It was nearly six weeks ago when President Trump first hinted there may be tapes of his private conversations with former FBI Director James Comey.
On Thursday, the president told America: Just kidding!
“With all of the recently reported electronic surveillance, intercepts, unmasking and illegal leaking of information, I have no idea whether there are ‘tapes’ or recordings of my conversations with James Comey,” he said on Twitter, “but I did not make, and do not have, any such recordings.”
So, six weeks of speculation and questions, and for what? A bluff that was called quickly by the former FBI director, and now the president is folding.
Let’s recap how we got here:
Trump spoke privately with Comey on at least three occasions in the days after the Jan. 20 inauguration. Trump reportedly came away from those interactions generally displeased with the former director.
The president then fired Comey on May 9 in a publicly humiliating fashion.
On May 12, Trump said seemingly out of nowhere, “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”
Reports based on leaks started coming out soon thereafter alleging the president had squeezed Comey in a private meeting for a loyalty pledge. Other reports alleged Trump tried to get Comey to back off the investigation of Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Then there were reports that Comey took meticulous notes of his private conversations with the president, and that his memos corroborated the leaks.
On May 17, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Special Counsel Robert Muller to lead the Russia investigation.
As this was going on, media and political circles were understandably captivated by the idea that the president surreptitiously recorded his private conversations with a former head of an intelligence agency.
It would be legitimately big news if the White House did, in fact, have tapes of Trump’s conversations with Comey, especially considering the leaks claimed Trump tried to influence the FBI’s handling of the Russia investigation.
But all the time spent on this story appears to have been for a presidential bluff, as Trump’s Thursday tweets seemed to suggest.
If this was all a ham-fisted attempt to intimidate Comey into silence, it didn’t work. The former director not only testified before Congress about his meetings with Trump, but he even welcomed the suggestion that there may be secret recordings.
“Lordy, I hope there are tapes,” he told members of Congress.
As it turns out, Comey was also the one who leaked the details of his memos to the press. The point, he explained to Congress, was to nudge Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein into appointing a special counsel to the Russia investigation. Mission accomplished.
The special counsel is now investigating the president for possible obstruction of justice.
Now, nearly six weeks after his initial bit about tapes, Trump comes out and says he has no tapes. There may be an argument that his May 12 tweet was a bluff intended to flush out leakers, or that he wanted Comey to corroborate the official White House statement on his firing. However, considering Trump’s tweet led Comey to leak his memos, which led to the appointment of a special counsel, which has led to an obstruction of justice probe, it’s unclear how this supposed 3-D chess benefits the president.
At any rate, multiple administration officials have already gone to bat explaining and defending the tweet. All the denials, hinting, speculation and now the president is telling us: Never mind.
Thanks for wasting everyone’s time.
