International desk: President Donald Trump finally, grudgingly, had no choice but to come clean.
His admission, on Twitter Thursday that he did not secretly record his conversations with fired FBI Director James Comey — after earlier raising the possibility that he did — capped a six-week charade that damaged his presidency and cast doubt on his personal credibility.
It was a surreal new twist to a presidency that has often already stretched the limits of credulity, and has challenged conventions on the decorum and gravity expected in the behavior of the person who holds the office itself.
After weeks of speculation, the President delivered a mea culpa, a step that he had little choice to make, in a somewhat resentful manner, in keeping with his reluctance to ever publicly admit error.
“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, but I did not make, and do not have, any such recordings,” Trump wrote in a pair of tweets.
His statement was followed by a now-typical attempt by the White House to avoid accountability on an embarrassing episode. Trump's choice of Twitter to deliver his message did not expose him to cross-examination or questioning from journalists. The White House, meanwhile, banned live television coverage of its daily briefing, allowing only an audio recording to be broadcast afterward.
There's little doubt that the entire tapes issue represents a serious misstep by the President that put his White House on a perilous political and legal path.
“James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” Trump tweeted on May 17.
The tweet caused an uproar, immediately raising comparisons with the Watergate-era taping system that caused the downfall of President Richard Nixon, and demands for Trump to immediately hand over any recordings.
