Donald Trump warned ousted FBI Director James Comey on Friday not to leak to the media, a move that prompted fresh charges the president is trying to silence the man who led an investigation into possible collusion between Trump’s election campaign and Russia, Reuters reported.
On Twitter, Trump appeared to suggest that if Comey leaked his version of contacts between them, the administration might produce tapes of conversations, although it was not clear if such tapes exist. The veiled threat added to the storm over Trump’s abrupt firing of Comey on Tuesday.
Democrats have assailed Trump for dismissing the FBI chief just as the agency is investigating alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, and possible Moscow ties to the Trump presidential campaign. Six months ago, Trumps critics, including top Democrats, were calling for Comey to be fired after they believed his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation led to her loss of the presidency. Clinton also blamed Comey, and Russia.
The New York Times cited anonymous sources saying the president asked Comey in January to pledge loyalty to him and that Comey refused to do so. Such a request would undermine the standing of the FBI chief as an independent law enforcer and further fueled charges that Trump has overstepped the norms of his office. The White House has denied that any such conversation took place.
“James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” Trump said in a string of Twitter posts on Friday. Trump told Fox News he did not ask Comey to pledge loyalty and only wants him to be honest. Trump said he would not talk about the existence of any tapes.
CNN said Comey is “not worried about any tapes” Trump may have, citing an unnamed source familiar with the matter.
The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner, told MSNBC that Congress would want to look at the tapes, if they exist.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation probe and parallel congressional investigations have clouded Trump’s presidency since he took office on Jan. 20, threatening to overwhelm his policy priorities.
Democrats accuse the Republican president of trying to dent the FBI probe by firing Comey and have called for a special counsel to investigate the Russia issue, though the investigation is continuing under the deputy FBI director, Andrew McCabe.
Newsweek reported this week that there were also concerns about McCabe, which came after after revelations by media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, that a political action committee affiliated with Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, who has ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton, contributed almost $500,000 to the 2015 Virginia state Senate campaign of McCabe’s wife, Jill McCabe.
Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, wrote a letter to Comey on March 28 expressing concerns about McCabe’s involvement in the Clinton emails matter, given the donations that his wife received. “These circumstances undermine public confidence in the FBI’s impartiality,” Grassley wrote, according to Newsweek.
Trump says Comey had told him three times he was not under investigation in the Russia probe. He said in an interview on Thursday with NBC News that Comey gave him this assurance during the White House dinner and in two phone conversations. Trump said Comey wanted to have the dinner because he wanted to stay on in the job.
Comey has not publicly discussed any conversations he has had with Trump.
The president said he never pressured Comey into dropping the FBI investigation, and added that there was no “collusion between me and my campaign and the Russians.”
Trump told Fox News he was surprised by the fierce reaction of Democrats. “I thought that this would be a very popular thing, that I did, when I terminated Comey, because all of the Democrats couldn’t stand him,” Trump said.
Trump is considering 11 people to replace Comey.