President Trump and Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis at a press conference in the Rose Garden of the White House on Friday. Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
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Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
President Trump and Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis at a press conference in the Rose Garden of the White House on Friday.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
President Trump said Friday he would be willing to testify under oath about his interactions with former FBI Director James Comey, whom he fired in May.
The president said Comey’s testimony on Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee mostly vindicated his previous claims about their interactions.
“Frankly, James Comey confirmed a lot of what I said — and some of the things that he said just weren’t true,” Trump said in his first on-camera remarks following Comey’s testimony.
Trump told reporters during a joint press conference with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis that he never asked Comey for a loyalty pledge or urged him to scuttle an investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
The president said he would be willing to tell that to the newly appointed special counsel in the Russia investigation, Robert Mueller. Asked if he would speak to the issue under oath, Trump said: “100 percent.”
Earlier in his press conference, Trump said he was “happy” with parts of Comey’s testimony, including that the former FBI director said he had assured the president he wasn’t personally under investigation regarding the Russian meddling in the election and possible collusion by Trump campaign aides.
“No collusion. No obstruction. He’s a leaker,” Trump said of Comey. “But we want to get back to running our great country.”
Comey testified he had nine one-on-one conversations with Trump — and detailed each in memos just after they met for fear that the president would subsequently lie about their interactions.
While Comey said Trump had lied about him, Trump didn’t use that exact terminology in return on Friday. Still, he maintained he had never asked Comey for a pledge of allegiance.
“Who would do that?” Trump asked, though he went on to say such a request wouldn’t have been inappropriate.
Trump continued to be coy about the possibility of there being recordings of his conversations with Comey, which he has suggested previously. During Comey’s testimony, the former FBI director said, “Lordy, I hope there are tapes!” arguing that such recordings would back up his version of events.
“I’ll tell you about it over a very short period of time,” Trump told reporters.
“I’m not hinting at anything,” Trump said, but then he teased, “You’ll be very disappointed.”
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