The aftermath of James Comey’s testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday has certainly been anything but beneficial for Donald Trump’s case concerning the investigation of him and his campaign’s collusion with the Russian government during the election last year.
Although Comey’s testimony didn’t prove to be as damaging as many people were hoping it to be, it still certainly verified suspicions that Trump is sweating over this investigation. When asked about the possible tapes of him and Comey’s meetings during a joint news conference with the president of Romania at the White House today, recordings that Trump himself suggested may exist, he opted to avoid giving a definitive answer about them.
Trump deflects questions about possible tapes of Comey meeting: "I'll tell you about it over a short period of time" https://t.co/aQT4poXAMB pic.twitter.com/eqekakGWZe
— ABC News (@ABC) June 10, 2017
Comey Testimony Backlash
During the former FBI-director’s testimony, he mentioned that Trump had repeatedly demanded his loyalty as well as ask him to drop the investigation into Michael Flynn's possible connection with Russian officials. Since then, his testimony has raised further suspicion of Trump and his campaign’s connection to the Russian government as well as suggest that his recent firing was indeed personal and meant to impede the investigation.
As one would imagine, Trump denied everything said during Comey’s testimony going on to say that he was “a leaker” and that nothing Comey said ever happened despite the fact that Comey was under oath during his hearing.
Later on during his news conference today, Trump mentioned that he was willing to testify himself which I think everyone would agree would be must watch TV.
The Tapes
After Trump fired Comey, he tweeted on May 12 that Comey better hope that there were no recordings of their conversations, suggesting that it could prove to be very problematic for him if Comey decided to start leaking inside information to the press.
However, when he was asked about the existence of these alleged tapes during his press conference, Trump said that he would talk about them at a later time. He went on to mention that the press will be ultimately disappointed with his answer about them.
This is certainly a very strange and suspicious answer considering the fact that Trump was the first person to even mention that there were possibly tapes of his conversations with Comey.
But as one would expect from Trump, he chose to avoid any further questions about the topic by sloppily changing the subject to North Korea, the Middle East, jobs, and the trade deficit. While it’s likely we’ll hear anything but an honest answer from Trump concerning the tapes in the near future, that won’t stop the “fake news”, along with political experts, from speculating what the content of these tapes could be.
