'I did not make, and do not have' Comey tapes

President Donald Trump took to Twitter on Thursday afternoon to finally admit that he has no tapes of his conversations with former Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey.

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.

Under a post-Watergate law, presidential recordings belong to the people and eventually can be made public.

On Twitter Thursday, the president said, "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's also brought trouble to his White House.

But the episode exhausted Trump's defenders and aides, who for weeks have been dodging questions about the recordings. "If this is meant to constitute his answer to the House investigation then it needs to be fully truthful. if the president is being less than candid about this, I think we have very serious problems with the White House".

Trump and his top aides have played coy for weeks about the possibility of White House tapes, treating their possible existence like a game show reveal.

Trump responded at that time, via Twitter, that Comey "better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!" Trump tweeted at the time.

"It doesn't speak for the rest of the White House in terms of whether others in the White House may have made tapes".

A senior administration official said Thursday that it became clear Trump had to come clean on his lie about the Comey tapes before the Friday deadline set on him by Congress to hand over any recordings.

"I've seen the tweet about tapes". That special counsel is now reportedly investigating Trump's own actions in a probe that could dog his presidency for the foreseeable future. There apparently are no tapes that could confirm what exactly happened in those chats.

"Was this an effort to intimidate James B. Comey, was this an effort to silence James B. Comey?" he said.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday she didn't think Trump regretted the initial tweet. But pressed on the reasoning behind that first message, Ms Sanders replied: "I think it was more about raising the question of doubt in general". Multiple government agencies, through interviews and Freedom of Information Act Requests, told CNN no such official recording devices existed.

Warner says: "It's remarkable the president was so flippant to make his original tweet and then frankly stonewall the media and the country for weeks".