Donald Trump has refuted the claims that he had asked former FBI Director James Comey to quash the investigation into ties between his former national security adviser Mike Flynn and Russia.
“No,” he said when he was asked about a report during a White House news conference on Thursday.
According to a report published in The New York Times on Tuesday, Trump asked Comey to end the investigation against Flynn.
"I hope you can let this go," the US president was quoted as telling Comey in the report.
An associate of Comey, who has seen his memo, had confirmed this, telling Reuters that the details of the document as first reported by The New York Times were accurate.
The White House denied the report in a statement to reporters, saying it was “not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation between the President and Mr Comey.”
The memo was written by Comey immediately after his meeting in the White House Oval Office with Trump one day after Flynn resigned over his contacts with Russians.
Comey was abruptly fired by Trump at a time when he was leading an investigation into whether the latter's election campaign had links with Russia during the US presidential polls last year.
The request was made by Trump after Flynn resigned as the national security advisor following reports that he had maintained links with the Russians.
When further asked whether he urged Comey in any way to back down from the investigation, Trump interrupted the reporter and proceeded to the next question.
Defending his decision to sack Comey, Trump said the former FBI chief was ‘very unpopular’ among many people.
I actually thought when I made that decision, that it would be a bipartisan decision. Because you look at all of the people on the Democratic side, not only the Republican side, that were saying such terrible things about director Comey.
“Then he had the very poor performance on Wednesday. That was a poor, poor performance. That's why the Deputy Attorney General went out and wrote his very, very strong letter,” Trump said while referring to Comey's testimony before lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
“And then on top of that, after the Wednesday performance by director Comey, you had a person come and have to readjust the record, which many people have never seen before, because there were misstatements made,” he noted.
Flynn's resignation came hours after it was reported that the Justice Department had warned the White House weeks earlier that Flynn could be vulnerable to blackmail for contacts with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak before Trump took power on 20 January.
A spokeswoman for the FBI declined to comment on the details of the memo.
(With inputs from Reuters and PTI)
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