Trump warning to Comey prompts questions on ‘tapes’
WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump on Friday warned James Comey, the FBI director he fired this week, against leaking anything negative about him, saying that Comey “better hope” that there are no secret tapes of their conversations that the president could use in retaliation.
The suggestion that the president may be surreptitiously recording his meetings or telephone calls added a twist at the end of a week that roiled Washington.
The president and his spokesman later refused to say whether he tapes his visitors, something Trump was suspected of doing when he was in business in New York.
“James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” Trump wrote on Twitter.
Trump appeared to be referring to an article in The New York Times that said he had asked Comey to pledge loyalty during a dinner at the White House shortly after the inauguration, only to be rebuffed by the FBI director who considered it inappropriate.
Trump denied the account, but it was not clear whether he was genuinely revealing the existence of clandestine recordings or simply making a rhetorical point that Comey’s version of events was false.
Trump chose not to clarify when asked later in the day by
Fox News if there were tapes of conversations.
“That I can’t talk about. I won’t talk about it,” he said. “All I want is for Comey to be honest.”
No president in the past 40 years has been known to regularly tape his phone calls or meetings because, among other reasons, the recordings could be subpoenaed by investigators as they were during the Watergate investigation that ultimately forced former US president Richard Nixon to resign.
Phone calls with foreign leaders are typically transcribed with the knowledge of other participants. Democrats were incredulous.
“For a president who baselessly accused his predecessor of illegally wiretapping him, that Trump would suggest that he, himself, may have engaged in such conduct is staggering,” said Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.
Reps. John Conyers of Michigan and Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrats on the judiciary and oversight committees, sent a letter to the White House demanding copies of any recordings.
The letter noted that “it is a crime to intimidate or threaten any potential witness with the intent to influence, delay or prevent their official testimony.”
Asked if the president records his conversations, White House press secretary Sean Spicer would not say.
“The president has nothing further to add on that,” Spicer said, repeating the answer or some variation of it several more times as reporters pressed.
He denied that the president was threatening Comey. “That’s not a threat,” Spicer said. “He simply stated a fact. The tweet speaks for itself. I’m moving on.”
Comey made no comment, but later in the day he declined a request to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday.
According to a close associate, Comey is willing to testify, but wants it to be in public.
The matter arose in a series of early-morning Twitter messages in which Trump appeared agitated over news reports on contradictory accounts of his decision to fire Comey, which came at the same time the FBI is investigating ties between Trump’s associates and Russia.