Trump accuses Comey of lying under oath in fiery news conference

He also blasted Comey as "a leaker".

Trump also accused Comey of lying to Congess during his testimony on Thursday to the Senate Intelligence Committee - an offense that can land a person in prison for up to five years.

Asked by a reporter if he had told Comey to drop the investigation into former national security adviser Flynn, Trump said, "I didn't say that". "I asked a close friend of mine to do that", Comey said.

Trump said he would "100 percent" speak under oath to refute Comey's dramatic Thursday testimony. "I hardly know the man, I'm not going to say, 'I want you to pledge allegiance, '"Trump said". His intention, Comey said, was to get that information out to the public and set the wheels in motion for a special counsel to be appointed to look into the matter.

Later Friday, Trump declined to rule out his previous claim that there may be tapes of his conversations with Comey.

Alan Dershowitz spoke with Brian Kilmeade about yesterday's testimony by former FBI Director James Comey and how the media is blacking out the single most important part of the testimony.

Comey would not say whether he thought Trump tried to obstruct justice, leaving that determination to Mueller.

As noted on Twitter, by saying Comey lied under oath in this tweet, the president is accusing the former FBI Director of committing perjury. Accordingly, we ask that you provide the Committee copies of all memoranda you received from Mr. Comey by no later than June 9, 2017.

"Well, I didn't say that", Trump said. "I hope you can let this go", Mr Comey reported the President as saying in a February 14 meeting. Comey says he wrote the memos in an unclassified manner on objective so that they could be made public if Trump lied about the meetings. Trump wrote at 6:10 a.m.

Detailing private talks with a sitting president, which under normal circumstances would never see the light of day, Comey said he took painstaking notes of the extraordinary encounters for fear Trump might "lie" about the meetings. "You're going to be very disappointed when you hear the answer".

Kasowitz accused Comey of misleading senators about the timing of his leak - Comey said he did it only after being alarmed by a tweet in which the president said the fired Federal Bureau of Investigation boss "better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!"