Donald Trump has admitted "this Russia thing" was on his mind when he decided to sack FBI director James Comey.

In an extraordinarily personal and scathing assessment of the man he has just fired, the president described Mr Comey as a "showboat" and a "grandstander" who had left the FBI in turmoil.

But Mr Trump's dismissal of the very man in charge of investigating whether his campaign colluded with Russia has attracted allegations of a cover-up.

On Friday, the president tweeted: "Again, the story that there was collusion between the Russians & Trump campaign was fabricated by Dems as an excuse for losing the election."

In the interview with NBC News, which aired on Thursday night, the president also revealed he had planned to fire Mr Comey all along - contradicting the previously stated reason that he sacked him on the advice of his attorney general Jeff Sessions, as well as his deputy attorney general.


"I was going to fire Comey, knowing there was no good time to do it," Mr Trump said. "And in fact, when I just decided to do it, I said to myself, I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story. It's an excuse by the Democrats for having lost the election."

The president's claim that Mr Comey had lost confidence among the FBI's rank and file was rapidly contradicted by the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee - as well as the new acting FBI director Andrew McCabe.

FBI boss contradicts Trump over Comey

In contrast to the president's spokespeople, Mr McCabe said: "Director Comey enjoyed broad support within the FBI and still does to this day."

Despite the conflicting messages, Mr Trump defended his communications staff - and said it was "not possible" for his associates to always deliver press briefings with perfect accuracy.

He told his 29 million followers on Twitter: "Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future 'press briefings' and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy?"

Elsewhere in the NBC interview, Mr Trump said he had asked Mr Comey point-blank if he was under investigation.

The president showed no concern that the request might be viewed as meddling in the active FBI investigation into his campaign's possible ties to Russian interference in last year's presidential election.

Trump 'terminates' James Comey as FBI head

A New York Times report further claims that Mr Trump had asked for a pledge of loyalty from Mr Comey during a dinner in January.

According to two unnamed associates, Mr Comey declined - and instead offered "honesty".

It is reported that the president then asked for "honest loyalty", to which the then FBI director said: "You will have that."

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders disputed the report, and said the president would "never even suggest the expectation of personal loyalty".

In what could be regarded as quite a menacing tweet, Mr Trump wrote: "James Comey better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!"