John Heilemann, a well-known Washington reporter and former co-managing editor of Bloomberg Politics, said reporters covering the Trump administration should start assuming there is a "cover-up" taking place.

On MSNBC Thursday, Heilemann said news reports all point to signs that the administration is actively engaged in covering up a major or minor scandal as it relates to Russia.

"We've been on an incredible tear with the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, doing amazing work since the start of the administration," he said. "And if you take the collective information that they've brought out in the last 48 hours, 36 hours, along with NBC News and others, you have a picture that's fairly clear. There's a cover-up going on. And that has to be the premise of all our reporting going forward."

Since Tuesday night, the White House has been in a spiral, attempting to explain why ousted FBI Director James Comey was fired and the timeline of events leading up to his termination.

The White House maintains that he was fired after Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein recommended his dismissal due to a series of bad judgment calls in the FBI's investigation of Hillary Clinton's email controversies.

But reports since Comey's firing have offered various other accounts, including that Trump grew angry with Comey investigating whether his election campaign colluded with Russia.

"At this moment we don't know what is being covered up," Heilemann said. "That is still a huge question. How big it is, who it goes to, is it financial, is it personal, does it involve the president himself or just his associates? We don't know. But related to this administration and this campaign and Russia, everything they are doing gives the clear appearances of people who are trying to cover stuff up, lie about things and they are doing it with extraordinary ineptitude."

"Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman and frequent critic of Trump, said he agreed. "There is a cover-up at the White House right now," he said.