Trump’s spokesman would nothing else say about the tweet that insinuated the president had recorded his talks with James Comey after lawmakers threatened to subpoena them.
The White House would not say Monday whether the president taped conversations with his FBI director that he would be providing to Congress.
Trump’s spokesman said he had nothing else to say about the tweet that insinuated the president had recorded his talks with James Comey.
‚I think I made it clear last week that the president has nothing further on that, ‚ Sean Spicer curtly told a reporter during his daily briefing. ‚I said, I was very clear, the president will have nothing further on that, ‚ Spicer said.
Lawmakers said Sunday that Trump could count on a subpoena if the suggestion that he had tapes of their talks turned out to be true.
The White House repeatedly refused to say definitively on Friday, and again on Monday, that Trump did or did not record the discussions.
The president had said in a Friday tweet that Comey ‚better hope that there are no „tapes“ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!‘
The tweet added an entirely new dimension to the shock firing that the White House had already been struggling to explain.
Trump said the firing had nothing to do with the FBI’s Russia investigation in a letter he sent Comey informing him that he’d been canned. On three separate occasions, Trump says the FBI official told him he was not being investigated.
Comey and Trump had dinner once, and talked on the phone twice, before the law enforcement official was fired, the White House has said.
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Sunday he would be surprised if Comey had actually said that.
He also claimed Comey told him the dinner was Trump initiated, and he felt uncomfortable attending, given his bureau’s supposed independence.
Spicer was unable to say Friday whether Comey or Trump asked for the meeting the president previously said was at the request of his flailing FBI director.
He said Monday he had not spoke to the president about it yet, even though he had three days to do it.
The president’s spokesman wouldn’t entertain questions on the tapes, and shut down a reporter asking whether Trump would comply with a subpoena.
‚I made it clear what the president’s position was on that issue, ‚ he hollered at her.
DOJ is currently interviewing replacements for the position, and the White House has been tight-lipped about the president’s preferences.
Trump suggested Saturday that he could send a nomination to the Senate before he leaves Friday on a his first foreign trip.
He told reporters Monday that the search is ‚moving rapidly‘ but that was it.

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Here’s what you might have missed on CNN today.
— Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will brief the Senate on Thursday on the firing of former FBI Director James Comey.
— Democrats are embracing the reality they will need Republican help to block President Donald Trump’s FBI director selection . (Here’s a look at the list of possible candidates .)
— The United States said it believes the Syrian government is using a crematorium to hide atrocities .
— Russian President Vladimir Putin has condemned North Korea’s latest missile launch but warned against „intimidating“ Pyongyang .
— An anonymous malware researcher has become an internet hero after inadvertently helping stop the spread of this weekend’s global cyberattack.
— Chinese investors say Trump ties are a top selling point for Kushner Companies .
— The Supreme Court will not hear a challenge to the ruling that struck down North Carolina’s voter ID law .
— The parents of a Penn State fraternity pledge speak about their son’s hazing death .
— Barron Trump will attend St. Andrew’s in Maryland.
— Miss USA argued that health care is „a privilege, “ not a right .
— Will Congress end school lunch shaming ?
— Nikki Minaj stepped up her effort to help college kids with their tuition — by paying the bills of several lucky fans .

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James Clapper, former director of national intelligence, has become one of the staunchest critics of Trump and defenders of democracy in the wake of Comey’s firing, writes Juliette Kayyem.
There should be little doubt that the extraordinary days that followed his original testimony — most notably, almost exactly 24 hours later, President Donald Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey — began in some measure because of his understated but highly damning testimony.
Now, as he voluntarily makes the media circuit since the firing, Clapper sees the consequences of Trump’s actions as so threatening to our democracy that he is not likely to recede soon.
Let’s go back to last week; yes, it was only last week. All eyes were on former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates as she testified about what she told the White House regarding former national security adviser Michael Flynn and his potentially compromising ties to foreign governments.
Yates made an impression, but it was Clapper who drew the real spotlight .
His testimony threw a wrench into a narrative that the White House had long used. According to that narrative, while serving as director of the national intelligence, Clapper said there was no proof of collusion between the White House and Russia. But Clapper admitted last Monday that he was unaware of the ongoing FBI investigation, so he wouldn’t have been in a position to know if there had been any evidence of collusion. In other words, the White House could no longer use him as a validator.
The next day, Trump fired Comey. And the White House scrambled to justify the decision. Then, in a series of tweets on Friday morning, Trump lashed out at Comey and suggested there may be tapes of their conversations. But don’t get distracted by the „tapes.“ In that flurry of stream of consciousness and self-incrimination, Trump wrote this: „When James Clapper himself, and virtually everyone else with knowledge of the witch hunt, says there is no collusion, when does it end?“
He shouldn’t have focused on Clapper. Because, of course, that tweet amounted to a lie. Clapper had said something much more nuanced. Clearly, there was something about Clapper’s testimony that spooked the White House, and something that required the President to reclaim Clapper as a defender.
I suspect there are very few things that would have brought Clapper back to the media, including a sit down with Jake Tapper on „State of the Union, “ but the President telling tales about him may be one of them.
Clapper, though, isn’t back just to defend himself. He has now raised the stakes for the White House. It turns out that Comey told Clapper of his own discomfort with an invitation to dinner he received from Trump just a day after Yates told the White House about Flynn’s potential compromise.
And he is again, as he did as a long-serving intelligence operative, defending America. He is on the news circuit, speaking of his concern about how the institutions of our governance are being undermined and assaulted. There is a stress on our checks and balances that has seen no equivalent in our democracy, he warned. America is under threat „externally and internally, “ Clapper noted. „Internally from the President?“ Tapper asked. „Exactly, “ Clapper replied.
There should be little doubt now that President Trump fired Comey to hinder the investigation of the Russia links; any suggestion it had to do with Comey’s conduct regarding the Clinton campaign has been debunked. Little doubt, indeed, because Trump admitted it himself when he told Lester Holt he had to put an end to the „Russia thing.“ There may be plenty of evidence to question Trump’s veracity. But, in this, he is telling the truth. The President wants this investigation to end.
It is that assault on our norms, processes and constitutional order that make the week we just had so historic. How extraordinary? Clapper began that week testifying the enemy was Russia. He ended it, unwittingly it seemed, by telling us that the enemy was also within.

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