The Trump Version
Comey asked me to have a dinner with him in January, and I agreed. Over dinner, he asked to be retained as head of the FBI. My response was non-committal. I asked him if there was an FBI investigation about me ongoing. He explicitly stated there was not. I did not explicitly state that his continued employment as head of the FBI was contingent on there being no investigation of me. I deny that that was an implicit condition. But boy, it sure sounds like it, doesn’t it?
Oh, and the conversation might have been taped. That would have required bugging the White House Dining Room in the first week of my administration, or me wearing a wire.
The Comey Version
The White House asked me for the dinner. The President introduced the subject of loyalty, and he asked me if I would pledge my loyalty to him. I refused to do so, pledging instead that I would always be honest with him, but that I would not be “reliable” in the conventional political sense. I did not confirm or deny any investigation of him, nor would I ever tell anyone else such a thing, because that has always been Bureau policy, and would never be a smart thing to do.
I was not aware that the conversation might have been taped, but yikers yiminy, I hope it was.
Summary
To believe Trump’s version, you would have to believe that Comey is not only a venal weasel, but also spectacularly bad at both the nuts-and-bolts and the political realities of his job, two things of which he has given zero indication. Comey’s version comports with the minimum expectations one would expect of a career law enforcement supervisor with even a scintilla of political wherewithal.
My conclusion is that Comey’s version is the truth. If you don’t agree with me, you may stop here. You have come to the end of the adventure.
Therefore…
Possibility #1 – There is no tape, and Trump is bluffing. This makes no sense if he is trying to scare Comey. But it does make sense insofar as this version was intended for the public, and Trump is trying to create the impression that he has the upper hand on the matter, that the truth lies with him, and that Comey is in trouble. So this would potentially be effective as PR, insofar as the truth never comes to light.
Possibility #2 – There is a tape, and it supports Trump’s version. Puh-leeze.
Possibility #3 – There is a tape, and it supports Comey’s version, and Trump knows it. Could Trump be that fucking stupid that he would admit the existence of a tape that would prove three or four potential articles of impeachment?
Possibility #4 – This is the fun one.
There is a tape, it supports Comey’s version and Trump thinks it supports his version. For this to be true, Trump would have to be actively and literally delusional, hear things that haven’t been said, see things that aren’t there, remember things that happened only a short time ago in a way that in no way coincides with objective reality, but comports perfectly with events as he wishes them to have occurred. When faced with the cognitive dissonance, he turns irrational, violent and completely out of control, forcing uncontrolled mayhem and innocent deaths because he is convinced those are the appropriate responses to a world where his perceptions are the perfect representation of reality.
Our President is the Quentin Tarantino character in “From Dusk Till Dawn.”