Does the president have recordings of the conversations he had with James Comey? It’s a question the White House has had to deal with since Friday morning, when President Trump tweeted a vague threat of sorts to the man he had ousted as FBI director. “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” wrote Trump at 8:26 a.m. Friday. Ever since then the White House, particularly press secretary Sean Spicer, has been trying to dodge any clarifying questions about what, exactly the president meant.
And Tuesday evening’s report from the New York Times that Comey wrote in an internal FBI memo that Trump asked him to end an investigation into the former national security advisor Mike Flynn brings new urgency to the matter. Comey allegedly wrote the memo, the Times reported, shortly after an Oval Office meeting with Trump in February. “I hope you can let this go,” Trump told him, according to FBI sources who tell the Times they’ve seen the memo.
In a Tuesday statement, the White House claims Trump “has never asked Mr. Comey or anyone else to end any investigation, including any investigation involving General Flynn.” The Times story, the statement went on, is “not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation” between the two men. But if there are tapes of this particular conversation, as Trump suggested there could be, it’s a question that could be easily resolved.
Unfortunately, the White House has been anything but forthcoming about that. At Friday’s press briefing, Spicer said he had “talked to the president” since the tweet earlier that morning and that “the president has nothing further to add on that.” Spicer repeated that line several times, then denied that Trump’s tweet was a threat.
“I don’t think—that’s not a threat,” Spicer said. “He simply stated a fact.” But what’s the “fact” the president stated? Is it a fact that Comey would be right to think twice about contradicting the president’s account of their conversations? Is it a fact that the president has tapes of their conversations in the White House? Is it a fact, implied if not stated outright, that the president would hold any such tapes over Comey, or anyone else recorded, as a threat?
Spicer has not yet responded to a request for comment. And in Monday’s press briefing, it was more of the same from the beleaguered press secretary. Asked if the White House intended to cooperate with requests from members of Congress for additional information about tapes or recordings of Oval-Office conversations, Spicer deflected. “I think I made it clear last week that the president has nothing further on that,” he said multiple times.
When asked why he would not say whether or not there were recordings of conversations between the president and Comey (or anyone else), Spicer said, confusingly, “The president has made it clear what his position is.”
And when asked what the president’s “position” was on the existence of recorded conversations, Spicer said he has “answered that several times” and that Trump “has nothing further to add.”
The president may be done talking about tapes, but the latest news about Comey will revive those questions all over again.
