--- title: Donald Trump Says James Comey Tapes Bluff Wasn't 'Stupid' description: President Donald Trump defended his bluff about having tapes of conversations between him and former FBI director James Comey canonical: https://time.com/4829936/donald-trump-james-comey-tapes-bluff/ author: Tessa Berenson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-06-23T13:01:10.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T16:17:24.703Z article:section: Politics og:title: President Trump Says His Comey Tapes Bluff 'Wasn't Very Stupid' og:description: "When [Comey] found out that there may be tapes out there…I think his story may have changed" og:url: https://time.com/4829936/donald-trump-james-comey-tapes-bluff/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1dd48c5ecb08f84e/6988d0b2fb4eacd2a189257f/donald-trump-loyalty-pledge-fbi-challenges-nation.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2405 og:image:height: 1353 og:image:alt: donald-trump-loyalty-pledge-fbi-challenges-nation og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: President Trump Says His Comey Tapes Bluff 'Wasn't Very Stupid' twitter:description: "When [Comey] found out that there may be tapes out there…I think his story may have changed" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1dd48c5ecb08f84e/6988d0b2fb4eacd2a189257f/donald-trump-loyalty-pledge-fbi-challenges-nation.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # President Trump Says Bluffing About Comey Tapes 'Wasn't Very Stupid' > Sponsored content. 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Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Jun 23, 2017 1:01 PM UTC  President Trump shakes hands with former FBI Director James Comey at a White House reception President Trump shakes hands with former FBI Director James Comey at a White House reception Andrew Harrer—Avalon/Zuma Press  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Jun 23, 2017 1:01 PM UTC President Trump defended his [bluff](http://time.com/4828886/donald-trump-james-comey-tapes/?xid=homepage) about having tapes of conversations between him and former FBI Director James Comey, saying his strategy “wasn’t very stupid.” “When \[Comey\] found out that there may be tapes out there…I think his story may have changed,” Trump [said on Fox](http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/06/23/trump-says-comey-mueller-friendship-bothersome.html) Friday. “Then he has to tell what actually took place at the events.” “It wasn’t very stupid,” Trump continued. “He did admit that what I said was right and, if you look further back before he heard about that, maybe he wasn’t admitting that.” Trump seemed to be referring to the fact that he had wanted Comey to publicly say that he was not personally under FBI investigation, which Comey did in [congressional testimony](http://time.com/4811175/comey-testimony-donald-trump-highlights/?iid=sr-link3) after Trump tweeted, suggesting he may have recorded their conversations. In his testimony, Comey said he had a friend leak memos detailing his private encounters with the President after Trump threatened to release tapes. “It didn’t dawn on me, originally, that there might be corroboration for our conversation \[there\] might be a tape, my judgment was I needed \[to\] get that out into the public square,” Comey said. “And so I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4829936/donald-trump-james-comey-tapes-bluff/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4829936/donald-trump-james-comey-tapes-bluff/"},"headline":"President Trump Says Bluffing About Comey Tapes 'Wasn't Very Stupid'","datePublished":"2017-06-23T13:01:10.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T16:17:24.703Z","description":"Trump defended his bluff about having tapes of conversations between him and former FBI Director James Comey, saying his strategy \"wasn't very stupid\"","url":"https://time.com/4829936/donald-trump-james-comey-tapes-bluff/","keywords":["White House","James Comey","onetime","president trump"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1dd48c5ecb08f84e/6988d0b2fb4eacd2a189257f/donald-trump-loyalty-pledge-fbi-challenges-nation.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Tessa Berenson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1dd48c5ecb08f84e/6988d0b2fb4eacd2a189257f/donald-trump-loyalty-pledge-fbi-challenges-nation.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"donald-trump-loyalty-pledge-fbi-challenges-nation","caption":"donald-trump-loyalty-pledge-fbi-challenges-nation","creditText":"Andrew Harrer—Avalon/Zuma Press","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/4829936/donald-trump-james-comey-tapes-bluff/","name":"President Trump Says Bluffing About Comey Tapes 'Wasn't Very Stupid'"}}]}] ```