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By MATTHEW NUSSBAUM and LOUIS NELSON
President Donald Trump on Friday opened a two-front war over the firing of James Comey, first threatening to cancel media press briefings and then issuing an ominous warning to his former FBI director that he should hope there aren’t recordings of his conversations with the president.
Later Friday, press secretary Sean Spicer refused to comment on whether or not Trump actually had a recording of his conversations with Comey.
“I’ve talked to the president,” Spicer said. “The president has nothing further to add on that.”
Senior White House aides and people close to Trump told POLITICO that they had no idea whether Trump has installed listening devices in the Oval Office or elsewhere in the White House.
Spicer did say, however, that Trump’s warning shot to Comey should not be interpreted as a threat.
“James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” Trump had written Friday morning, apparently in response to a New York Times article which, attributing the story to sources close to Comey, said Trump had asked Comey at dinner to pledge his loyalty to him. Spicer denied that account on Friday.
“The tweet speaks for itself,” Spicer told reporters, redeploying a line he often uses when pressed on Trump’s controversial online missives.
Trump later told Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro in an interview that he did not ask Comey to pledge loyalty, but added, “I don’t think it would be a bad question to ask.” He declined to comment on whether he had a recording of the conversation.
The president also told Pirro that he'd been contemplating Comey's dismissal since he first took office in January, offering a timeline for his decision-making process that contrasts with initial White House statements made in the aftermath of the FBI director's ouster.
Trump stressed that there was "no right time" to fire the Comey.
"Let's say I did it on January 20, the opening, right, and that would have been the big story as opposed to the inauguration," he said. "I was thinking about it then."
Trump's stern warnings come as the president and his White House have faced a backlash for their handling of Comey’s termination. Both have come under heavy criticism for the multiple and often contradictory statements over Comey’s firing, while Democrats have seized on the firing as a new line of attack to hammer the president over the probe into alleged Russia ties. The non-denial Friday by Spicer marked the latest instance of a White House communications team that seems unable to get its footing since the Comey firing.
The president launched into a kind of defense of his communications staff a little before 8 a.m., but in doing so he undercut the office’s credibility, saying they will not always provide accurate information. The White House press team had until Wednesday repeatedly explained the president’s firing of Comey as coming directly as the result of a recommendation from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
The differing stories left Sanders, the White House deputy press secretary, in the awkward position on Thursday of attempting to explain why she and others had misrepresented the president’s thinking. Friday morning, Trump said his spokespeople should not be expected to be able to necessarily speak accurately about his positions and his administration, tacking on a threat to cancel all future press briefings in a subsequent post.
“As a very active President with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy!” Trump wrote 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???”
Trump would later tell Fox News he thought it would be a good idea to cancel the daily press briefings, and instead hold a press conference himself every two weeks.
Minutes after the tweet about his communications staff, Trump took a different tack, issuing the warning to Comey.
The warning from Trump was especially eyebrow-raising given his assertion that Comey had, on multiple occasions, assured him that he was not under investigation by the bureau. Such a conversation, if it occurred the way Trump explained, would likely be considered inappropriate by many because the bureau is currently investigating his presidential campaign.
In testimony before Congress in late March, Comey refused to answer when asked whether the president himself was under investigation, but in his NBC News interview, Trump reiterated to anchor Lester Holt that the former director had assured him three times, once in person and two more times over the phone. Trump said it was he who had asked Comey whether he was a subject of the investigation and that the director had readily responded that he was not.
The notion that Trump may have interfered somehow with the FBI’s Russia probe has prompted renewed calls for an independent investigation from Democrats and even some Republicans, although those in the GOP calling for a special prosecutor or committee had mostly already done so before the Comey firing.
“First obstruction of an investigation. Now witness intimidation from the Highest Office,” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) tweeted Friday morning in response to a flurry of Trump posts. “A sad moment for even this White House. Unhinged?”
The president, who has insisted in recent interviews that he has no plans to interfere with ongoing investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential elections, disputed the need for an independent commission.
"I don't think you need it," Trump told Fox News on Friday. "I mean honestly, whatever is going to do the best, but I don't think you need it.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a longtime critic of the administration and the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, also took to Twitter to criticize the president's early morning tweets.
"Mr. President, if there are 'tapes' relevant to the Comey firing, it's because you made them and they should be provided to Congress," he posted.
Further, it has spurred talk of impeachment among congressional Democrat,s even though, as the minority party in the House, they would have virtually no power to initiate such proceedings. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who had to this point been the Democrat most loudly discussing impeachment, said Thursday night on MSNBC that Trump could potentially be charged with obstruction of justice. Hours later, two more of her colleagues joined in, even as Democratic leaders have sought to tamp down impeachment talk.
"Evidence of Trump's effort to obstruct justice continues to emerge. Lock HIM up?" Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) wrote on Twitter shortly after midnight Friday, followed by Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) who took to Twitter just after 3 a.m. Eastern to write "impeachment will happen if handful of Republicans in Congress join Dems to put country above party. Or in 2019 after Dems win the House.”
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