During a joint press conference with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, President Donald Trump embraced the parts of former FBI Director James Comey's testimony that he felt vindicated him -- while simultaneously denouncing the parts of Comey's testimony that were inconvenient to the president's agenda.
When a reporter asked Trump about his Friday morning tweet claiming that Comey's testimony had been a "complete vindication," and further inquired about whether Trump had tape recorded his conversations with Comey, the president was both evasive and boastful.
[salon_video id="14778100"]"Well, I'll tell you about that maybe sometime in the very near future," Trump quickly said. "But in the meantime: No collusion. No obstruction. He's a leaker. But we want to get back to running our great country."
After talking about focusing on problems like job creation, trade deficits, North Korea and the Middle East, Trump returned to the subject of Comey's testimony before the Senate Intelligence committee on Thursday.
"Yesterday showed no collusion, no obstruction. We are doing really well," Trump said. "That was an excuse by the Democrats, who lost an election that some people think they shouldn't have lost. Because it's almost impossible for the Democrats to lose the Electoral College, as you know. You have to run up the East Coast, you have to win everything as a Republican. And that's just what we did. So it was just an excuse."
He added, "Frankly James Comey confirmed a lot of what I said. And some of the thing that he said just weren't true."
It is worth noting that, because Comey made his statements under oath, a deliberate misstatement on the former FBI director's part would not only be dishonest. It would be illegal.
When discussing the possibility that their conversations may have been taped, Comey on Thursday seemed excited about the possibility, saying "Lordy, I hope there are tapes."
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