Trump says he has no tapes of conversations with Comey

The controversy over the US president's decision to fire James Comey deepened on Thursday as Donald Trump said he had no recordings of his conversations with the fired FBI chief.

In two tweets sent on Thursday Mr Trump said he “did not make” or did not have any recordings.

“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,” he said on Twitter.

Mr Trump’s advisers had suggested that a statement by Mr Trump on the existence of tapes would be forthcoming this week.

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Six weeks ago, days after he fired the head of the FBI, Mr Trump tweeted that James Comey “better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press”.

Bloomberg reported that Mr Trump raises the possibility of the existence of tapes to ensure that Mr Comey told the truth in his Senate testimony, citing an official close to Trump.

Mr Trump's decision to fire Mr Comey is now under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, as part of a broader investigation into links between the Trump campaign team and Russia.

Healthcare vote

The developments emerged as the Republican party's plan to repeal and replace Obamacare appeared to be running into serious difficulty after four Republican senators said they could not support the Senate version of the bill published on Thursday. With Republicans controlling the Senate by 52 seats to 48, the party can only afford to lose the support of two members, with the vice president Mike Pence casting the deciding vote.

Four senators from the conservative wing of the party – Rand Paul from Kentucky, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Mike Lee of Utah and former presidential hopeful Ted Cruz of Texas – issued a joint statement announcing their opposition.

“Currently, for a variety of reasons, we are not ready to vote for this bill, but we are open to negotiation and obtaining more information before it is brought to the floor. There are provisions in this draft that represent an improvement to our current healthcare system but it does not appear this draft as written will accomplish the most important promise that we made to Americans: to repeal Obamacare and lower their healthcare costs.”

Senator Rand Paul said the proposal did not go far enough to completely repeal Obamacare.

“I didn’t run on Obamacare-lite. I didn’t run to allow the death spiral of Obamacare to continue,” he told reporters. “There is no money to keep subsidising insurance.You have to be honest to people. It has to be paid for.”

Other Republican senators on the more liberal side of the party had previously indicated their opposition to the plan. Among the main changes to the healthcare plan backed by the House of Representatives last month is a proposal to link federal subsidies to income rather than age. It also proposes a more gradual phasing-out of the expansion of Medicaid, the programme for low-income Americans.

Senator Mitch McConnell had indicated his intention to put the bill to a vote next week before the July 4th recess.