Trump appeared to be backtracking furiously from a tweet on Saturday that deepened suspicions that he engaged in obstruction of justice, an impeachable offence -- in the Russia scandal haunting his presidency.
In that Twitter post, Trump said he had fired Flynn in February for lying not just to the vice president but also to Comey's FBI, which was probing Flynn over his pre-inauguration contacts with the Russian ambassador about US sanctions imposed by Barack Obama against Russia for interfering in the US election.
Comey has testified under oath to lawmakers that a day after firing Flynn, Trump asked him to drop the Flynn probe.
Comment: Which testimony exactly? Would they be referring to this one? Don't see how that will hold up in court, and neither does Senator Jim Risch:
While this is not a highlight you'll ever see replayed on any MSM outlet throughout the day, Senator Jim Risch just completely dismantled any 'hopes' of an obstruction of justice case against President Trump with the following exchange:
Risch: "Boy you nailed this down on page 5 paragraph 3, you put this in quotes, words matter, you wrote down the words so we could all have the words in front of us now. There are 28 words there that are in quotes and it says, 'I hope', this is the President speaking, 'I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go...I hope you can let this go.'"
"Now those are his exact words, is that correct"
Comey: "Correct."
Risch: "And you wrote them here and you put them in quotes?"
Comey: "Correct."
Risch: "Thank you for that. He did not direct you to let it go."
Comey: "Not in his words, no."
Risch: "He did not order you to let it go."
Comey: "Again, those words are not an order."
Risch: "He said 'I hope'. Now, like me you probably did 100's of cases, maybe 1,000s of cases charging people with criminal offenses. And, of course, you have knowlege of the 1,000s of cases out there where people have been charged. Do you know of any case where a person has been charged for obstruction of justice, for that matter of any other criminal offense, where they said or thought they hoped for an outcome?"
Comey: "I don't know well enough to answer. And the reason I keep saying 'his words' is I took it as a direction..."
Risch: "You may have taken it as a direction but that is not what he said. He said, 'I hope.' You don't know of anyone who has ever been charged for hoping something, is that a fair statement?"
Comey: "I don't as I sit here."
If Comey is to be believed, the Saturday tweet suggests Trump asked the FBI to lay off someone in his administration that Trump now acknowledges he knew had committed a felony -- lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
But on Sunday, Trump insisted, "I never asked Comey to stop investigating Flynn. Just more Fake News covering another Comey lie!"
Comment: Fake news alright, since Comey already testified under oath that Trump admin didn't obstruct investigations - on May 3rd. Interesting to see how that one tweet by Trump is twisted into a whole nothing burger of a scandal by his "critics". In fact it was Comey that was likely committing a federal offense by leaking the memo of his conversations with Trump.
Trump fired Comey in May and has said he did so with the Russia probe in mind.
Representative Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence committee, said on Sunday that suspicions of obstruction of justice by Trump are growing.
Schiff argued that if the evidence shows that Trump knew about and directed Flynn's Russia contacts, and then asked Comey to drop the matter after his lies to the FBI came to light, "Then you get the case of obstruction of justice."
"I think that's the significance of this context in which the president was intervening," he said on ABC's This Week.
Senator Diane Feinstein told NBC: "I think what we are beginning to see is a case of obstruction of justice."
"Clearly he is making progress," Senator Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, said of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.
In an ominous turn for the president, Flynn on Friday pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and pledged to cooperate with Mueller.
White House officials told The New York Times that in his tweet Saturday Trump was only referencing Flynn's guilty plea for lying to the FBI about his conversations with then Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
Trump's personal lawyer John Dowd told ABC News that he had drafted the tweet and had done so in a "sloppy" manner.
Mueller's focus goes beyond possible collusion with Russia to business dealings and whether Trump himself tried to thwart the investigation.
Trump also expressed anger Sunday over word that a senior FBI counterintelligence official, Peter Strzok, was removed from the Russia investigation over the summer for sending text messages critical of Trump.
Comment: For more: Anti-Trump-texting former-Mueller aide now facing review for role in Clinton email probe
Strzok had also worked on the probe into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state.
"ANTI-TRUMP FBI AGENT LED CLINTON EMAIL PROBE" Now it all starts to make sense!" Trump wrote.
As he left for a day trip to New York on Saturday, Trump again insisted his team had not plotted with Moscow to sway the election in his favor over Clinton, who won the popular vote but lost the all-important electoral college count.
"What has been shown is no collusion. There's been absolutely no collusion. So we're very happy," Trump said.
Comey himself seemed to be addressing the latest developments in an Instagram message: "To paraphrase the Buddha -- Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun; the moon; and the truth."
The explosive new developments in the Russia probe have overshadowed a major legislative win for Trump: the Senate's passage of the most significant US tax overhaul in 31 years.
Comment: See also: