Spokesman parries questions on tweeted threat to ex-FBI director that raised Watergate echoes, as Democrats demand tapes be given to Congress – if they exist

White House press secretary Sean Spicer repeatedly refused on Friday to deny that Donald Trump is secretly taping visitors.



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At the daily White House press briefing, Spicer did not answer repeated questions about Trump’s tweet threatening former FBI director James Comey.

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

The president has insisted that Comey assured him over a private dinner at the White House that he was not subject to federal investigation over alleged contacts between Trump aides and Russia during the 2016 election campaign.

Spicer repeatedly said “the president has nothing further to add on that” and eventually insisted: “The tweet speaks for itself.”

The prospect of secret recordings of White House meetings harkens back to the Nixon administration, when President Nixon taped Oval Office meetings. The recordings, which were revealed in congressional testimony, were eventually subpoenaed as part of the investigation into the Watergate scandal that forced Nixon’s resignation.

In a letter released to the press on Friday afternoon, two top congressional Democrats, Elijah Cummings of Maryland and John Conyers of Michigan, asked the White House to hand over any such tapes “if they exist”.

The two senior congressmen wrote that “under normal circumstances, we would not consider credible any claims that the White House may have taped conversations of meetings with the president.

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“However, because of the many false statements made by White House officials this week, we are compelled to ask whether any such recordings do in fact exist. If so, we request copies of all recordings in possession of the White House regarding this matter.”

Michael Beschloss, a leading presidential historian, said on Twitter: “Presidents are supposed to have stopped routinely taping visitors without their knowledge when Nixon’s taping system was revealed in 1973.”

Spicer also refused to rule out a potential end to White House briefings, which Trump threatened on Twitter on Friday.

“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. “Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future ‘press briefings’ and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???”

In an excerpt of an interview with Fox News released on Friday afternoon, Trump seemed to double down on this idea. Asked if he was “moving so quickly that your communication department cannot keep up with you,” he agreed. “What do we do about that?” Jeanine Pirro asked him.

“We don’t have press conferences,” Trump replied. “Or unless I have them every two weeks and I do ’em myself, we just don’t have them. I think it’s a good idea.”