When asked whether he could announce a nominee by Friday, when he is scheduled to leave for the Middle East and Europe on his first trip overseas as president, Trump responded, "Even that is possible".
CBS Evening News, citing a source who has spoken with Comey, said on Twitter that Comey hopes there are "lots of tapes". The President has long insisted the investigation will not discover any wrongdoing. The letter was produced in response to a request from Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who leads one of the congressional panels conducting a probe of election interference, for any information on financial ties Trump may have to Russian Federation.
The president said he came to the decision to oust Comey on Tuesday after thinking about how "this Russian Federation thing.is a made up story".
"I don't think it would be a bad question to ask", Mr. Trump told Fox News' Jeanine Pirro in an interview airing Saturday. "He's unsafe because he may be obstructing justice in terms of the investigation. and secondly his credibility has been destroyed".
Even before Trump's provocative tweet, the White House was scrambling to clarify why Comey was sacked.
"He's a showboat. He's a grandstander", Trump told NBC News.
CNN cited an unnamed source as saying Mr Comey was "not anxious about any tapes" Mr Trump may have of their conversations. That's at odds with with the account given by White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who told reporters Trump fired Comey based on the report written by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
US Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr said Friday no evidence of collusion had been found, which lessened his belief that Comey's firing was meant to impede the investigation.
During his NBC interview, Trump restated his earlier comments that Comey had assured him three times that he was not under investigation.
Ransomware cyber strike 'biggest in history'
French carmaker Renault 's assembly plant in Slovenia halted production after it was targeted in the global cyberattack. Deutsche Bahn said: "Due to a Trojan attack there are system failures in various areas".
Comey has not confirmed Trump's account.
Comey has not publicly discussed any conversations he has had with Trump.
Mr Comey had initially declined to testify in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee in a closed-door hearing.
The White House said Mr Comey was sacked over his handling of the Hillary Clinton email affair, but Democrats have asked, if that is the case, why it took so long.
President Donald Trump says his busy schedule makes it "not possible" for his staff to speak at the podium with "perfect accuracy".
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer released a statement saying Mr Trump had made a decision to fire Mr Comey only after Attorney-General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein had recommended that Mr Comey be dismissed for his handling of last year's probe into Mrs Hillary Clinton's e-mails.
Trump made no direct mention to NBC of the reasoning laid out by Rosenstein in his memo recommending Comey's dismissal, which dealt predominantly with his unusually public handling of the bureau's investigation into Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state.
Mr. Trump also told Pirro that it would be "a good idea" to not have daily press briefings at the White House due to "a level of hostility that's incredible" and "very unfair".
Mr Trump also admitted the "Russia thing" was on his mind in making his decision, calling the allegations of collusion between his campaign and Russian Federation was a "made up story".
Comments