Senators sound calls to release Comey 'tapes' as Trump attacks 'cowardly' leak

Congressmen urge White House to release alleged recordings, as pressure grows for Jeff Sessions to appear publicly for Senate intelligence committee hearing

Days after James Comey’s blockbuster testimony, Republicans and Democrats on Sunday called for the White House to release any tapes that may exist of a private conversation between the former FBI director and the president.

Republican senator Susan Collins said she would support a subpoena to the White House to release any alleged tapes as Donald Trump launched new attacks on the fired FBI boss, saying he believed he was behind further leaks to the media.

There were also growing calls for the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, to appear in public when he goes in front of the Senate intelligence committee Tuesday, as it investigates Russian meddling in the presidential election. It is not yet clear if the hearing will be closed or open.

Speaking about suggestions that there may be tapes of Trump and Comey’s disputed conversations relating to Russia, Collins said on CNN’s State of the Union: “I would be fine with issuing a subpoena. But that most likely would come from the special counsel’s office.”

She said she hoped the president would release the tapes “voluntarily”.

Trump and his aides have dodged questions about whether conversations relevant to the Russia investigation have been recorded. Pressed on the issue Friday, Trump said: “I’ll tell you about that maybe sometime in the very near future.”

Democrat and Senate judiciary committee ranking member Dianne Feinstein also pressed for release of tapes, as did Democratic senator Chuck Schumer, who told CBS’s Face the Nation: “If there are tapes – [Trump] alluded to the fact there are tapes maybe as a threat or taunting Comey – he should make that public right away.”

James Lankford, a Republican senator, also a member of that committee, agreed that the panel needed to hear any tapes that exist. “We’ve obviously pressed the White House,” he said.

Lankford said Sessions’ testimony Tuesday will help flesh out the truth of Comey’s allegations, including Sessions’ presence at the White House in February when Trump asked to speak to Comey alone. Comey alleges that Trump then privately asked him to drop an inquiry into former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s contacts with Russia.

Schumer called for Sessions to appear in public. He said: “There is very little that is classified. Anything that is classified, they can do in a separate classified briefing.

“There are some questions about Sessions that have to be asked. First, did he interfere with the Russian investigation before he recused himself? Second, what safeguards are there now so that he doesn’t interfere? Third, it says he was involved in the firing of Comey, and the president said Comey was fired because of Russia. How does that fit into with recusal?”

Meanwhile on Sunday, Republican senator Lindsey Graham, a frequent critic of the president, called conversations between Comey and Trump “inappropriate”, and “frustrating”, because the investigation may have otherwise helped exonerate Trump.

“You may be the first president in history to go down because you can’t stop inappropriately talking about an investigation that if you just were quiet, would clear you,” said Graham.

Earlier Sunday, Trump returned to Twitter to call Comey’s decision to leak a memo of a private conversation “cowardly”, questioned whether his actions were legal, and said he believed the ex-FBI director’s may have leaked other materials.

Comey testified on Thursday that the president asked him to drop an investigation into former national security director Mike Flynn. Flynn resigned earlier this year, after it was revealed he spoke with Russian officials during the Trump transition.

“I believe the James Comey leaks will be far more prevalent than anyone ever thought possible,” the president tweeted Sunday morning. “Totally illegal? Very ‘cowardly!’”

Trump has remained uncharacteristically quiet on Twitter since Comey’s testimony. His recent tweets have generally focused on jobs and White House summits. When he has responded to Comey’s testimony, it has been to call him a “leaker” and say his testimony was “full of lies”.

Sessions said on Saturday that his decision to appear in front of the intelligence committee comes in light of last week’s testimony by Comey. He was scheduled to discuss the Justice Department budget before a Senate panel, but the attorney general said it was clear from reports that the Russian investigation would become the focus of questioning.

Sessions recused himself from a federal investigation into contacts between Russia and the Trump campaign after acknowledging that he had met twice last year with the Russian ambassador to the US.

In testimony, Comey implied Sessions may have more links to Russia than have been established publicly. “Our judgment, as I recall, was that he was very close and inevitably going to recuse himself for a variety of reasons,” Comey said. “We were also aware of facts that I can’t discuss in an open setting that would make his continued engagement in a Russia-related investigation problematic.”

On Sunday, Lankford said it was not settled if the hearing on Tuesday with Sessions would be closed or open. He said: “I assume that this will be public, but we are still in that final conversation time with Jeff Sessions.

“The key things we have got to get, obviously, his side of the story related to Jim Comey, some of the conversations that Jim Comey had with the president, where Jeff Sessions was a participant there or at least was around to be able to get the rest of the story, Comey’s statement to him of, hey, I don’t want to get time alone with the president again, and that interaction, as well as these accusations that are flying out there about conversations that he might or might not have had with Russians prior to the election.

“So we want to be able to get his side of it, get all the facts out there. We’ve had a lot of unnamed sources in the media come out and make statements about Jeff Sessions. It would be very good to get it directly from him.”