--- title: James Comey Fired: Congress Wants Trump to Turn Over 'Tapes' description: Lawmakers say if President Trump has tapes of his talks with ousted FBI chief James Comey, he needs to hand them over to Congress canonical: https://time.com/4778653/trump-james-comey-tapes-congress/ author: Kevin Lui article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-05-15T07:41:03.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-06-24T06:56:47.054Z article:section: Politics og:title: Senators Urge Trump to Hand Over Any Comey Recordings og:description: Trump alluded to the existence of such recordings in a tweet on Friday og:url: https://time.com/4778653/trump-james-comey-tapes-congress/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5895517107e5a709/6988cd360b72e3bd686edc60/gettyimages-682615702.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4500 og:image:height: 2531 og:image:alt: US-POLITICS-TRUMP og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Senators Urge Trump to Hand Over Any Comey Recordings twitter:description: Trump alluded to the existence of such recordings in a tweet on Friday twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5895517107e5a709/6988cd360b72e3bd686edc60/gettyimages-682615702.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Senators Urge Trump to Hand Over Any Recordings of Former FBI Director James Comey > Sponsored content. 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Trump appeared to suggest on Twitter that there could be recordings_ by [Kevin Lui](https://time.com/author/kevin-lui/) ## Kevin Lui May 15, 2017 7:41 AM UTC by [Kevin Lui](https://time.com/author/kevin-lui/) ## Kevin Lui May 15, 2017 7:41 AM UTC Several senators called Sunday for President Donald Trump to [hand over any tapes ](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-fbi-idUSKCN18A0TU)he might have of conversations between himself and former FBI director James Comey, who was abruptly fired last week. Trump appeared to suggest on Twitter Friday that there could be recordings. His tweet [warned Comey](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/863007411132649473) that he had “better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” White House Press secretary Sean Spicer [declined to specify](http://time.com/4777677/sean-spicer-james-comey-president-donald-trump/) whether or not such tapes exist. “If there are any tapes of this conversation, they need to be turned over,” Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. [Graham also suggested](http://time.com/4778467/lindsey-graham-trump-russia-investigation-twitter/) that the President should stop commenting on social media about the ongoing investigation into alleged links between Trump’s campaign staff and the Russian government, which was being led by Comey. The Trump administration said Comey was fired because of how he handled the probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, though some lawmakers and analysts [have suggested](http://time.com/4776737/president-donald-trump-james-comey-fired-russia-investigation/) the decision [may have been related ](http://time.com/4773529/james-comey-fbi-trump-russia/)to Comey’s separate investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. **Read More:** [_James Clapper: U.S. Government Is ‘Under Assault’ After James Comey Firing_](http://time.com/4778510/james-comey-donald-trump-james-clapper-fbi/) Sen. Mike Lee of Utah [said ](http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2017/05/14/sens-mark-warner-and-mike-lee-on-replacing-james-comey-at-fbi.html)on Fox News Sunday that recording conversations in the White House would be “not necessarily the best idea,” and that it would be “inevitable” that such tapes would be subpoenaed if they do, in fact, exist. Speaking on CNN’s State of the Union, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said that if tapes exist, [destroying them would be illegal ](http://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/14/politics/chuck-schumer-department-of-justice-fbi/)and they must be immediately turned over to Congress and investigators. “If there are no tapes, he should apologize to both Jim Comey and the American people,” Schumer said. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4778653/trump-james-comey-tapes-congress/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4778653/trump-james-comey-tapes-congress/"},"headline":"Senators Urge Trump to Hand Over Any Recordings of Former FBI Director James Comey","datePublished":"2017-05-15T07:41:03.000Z","dateModified":"2026-06-24T06:56:47.054Z","description":"Trump appeared to suggest on Twitter that there could be recordings","url":"https://time.com/4778653/trump-james-comey-tapes-congress/","keywords":["White House","Congress","FBI","Donald Trump","James Comey","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5895517107e5a709/6988cd360b72e3bd686edc60/gettyimages-682615702.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Kevin Lui","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/kevin-lui/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5895517107e5a709/6988cd360b72e3bd686edc60/gettyimages-682615702.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"US-POLITICS-TRUMP","caption":"US-POLITICS-TRUMP","creditText":"Brendan Smialowski—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/white-house/","name":"White House"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4778653/trump-james-comey-tapes-congress/","name":"Senators Urge Trump to Hand Over Any Recordings of Former FBI Director James Comey"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"This Video Is No Longer Available","description":"Trump appeared to suggest on Twitter that there could be recordings","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/fKodeUO6/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2026-06-23T15:00:44.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/fKodeUO6.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4778653/trump-james-comey-tapes-congress/","duration":"PT10S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4778653/trump-james-comey-tapes-congress/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```