president and the ousted FBI director who had been investi- gating his campaign, each now engaging in full-throated accusations that the other is lying.
Comey told Congress that the president had not person- ally been under investigation while he was the FBI director,
and that at one point Trump suggested he would like to find out whether any of his associates had done anything wrong. But his account also strongly suggested that Trump had tried to influence his handling of the Russia investigation.
Trump denied that he had ever asked Comey to drop the FBI investigation into his former national security adviser’s dealings with Rus
sia, or asked for a pledge of loyalty, as Comey asserted Thursday. Those conversations are reflected in memos Comey wrote after his meet- ings with Trump, and now are in the possession of Robert Mueller, the special coun- sel in the Russia investiga- tion who was named after Comey’s firing. “I didn’t say that,” Trump
said of the request regarding former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. “And there’d be nothing wrong if I did say it.”
Of the loyalty pledge from Comey, Trump said, “I hardly know the man; I’m not going to ask him to pledge alle- giance.”
Asked whether he would be willing to provide his version under oath, Trump responded, “100 percent.” He said of Mueller, “I would be glad to tell him exactly what I just told you.”
The president declined repeatedly to say whether, as he suggested last month in a Twitter post, he had recordings of his conversations with Comey.
“I’ll tell you about it over a very short period of time,” he said. “You’re going to be very disappointed when you hear the answer.”
The tantalizing comment appeared to catch
the attention of congressional investigators participating in the Russia probe. Reps. Michael Conaway, R-Texas, and Adam Schiff, D-Calif., quickly announced they had written to Donald McGahn, the White House counsel, requesting that any recordings or memos
about Trump’s conversations with Comey be furnished to
the intelligence committee within two weeks.
They also said they had made a formal request to Comey for copies of the memos he testified about on Thursday or notes reflecting the meetings.