Donald Trump says he is "100 percent' willing to speak under oath about his conversations with ex-FBI chief James Comey.
Speaking the day after Comey delivered a scathing indictment of the president at the Senate Intelligence Committee, the US president again denied two key claims made by the former FBI director and labelled him a "leaker".
US President Donald Trump at a media conference in the Rose Garden of the White House with the visiting president of Romania Klaus Iohannis. Photo: AFP
Mr Trump denied having asked for Mr Comey's loyalty or for an inquiry into his former national security adviser to be dropped.
"James Comey confirmed a lot of what I said, and some of the things he said just weren't true," Mr Trump said.
Mr Comey maintains Mr Trump fired him because of the Russia inquiry. The former FBI chief was investigating whether the president or his campaign officials colluded with an alleged Kremlin plot to sway last year's US presidential election in favour of Mr Trump.
On Thursday, Mr Comey testified to one of several congressional committees that is also looking into the Russia claims.
He said the president had pressured him to drop a probe into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, whom Mr Trump fired for misleading the White House over M Flynn's contacts with Moscow's ambassador.
Under oath, the former FBI director also told the Senate Intelligence Committee that the president had asked him during a one-one dinner at the White House to pledge loyalty.
At a press conference on Friday afternoon in the Rose Garden with the visiting president of Romania, Mr Trump rejected Mr Comey's claims.
He said the former FBI director's testimony showed there was "no collusion, no obstruction".
The US president was asked by a journalist if he would be willing to give his version of events under oath.
"One hundred per cent," Mr Trump said.
"I hardly know the man [Mr Comey]," he said. "I'm not going to say, 'I want you to pledge allegiance.'
"Who would do that? Who would ask a man to pledge allegiance under oath? I mean, think of it.
"I hardly know the man. It doesn't make sense."
Mr Trump wouldn't rule out a previous claim that there may be tapes of his conversations with Comey.
"Well, I'll tell you about that maybe sometime in the very near future," he said at the media conference.
Earlier Mr Trump had his silence on Twitter, tweeting he'd been vindicated and derided Comey as a "leaker".
Mr Comey told the Senate panel that he shared an unclassified memo about his February conversation with the president about Mr Flynn because he hoped it would lead to the appointment of a special counsel.
The former FBI boss told the panel he took meticulous notes of each meeting or conversation he had with Mr Trump because "I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, and so I thought it really important to document".
Mr Trump's personal lawyer Marc Kasowitz attacked Comey after his testimony for leaking what he called "privileged communications" to the media.
Legal experts questioned whether Mr Trump's private encounters with Comey could be considered privileged.
Mr Kasowitz plans to file a complaint early next week about Mr Comey's disclosure of conversations with the president, a person close to the legal team said on Friday.
- BBC / Reuters