close
MENU
Hot Topic Hawke’s Bay
Hot Topic Hawke’s Bay
2 mins to read

Trump calls Comey a liar

President finally breaks his silence over sacked FBI director's testimony.

Staff Reporter
Sat, 10 Jun 2017

Donald Trump has finally broken his silence on sacked FBI director James Comey's testimony to the US Senate Intelligence Committee.

The president tweeted, "Despite so many false statements and lies, total and complete vindication...and WOW, Comey is a leaker!" 

Later, during a White House Rose Garden press conference with visiting Romanian president Klaus Iohannis, Mr Trump said, “Yesterday showed no collusion, no obstruction.” 

The president said he was "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.”

Mr Trump added he would be happy to testify under oath in front of special prosecutor Robert Mueller.

Are there tapes?
Key points such as whether Mr Trump implied Mr Comey would keep his job if the "cloud" of the Russia probe lifted, or whether the president asked Mr Comey to drop the investigation into fired NSA Advisor Michael Flynn, remain one man's word against the other.

In a May 13 tweet about their January 27 dinner at the White House, Mr Trump said, ‘James Comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!’.

Yesterday, Mr Comey said, "Lordy, I hope there are tapes" and "Release all the tapes — I’m good with it.”

Later in the day, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway refused to comment on whether a  recording existed, or not.

Today, Mr Trump was coy when asked about the tapes, telling media at the White House press conference, "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.”

Comey a leaker?
Mr Comey maintains that as a private citizen, he saw no problem supplying some segments of his testimony in advance to the New York Times. Mr Trump's legal team says the president's conversations with the former FBI director were subject to executive privilege.

Staff Reporter
Sat, 10 Jun 2017
© All content copyright NBR. Do not reproduce in any form without permission, even if you have a paid subscription.
Trump calls Comey a liar
67661
false