WASHINGTON — Raging against a political firestorm, President Donald Trump on Friday shot a sharp warning at his ousted FBI director about possible “tapes” of their disputed private conversations, raising the provocative possibility that recording devices have been installed in the White House.
Trump’s top spokesman refused to comment on whether listening devices are active in the Oval Office or elsewhere, a non-denial that recalled the secretly taped conversations and telephone calls that ultimately led to President Richard Nixon’s downfall in the Watergate scandal. Trump’s warning to fired FBI Director James Comey prompted new accusations of interference in an investigation into allegations of collaboration between Russia and the Trump presidential campaign last year.
It also escalated a potentially damaging standoff between a fuming, undisciplined president and the unorthodox lawman he dismissed three days earlier. Not to mention Congress, which has its own investigations underway.
Democrats quickly seized on the dispute, demanding the White House turn over any tapes that might exist of the president’s conversations with Comey.
For a president whose tweets frequently rattle Washington — and foreign capitals — Trump’s message early Friday morning was particularly jarring: “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” the president wrote.
The White House refusal to elaborate left open several questions: Was Trump, as his predecessor had in the 1970s, been covertly taping conversations? Was he trying to intimidate Comey? Was he suggesting Comey had recordings? Or was it merely a button-pushing claim launched over frustration at news coverage of the controversy.
The tweet appeared to refer to a series of three conversations in which, Trump claims, Comey assured him he was not under FBI investigation as part of the bureau’s probe into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Comey has not explicitly denied the account. But sources close to him have cast doubt on the president’s account, noting it would be extraordinary for an FBI director to discuss an open investigation.
On Friday, a person close to the former director recounted a different version. At a one-on-one dinner at the White House in January, Trump asked Comey to pledge his loyalty to the president and Comey declined, instead offering to be honest with him, according the person, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.