U.S. lawmakers ask Trump to turn over any Comey tapes

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By Ayesha Rascoe

U.S. lawmakers on Sunday called on President Donald Trump to turn over any tapes of conversations with fired FBI chief James Comey, potentially setting up a showdown with the White House as Democrats considered a boycott of the vote on Comey's replacement.

In a highly unusual move, Trump last week appeared to suggest on Twitter that he might have tapes of conversations with Comey and warned the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation against talking to the media. Trump and a White House spokesman declined to confirm or deny whether such tapes exist.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said the White House must "clear the air" about whether there are any taped conversations.

"You can't be cute about tapes. If there are any tapes of this conversation, they need to be turned over," Graham told NBC's "Meet the Press" program.

Trump sparked a political firestorm when he abruptly fired Comey last week. The FBI has been investigating alleged Russian meddling in the U.S. election and possible ties between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

Democrats have accused Trump of attempting to thwart the FBI's probe and have called for some type of independent inquiry into the matter.

Trump has said he removed Comey because he was not doing a good job and that Comey had lost the support of FBI employees.

Trump tweeted on Friday that "James Comey better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!"

If there are recordings, Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah told the "Fox News Sunday" program it was "inevitable" that they would be subpoenaed and the White House would have to release them.

Lee, who was on Trump's list of potential replacements for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, also said recording conversations in the White House is "not necessarily the best idea."

'SIGH OF RELIEF'

Trump's threat about tapes has intensified calls from Democrats for an independent probe of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said Trump must immediately provide Congress with any tapes and warned that destroying existing tapes would violate the law.

Schumer also said Senate Democrats are weighing whether to refuse to vote on a new FBI director until a special prosecutor is named to investigate Trump's potential ties to Russia.

Russia has denied the claims and the White House says there was no collusion.

"To have that special prosecutor, people would breathe a sigh of relief because then there would be a real independent person overlooking the FBI director," Schumer told CNN's "State of the Union" program.

Trump, who has sought better relations with Russia, has continued to question whether it was behind the hacking of email accounts belonging to Democrats involved in Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign.

But Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told NBC's "Meet the Press" program there is no question that "the Russians were playing around in our electoral processes."

He defended Trump's decision to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in the Oval Office last week.

"It's in the interest of the American people, it's in the interest of Russia and the rest of the world that we do something to see if we cannot improve the relationship between the two greatest nuclear powers in the world," Tillerson said.

The Justice Department began interviewing candidates for the FBI director job on Saturday. Some people under consideration include acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas, New York Appeals Court Judge Michael Garcia and former Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher, according to a White House official.

Meanwhile, a NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released on Sunday found that 29 percent of Americans approve of Trump's decision to fire Comey, while 38 percent disapprove.

If a Senate vote on a new FBI director breaks down along party lines, Democrats would not have the votes to block a nominee because Republicans hold a majority in the chamber.

"The key is getting some of our Republican colleagues to join us," Schumer said.

Republican leaders in the Senate have rebuffed calls for a special prosecutor, saying it would interfere with ongoing congressional probes.

Graham said there may come a time when a special prosecutor is needed but not now.

"Right now, it is a counterintelligence investigation, not a criminal investigation. So you don't need a special prosecutor," Graham said on "Meet the Press."

James Clapper: democratic institutions are 'under assault' by Trump

Former national intelligence director hammers the president’s actions, calling James Comey’s firing ‘another victory for Russia’

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By Oliver Laughland

Former director of national intelligence James Clapper has accused Donald Trump of placing American democratic institutions “under assault” following the sacking of James Comey and cautioned that the former FBI director’s removal is “another victory” for Russia.

The forceful criticism comes as the justice department began screening candidates for Comey’s replacement and Democrats renewed calls for a special prosecutor to oversee an investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

“I think in many ways our institutions are under assault,” Clapper told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday. “Both externally, and that’s the big news here, is Russian interference in our election system. And I think as well our institutions are under assault internally.”

When asked to clarify if the internal assault came from the president directly, the former spy chief added: “Exactly.”

In a later interview on ABC news, Clapper added that “the Russians have to consider this [Comey’s sacking] as another victory on the scoreboard for them”.

The bleak assessment came days after Trump claimed on Twitter that Clapper had determined “there is no collusion” with reference to his presidential campaign and Russia, a characterization that Clapper has refuted.

The former national intelligence director, who served under the Obama administration from 2010 until Trump’s inauguration, said during a March interview that he had no knowledge of any collusion between the Republican’s campaign and Russian operatives. He has since clarified that during his time in office he was also unaware of an FBI investigation into such collusion, adding on Sunday: “I don’t know if there was collusion... And I don’t know of any evidence to it so I can’t refute it and I can’t confirm it.”

An NBC/Wall Street Journal pollreleased on Sunday found only 29% of Americans approved of Comey’s firing, while 78% supported an independent commission or special prosecutor to investigate Russia’s interference in the election.

The result is likely to bolster Democrats as senate minority leader Chuck Schumer renewed calls for a special prosecutor, and raised questions over whether US attorney general Jeff Sessions had violated the terms of his recusal from the Russia investigation by recommending the removal of Comey.

Sessions recused himself after it emerged he had failed to disclose contacts between himself and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 campaign.

“The actions of the last week make all the more reason that he should not be attorney general,” Schumer told CNN on Sunday.

Senate democrats are discussing the possibility of blocking Trump’s eventual nominee to replace Comey until a special prosecutor is appointed. Schumer on Sunday indicated he was supportive of such a move.

Comey has rejected an invitation to testify in a closed door senate committee hearing next week, but has reportedly expressed a desire to testify in public at a later date. Clapper said on Sunday he had been in contact with the former FBI director by email, but declined to characterize the nature of their conversation.

Comey has made no public comment since he was sacked on Tuesday, but was spotted on Saturday at a matinee performance of the Broadway musical Fun Home, which is currently on tour in Washington DC.

On Saturday at least eight candidates for the vacant position met with Sessions and deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein at the justice department. The list included the acting FBI director Andrew McCabe, Alice Fisher, a high-ranking justice department official in the George W Bush administration, Texas Republican senator John Cornyn, and former Republican congressman Mike Rogers, who is also a former FBI agent.

Rogers has won the endorsement of the FBI agents association, which represents 13,000 former and current agents and has ties to Trump surrogate and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Saturday that he predicted the selection and nomination process “is going to go quickly”.

“Almost all of them are very well-known,” Trump said before taking off for Lynchburg, Virginia, where he gave the commencement address at Liberty University. “They’ve been vetted over their lifetime essentially, but very well-known, highly respected, really talented people. And that’s what we want for the FBI.”

Schumer, on Sunday, argued that the eventual nominee should “not be a partisan politician” and “should be someone with courage” to stand up to “attempted interference” with the Russia investigation.

Schumer’s call was echoed by at least one Republican senator on Sunday, as Lindsey Graham told NBC’s Meet the Press he believed the new FBI director should be someone who “comes from within the ranks or has such a reputation that has no political backgrounds at all, that can go into the job on day one”.

Graham added of the ongoing investigation into Russia’s interference in the election: “The president needs to back off here and let the investigation go forward.”

No White House aides were sent to appear on the Sunday political shows to defend Comey’s firing.

The Widening Blast Radius of the Fox News Scandal

The metastasizing Ailes affair is spilling over into the politics of New York, Virginia and the White House.

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By BEN SCHRECKINGER

While the growing chorus of allegations from former employees are making Rupert Murdoch’s cable news network sound more like a malevolent bachelor party in Las Vegas, what happens at Fox News is not staying at Fox News.

As a federal investigation of the network reportedly grows in scope and more lawsuits pile up alleging a toxic corporate culture, Fox’s problems are increasingly spilling outside its walls and creating ramifications for local and national political figures as new allegations emerge and old ones are dredged up.

In recent weeks, a candidate for mayor of New York City has admitted to investigating two of Ailes’ accusers on behalf of Fox, while an aspiring Virginia politician has been accused in court of orchestrating online smear campaigns at the behest of Fox executives. Meanwhile, several people familiar with the arrangements have told Politico that President Donald Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, and longtime confidant Roger Stone coordinated with Ailes to monitor and undermine the ousted Fox chief’s perceived adversaries.

“The question in the Fox scandal is not, ‘Who did what?’ It’s, ‘How close were you to anybody who did anything?’” says Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic strategist based in New York. “This is the boiling hot pot of politics. … Anybody who touches it is going to be get burned.”

The most immediate political consequences are those facing New York mayoral hopeful Richard “Bo” Dietl, a private investigator and former Fox News contributor who had long denied reports that he surveiled Ailes biographer Gabriel Sherman and others on behalf of the ousted network chief. Earlier this month, Dietl admitted to the Wall Street Journal that he had investigated Andrea Mackris, a former Fox producer who sued Bill O’Reilly for sexual harassment in 2004, and Gretchen Carlson, whose accusations against Ailes prompted his ouster last year, on behalf of the network.

According to one Republican operative in New York, multiple mayoral campaigns are planning to use Dietl’s work and alleged work on behalf of Fox against him. Dietl said that the potential complications for his mayoral campaign prompted him to speak out to clarify his investigative work for Fox. Earlier this month, local Republican leaders decided not to grant Dietl special dispensation that would have allowed him to run on their party’s primary ballot, forcing him to make an independent bid.

In addition to the political liabilities inherent in working to undermine alleged victims of sexual harassment, Dietl’s recent admission to the Journal also opens him up to charges of dissembling. Just days earlier, he had told Politico, “I have never, ever done any work for Roger Ailes.”

In a follow-up interview, Dietl defended that denial on the grounds that while he had done work for the network while Ailes was its CEO, he had not worked for Ailes personally. “We’re splitting nickels here,” he said.

Dietl’s admission also does not clear up all of the Fox-related work performed by his firm, Beau Dietl & Associates. (He went by “Beau” when he named his firm and changed it to the earthier “Bo” for Fox appearances.)

In 2008, Gawker received an anonymous email tip about the sex life of Rupert Murdoch’s then-wife Wendi Deng that described her as a “whore” and “nymphomaniac.” In 2014, Gawker reviewed the metadata of the Word document containing the tip, which identified the document as belonging to Maria Stasek, an office manager for Dietl at the time the tip was sent—and the website proceeded to report on the origins of the anti-Deng smear.

Stasek declined to comment, and Dietl told Politico he has “no knowledge” of any work his firm performed related to Deng. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” he said.

But a former employee said that at the time Gawker published its story, Dietl “went off the rails,” going from room to room at his firm’s headquarters to inform employees about the dangers of leaking electronic documents to the press. “He doesn’t even understand how PDF files or other types of files work, but he understood that if you leak it there’s always a way to trace it,” said the former employee.

The former employee recounted checking the firm’s shared research folder in the hours after the Deng fiasco erupted and finding that a handful of news articles about Deng and public domain photos of her remained there. Private investigators regularly use publicly available photos to help them identify the targets of their in-person surveillance. “They definitely did do some work on it,” said the former employee of the firm and Deng.

Dietl said that because his firm has many clients, it could be performing investigations without his knowledge, and he repeatedly suggested the firm might be investigating a Politico reporter. “Right now, I could be investigating you, and I don’t even know it,” he said. Amid further questioning about Deng, Dietl terminated the phone call.

“If I were Bo Dietl, I’d come up with a better explanation,” opined Sheinkopf, who said that Dietl was one of eight New York mayoral hopefuls who have sought him out to discuss their aspirations, though he has declined to work with any of them.

A suit filed last month by former Fox host Andrea Tantaros also alleges that Dietl illegally obtained journalists’ phone records and credit reports at the behest of the network’s general counsel, Dianne Brandi. Dietl has denied that charge, as has Brandi.

Though it is illegal, private investigators routinely gain access to people’s phone records on behalf of wealthy clients, according to two operatives familiar with the practice who did not want their names to be associated with criminal activity.

In September, Sherman reported in New York magazine that Fox News executives had obtained the phone records of Media Matters reporter Joe Strupp in 2010 to discover who was leaking to Strupp. Angelo Carusone, the president of the liberal media monitoring group, said its lawyer has ordered Fox to retain records relevant to the allegations and that he is currently looking for ways to fund the estimated $500,000 cost of litigating a case through the discovery phase before the statute of limitations runs out in the coming months.

A Fox News spokeswoman, Irena Briganti, pointed to Brandi’s previous denial that the network had obtained people’s phone records and referred other questions for this story to Ailes.

Beyond the rough-and-tumble of New York politics and media, Tantaros’ suit also drags the more genteel, blazer-and-khakis world of northern Virginia’s establishment Republican politics into the Fox News fray.

In the suit, Tantaros, who is pursuing related claims in arbitration against Fox and Ailes stemming from alleged sexual harassment, claims that operatives working on behalf of Fox hacked her computer and eavesdropped on her phone calls and then used private information to harass and intimidate her over social media.

Much of her complaint revolves around allegations against former Fox contributor Pete Snyder, an investor and aspiring Republican politician in Virginia, where he unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor in 2013. Snyder is also the founder of New Media Strategies, an online marketing firm that counted Fox among its clients before he sold it in 2011.

According to Tantaros’ suit, Snyder has confided in her that he ran smear campaigns at the behest of Fox executives using social media “sock puppet” accounts—accounts that conceal the true identities of their operators—and that he later used similar tactics against her when her relationship with the network soured.

“Andrea Tantaros’ lawsuit against Pete Snyder is a sham and a shakedown,” Snyder’s lawyer, Randy Mastro, said in a statement. “It will be thrown out of court because it is meritless, time-barred, and subject to arbitration in any event. As Ms. Tantaros and her lawyer are well aware, Pete Snyder and his company ceased doing any social media-related work for Fox News in 2012; Snyder sold his social media company long ago, and has had nothing whatsoever to do with what she is now alleging supposedly occurred to her over the past year.”

Snyder—who passed in September on running for governor and instead endorsed former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie—has also retained the high-powered public relations specialist Stephanie Cutter, a former Obama deputy campaign manager and White House adviser, to handle media inquiries related to the suit.

Snyder founded New Media Strategies, an online marketing and market intelligence firm that was an early pioneer in social media marketing techniques, in 1999. While the handling of most of the firm’s clients was delegated to others, Snyder himself dealt directly with Fox executives, according to several former employees. Cutter said Snyder interacted with Fox executives roughly once a month.

During the latter half of the past decade, the company conducted audits of the online conversations about clients, pitched favorable news to bloggers and posted anonymously on message boards and comment threads to promote its clients’ brands and projects like new movies.

The purpose of this "astroturfing" was to “Basically create a counternarrative,” according to one former employee. “There was some level of disclosure, like ‘I work in this industry and I know,’ so it wasn’t just a random commentator, but there was not full disclosure.”

At the time, such commercial astroturfing — the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by a grass-roots participant — was a widespread practice. In recent years, the Federal Trade Commission has been issuing stricter rules requiring disclosure of online marketing campaigns.

According to two people with direct knowledge of the firm’s work for Fox, the company anonymously posted favorable messages about Fox and negative messages about CNN. Those people said they had no knowledge of New Media Strategies spreading the kind of highly personal smears that some perceived Ailes adversaries have encountered over the years.

Last month, however, Salon reported that New Media Strategies also ran sock-puppet fan websites for Fox, including several that objectified the network’s female on-air personalities. Snyder, who declined to comment on the record for this story, denied to Salon that his firm was involved in creating the websites.

Ailes’ lawyer, Susan Estrich, said her client had no knowledge of New Media Strategies’ specific actions on behalf of Fox, but added that “every company places items to their advantage on the internet.”

In 2007, Snyder sold New Media Strategies to Meredith Corporation, and he stepped down as its CEO in 2011. The next year, he ended a brief stint as an on-air Fox News contributor. He now runs the angel-investing firm Disruptor Capital, which owns stakes in several politically connected firms clustered around Washington and Alexandria, Virginia, including the right-leaning news outlet Independent Journal Review.

The network of operatives allegedly used by Ailes and other Fox executives to monitor and demean perceived threats also extends to Trump’s inner circle, according to several people with knowledge of those relationships. Trump’s longtime confidant Stone, a veteran practitioner of political dark arts, was paid for off-air work that included keeping tabs on Sherman and publicly criticizing Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy, according to three people familiar with the arrangement.

“Stone would just write public articles when Ailes told him,” one of those people explained. In a March 2015 article for the Daily Caller, Stone accused Ruddy of being “in bed with the Clintons.” In an April 2015 piece for the publication, Stone attacked Ruddy for criticizing a Fox News special about the Clintons.

At the time, according to a person familiar with Ailes’ thinking, he had become “obsessed” with Ruddy and the possibility that his plans to launch Newsmax TV would present a threat to Fox’s conservative news hegemony. “Roger goes through this period where he becomes convinced Ruddy is out to get him and he utilizes a lot of the grass roots to go after him,” explained another person familiar with the effort.

Starting in 2014, Ruddy detected a dramatic uptick in negative mentions of him online indicative of an organized effort but was unable to determine who was behind it, according to a person familiar with the situation.

(Citing a March 2014 email exchange about Ruddy between Snyder and Ailes lieutenant Bill Shine, a former Fox News executive, Tantaros’ lawsuit alleges that Snyder also participated in the effort to undermine Ruddy, though Snyder’s lawyer denies it.)

Stone said that his paid work for Fox consisted of writing Ailes “a shitload” of strategy memos about attracting more libertarian viewers and that his broadsides against Ruddy were motivated by anger over Ruddy’s donations to the Clinton Foundation, not monetary inducements.

Ailes’ lawyer said her client was unaware of any paid work performed by Stone. “Roger doesn’t know anything about payments to Mr. Stone, and believes the allegations are untrue,” she wrote in an email.

But three people familiar with the arrangement said Stone was also paid to keep tabs on Sherman as he worked on his biography of the Fox News chief. Stone said he was not paid to monitor Sherman but instead was motivated by friendship to act as a liaison between the two. “I would try to keep the two of them from killing each other, because they’re both friends of mine,” he said. “They became obsessed with each other. It was really unhealthy. I think Gabe’s a great journalist. I think Roger Ailes is a genius.”

The network of allies Ailes employed to neutralize threats also extends into the White House itself, according to three people familiar with the situation who said Bannon, the White House chief strategist, coordinated with Fox in Breitbart’s publication of negative stories about Sherman.

In the weeks before the release of Sherman’s biography, 2014’s “The Loudest Voice in the Room,” Bannon huddled inside a Fox News conference room with Ailes, Ailes’ personal attorney Peter Johnson Jr., pollster Pat Caddell and former Fox journalist Peter Boyer to discuss discrediting the book, according to two people familiar with the meetings. (None of the participants would comment on the record.) True to form, Bannon advocated an all-out “go to war” approach during these sessions, while Boyer advised a hands-off approach, according to one of those people. Bannon described the resulting attacks on Sherman as “love taps,” according to an acquaintance he later told about the meetings.

There is no indication that Bannon was paid to do this, though at the time he enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with Fox, which promoted his conservative documentaries. Ailes’ lawyer said that Breitbart’s coverage of Sherman was taken of its own initiative. White House press secretary Sean Spicer did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

Breitbart editor-in-chief Alex Marlow said the outlet's critical coverage of Sherman was consistent with the outlet’s values and that he does not believe Bannon was influenced by other considerations. “Steve talks to a lot of people,” Marlow said. “He makes it his business to be connected with lots of different people … but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the coverage was going to be preordained.”

Bannon has also collaborated with Jim Pinkerton, a former Fox News contributor who for years authored the anonymous blog “The Cable Game” to tout Fox and attack its rivals on behalf of Ailes.

Pinkerton, who did not respond to requests for comment, has written for Breitbart under his own byline since 2014. According to four people with knowledge of the arrangement, Pinkerton has also written for Breitbart under the pseudonym Virgil, an homage to the ancient poet whose work was commissioned by Caesar Augustus, the first Roman emperor, to help legitimize his reign. Marlow declined to comment on the pseudonym.

From 2012 to 2014, many of Breitbart’s attacks against Sherman were authored anonymously under another pseudonymous byline: “Capitol Confidential.” When “Capitol Confidential” was not attacking Sherman, it was attacking environmental protections and Google, and writing articles favorable to the tobacco and timber industries.

Marlow said “Capitol Confidential” had been managed by the site’s former politics editor Mike Flynn, who died last year. (The late Flynn was not related to the former national security adviser of the same name, Marlow said.)

Presented with the suggestion that the byline resembled a cover for undisclosed work on behalf of corporate interests, Marlow said it was not. “If there are any patterns,” he said, “that would be for you to figure out.”

Is it time for Trump staff to lawyer up?

Veterans of Washington's scandals say that with subpoenas coming from Congress and an FBI investigation still active, staffers would be wise to seek counsel.

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By DARREN SAMUELSOHN

Veterans of White House scandals from Watergate to Plamegate have an important message for Team Trump: It’s time to think about lawyering up.

In the past week, a Senate committee began issuing subpoenas in its investigation into Russian contacts with President Donald Trump’s staff and other associates during the 2016 election campaign and transition, while the FBI continues its own criminal investigation. Trump himself fired FBI Director James Comey and then, in the aftermath, said the Russia probe was “made up” and appeared to threaten Comey on Twitter.

“There’s obviously a risk here,” said Washington white-collar defense attorney Robert Luskin. “And that’s not any kind of judgment on [Trump’s] personal integrity or absence of it, but the apparent fact he doesn’t seem to be very sensitive about norms and about risks.”

It’s an axiom of Washington scandals that the cover-up tends to be worse than the crime — and it’s lower- or mid-level people who wind up getting caught in the worst legal trouble, usually for tangential offenses like perjury or obstruction of justice.

The ancillary stuff, like a forgotten meeting or a discarded document, can cause the most serious problems for staffers navigating the unfamiliar, expensive and high-stakes world of grand juries, subpoenas and congressional hearings, where the prospects of perjury or obstruction of justice charges can be filed for both unintended slip-ups or intentional attempts to cover up for a superior.

“The thing you worry about in a process like that is you just make a mistake and it appears more than it is,” said Rep. Sean Maloney, a New York Democratic lawmaker who served as staff secretary for President Bill Clinton during his final two years at the White House amid congressional impeachment proceedings. “We’re all human beings. If someone asks you questions for two or three hours, it’s easy to make a mistake.”

At least some of the people who joined the Trump administration were aware of the legal risks. “I had folks who joined the administration ask that question, which should tell you something,” said Luskin, who previously represented President George W. Bush’s senior political adviser Karl Rove during the investigation into the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity, as well as a pair of senior officials during the probe of Clinton’s Whitewater land deals.

A few of the central players in the Trump investigations already have counsel. Former campaign manager Paul Manafort, whose work in Ukraine is under review, has a lawyer, as does former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn, who last week was served with a subpoena by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Their attorneys did not respond to requests for comment.

Longtime personal Trump tax attorneys from the firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius sent Senate investigators a letter last week detailing some of the president’s business interests tied to Russia. A spokeswoman from the firm declined comment.

John Dean, the former Nixon White House counsel who served a four-month sentence for his role in Watergate, said he doesn't expect Trump’s staffers at this early stage of the investigative process to have already started hiring attorneys. But he said that can change quickly.

“It’s something that happens in every White House when the contagion has started spreading,” he said. He predicted the lower-level employees, including otherwise innocent secretaries and other aides who have gotten up-close interactions with the president and his senior aides, may not see the need to call for an attorney until they’ve been identified as potential witnesses. “They’re primarily driven by fear, fear of the unknown and not wanting to make a mistake,” he said.

But Dean added that some people delay retaining counsel because they think it makes them look bad. “If my history watching Watergate and what happened is any indication, the guiltier they are, the later they get lawyers,” Dean said. “They don’t want to either admit it in their own mind or they think they can tough it out. They think hiring a lawyer is an admission of guilt. And that’s foolish.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment about whether individual staffers have retained counsel. “The entire White House staff is hard at work implementing the president’s agenda for the American people,” said press secretary Sean Spicer.

Outside observers say the signs are growing that Trump’s staff may want to start lining up legal advice, even if it’s only for preliminary discussions.

“If they have information that indicates contact with Russians or attempts to interfere, they better damn well,” said former FBI agent Lewis Schiliro, who spent 25 years at the FBI before retiring in 2000 as head of the New York field office. “That’s a pretty serious thing.”

Along with the criminal subpoenas, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) last week requested the Justice Department inspector general examine Trump’s firing of Comey; the Treasury Department is reportedly going to be sharing records with Senate investigators on Trump’s financial dealings with Russia and beyond; and calls keep coming from Capitol Hill Democrats to the White House to retain all documents related to ongoing criminal probes.

Looming legal proceedings can shadow interactions among staffers, exacerbating existing tensions and infighting.

“I don’t know how they’re getting anything done, including the people who are much lower down and have jobs with nothing to do with this,” said Amanda Kane, a former associate counsel in the Obama White House. “It’s a very small, insular environment there.”

But others said that an investigation can sometimes serve as a rallying point for staffers. “It’s a weird thing. I think you just keep doing your job. You try to stay focused and you believe in the mission,” said Maloney, the former Clinton staffer, who later worked for New York Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer during the governor’s prostitution scandal.

“What really gets you through is the relationships with your colleagues,” said Maloney. “You make friends for life, and it’s because you’re going through the crucible together.”

Trump in recent days has publicly tried to stick to his agenda. Last week, his press aides opened their daily briefings talking about an executive order on cybersecurity and his government’s response to an accident at the nuclear-waste cleanup site in Hanford, Washington. The president is also preparing for his first international trip this week. On Twitter, he pointed to a recent trade move involving U.S. beef exports to China that he declared was “REAL news!”

With a friendly Republican Congress, the Trump White House so far isn’t facing an independent prosecutor like Kenneth Starr, who investigated the Clintons’ Whitewater deal and Bill Clinton's relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky. As Luskin put it: “I have to say compared to the Clinton years that this is a walk in a f------ park.”