In his first press conference since Comey testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, Trump told reporters he was "100 percent" willing to give a sworn testimony to the special counsel now overseeing the FBI's investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election.
William Brangham has the story.
The request comes the day after Comey's momentous testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, and after Trump in a Rose Garden news conference dodged questions about the existence of any White House tapes of his conversations with Comey.
President Donald Trump's counsel has just two weeks to hand over, if they exist at all, recorded "tapes" of conversations Trump had with fired Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey to the House panel probing alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
And Comey said he's all for the president releasing any tapes - if they exist.
"Whether it rises to criminality, I think there's significant doubts about whether it rises to that level", he said. "I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning", Comey testified. The committee also sent a letter to Comey asking for any notes or memos in his possession about the discussions he had with Trump before being abruptly fired last month.
When Sen. Angus King, the ME independent, asked Comey whether he took as a directive Trump's expressed "hope" that Comey drop the FBI's probe of ousted national security adviser Michael Flynn, Comey reached back to the words of 12th-century autocrat Henry II that led to the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket.
QUESTION: He did say under oath that you told him to let the Flynn - you said you hoped the Flynn investigation, he could let go. "I hardly know the man, I'm not going to say, 'I want you to pledge allegiance, '"Trump said".
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Trump cryptically refused to say whether those private exchanges were taped - a matter at the heart of the conflicting accounts of what passed between them at a time when Comey was leading an FBI investigation into Russia's interference in the presidential election and its ties to the Trump campaign.
But Trump refrained from confirming that he had records of conversations with Comey as he previously implied.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I'm not hinting anything.
"It was clear that the president asked Mr. Comey to do an inappropriate action, and that was to drop the investigation of General Michael Flynn", Senator Susan Collins told CNN.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Oh, you're going to be very disappointed when you hear the answer.
Trump's words came during a remarkable news conference during which he suddenly pledged to honour NATO's mutual self-defence policy and broke sharply with his secretary of state's attempt to calm the dispute between Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Like most lawmakers, Rubio does not doubt that Comey felt pressured by the president. It doesn't mean that every memory he has is exactly right or that there aren't different interpretations. But he testified under oath.
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