President Donald Trump has ended weeks of speculation with the startling admission that he did not record his private meetings with deposed Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey.
When news of Comey's account broke, Trump tweeted that Comey "better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!" That threat seemed to be a way to keep the former Federal Bureau of Investigation director from talking with the media about what was said during his one-on-ones with the president. Mueller's probe reportedly has expanded to also look into whether Trump may have obstructed justice in firing Comey.
Mr Comey, who was running the FBI's investigation into possible collusion between associates of the president and Russians seeking to influence last year's election before he was sacked on May 9, says Mr Trump pressed him to drop the inquiry into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
The tweets are the latest chapter in a high-stakes guessing game after Mr Trump hinted he might have recordings of his private conversations with Mr Comey at the White House and over the phone.
"I finished it. I finished it, you know what I mean", Trump said, lobbing an unproven allegation against his then Democratic presidential rival.
Trump, perhaps attempting to insulate himself from blame, suggested in Thursday's tweets that some surveillance could be happening, but that he was not aware of any such attempts.
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When it comes to the central processing unit (CPU), the PlayStation 4 has a slight lag compared to the Xbox One X as well. The games are old, were built on a different architecture and can not be simply imported to the new one", said Spencer.
White House deputy press secretary Lindsay Walters said on Wednesday that an answer would be provided this week, presumably by the Friday deadline set by the House intelligence committee for turning over any tapes.
Under a post-Watergate law, presidential recordings belong to the people and eventually can be made public.
After Trump's initial tweet about tapes, it was revealed that Comey wrote memos of his meetings with the president, in which he said that Trump asked him to end the investigation of Michael Flynn's potential ties to Russian Federation. Advisers who speak to Trump regularly have said he had not mentioned the existence of tapes during their conversations. Okay, so maybe the tweet itself isn't particularly hilarious, but it's going to be. In other words, Trump bluffed Comey into volunteering information that he was right.
Trump's critics immediately seized on his admission on the tapes to raise concerns about his suitability for the Presidency.
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and National Security Agency Director Admiral Mike Rogers met separately last week with investigators for Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the Senate intelligence committee, according to CNN.
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