Trump warns Comey and says he may cancel press briefings

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Friday (May 12) warned James Comey, the former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director he fired this week, against leaking anything negative about him and warned the media that he may cancel all future White House briefings.

In a series of angry, early-morning tweets, Mr Trump even seemed to suggest that there may be secret tapes of his conversations with Mr Comey that could be used to counter the former FBI director if necessary.

It was not immediately clear whether he meant that literally.

“James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” Mr Trump wrote on Twitter.

The President appeared agitated over news reports on Friday that focused on contradictory accounts of his decision to fire Mr Comey at the same time the FBI is investigating ties between Mr Trump’s associates and Russia.

The New York Times reported that, in a dinner shortly after his inauguration, Mr Trump asked Mr Comey to pledge loyalty to him, which the FBI director refused to do. The report cited two people who heard Mr Comey describe the dinner but the White House has refuted the account.

White House officials initially said Mr Trump acted based on the recommendation of Justice Department officials, but Mr Trump later said he would have fired the FBI director regardless.

The president also expressed pique at attention on the shifting versions of how he came to decide to fire Mr Comey. In his first extended comments on the firing on Thursday, Mr Trump contradicted statements made by his White House spokeswoman as well as comments made to reporters by Vice President Mike Pence and even the letter the president himself signed and sent to Mr Comey informing him of his dismissal.

The original White House version of the firing was that the president acted on the recommendation of the attorney general and deputy attorney general because of Mr Comey’s handling of last year’s investigation into Mrs Hillary Clinton’s email. But in an interview with NBC News on Thursday, Mr Trump said he had already decided to fire Mr Comey and would have done so regardless of any recommendation. And he indicated that he was thinking about the Russia investigation when he made the decision.

Mr Trump on Friday morning said that no one should expect his White House to give completely accurate information.

“As a very active President with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy!” he wrote on Twitter.

“Maybe,” he added a few moments later, “the best thing to do would be to cancel all future ‘press briefings’ and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???”

Mr Trump’s mention of tapes did nothing to dispel the echoes of Watergate heard in Washington this week. His dismissal of Mr Comey in the midst of an investigation into Mr Trump’s associates struck many as similar to President Richard Nixon’s decision in October 1973 to fire Archibald Cox, the Watergate special prosecutor, in an incident that came to be known as the Saturday Night Massacre.

In that case, Nixon was mad at Mr Cox for seeking access to secret White House tapes of the president’s conversations. Ultimately, the Supreme Court forced Nixon to turn over the tapes, which contained evidence pointing to his involvement in the cover up of the Watergate burglary and led to his resignation in August 1974.

Mr Trump’s defenders have said Watergate comparisons are overwrought and that there is no evidence of collusion between Mr Trump’s campaign and Russia during last year’s election. American intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia attempted to meddle in the campaign with the aim of tilting the election to Mr Trump.

The president has said any suspicions of collusion are “fake news” and that the Russia investigation is the product of Democrats who are sore losers looking to explain away an election defeat and undermine his legitimacy.

“Again, the story that there was collusion between the Russians & Trump campaign was fabricated by Dems as an excuse for losing the election,” he wrote on Twitter on Friday morning.

He added later that James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, has testified that he knew of no collusion. Mr Clapper left office on Jan 20 with the end of President Barack Obama’s administration and has not been involved in the investigation since then.

“When James Clapper himself, and virtually everyone else with knowledge of the witch hunt, says there is no collusion, when does it end?” Mr Trump asked. THE NEW YORK TIMES