(CNN) We've entered a new plane of reality where the question of who secretly recorded President Donald Trump doing what without his knowledge has become an overriding theme of his presidency.

Release of secret tapes almost derailed his presidential campaign. Trump's obsession with the unfounded idea he was being wiretapped by former President Barack Obama, and his concern about rumors he was secretly videotaped by the Russians, now feed strangely into the development that he *actually* was secretly recorded by his lawyer and at least one aide.

And perhaps more incredible than the idea that heads of state would try to spy on each other is that the Trump era is indisputably a time in which a fix-it man dispatched to deal with alleged illicit affairs and a political staffer, both armed with iPhones, hit record while talking to their boss, who now happens to be the US President.

No wonder Trump wanted to be alone with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He'd actually have a legitimate concern his own staff might be surreptitiously recording him. Transcripts of his phone calls with other world leaders once leaked to the press and showed him admitting that Mexico would not pay for a border wall , despite what he said in public.

Michael Cohen and Omarosa Manigault Newman, in putting Trump on tape, were seeking proof not unlike the "Kompromat" Russian agents allegedly try to get over foreigners. It's a strange inverse of the Nixon White House, where everything was recorded and subpoenaed and the gaps of recording helped bring the President down.