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U.S. Representatives Request White House "Tapes"
Various news outlets are reporting that members of the U.S. House of Representatives have asked the White House to turn over recordings of conversations between the president and the recently dismissed director of the FBI, James Comey, after the president alluded to the existence of such recordings in a brief message posted to Twitter [twitter.com] which said:
James Comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!
From Politico's story [politico.com]:
Reps. John Conyers and Elijah Cummings, the top Democrats on the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees, wrote to White House counsel Don McGahn asking whether such tapes exist and requesting copies if so. And Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, issued a statement saying Trump must either provide the tapes to Congress or admit he made them up.
The letter (PDF) [house.gov] from Messrs. Conyers and Cummings also warned that
[...] it is a crime to intimidate or threaten any potential witness with the intent to influence, delay, or prevent their official testimony.
In related news, the president posted to Twitter [twitter.com] a few minutes before his post about the "tapes",
...Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future "press briefings" and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???
Fox News [foxnews.com] (archived copy [webcitation.org]) explains:
[...] he was responding to coverage of his claim to NBC News that he was going to fire Comey regardless of any recommendation from his team -- in spite of prior claims suggesting otherwise.
additional coverage:
- Washington Times [washingtontimes.com]
- Vanity Fair [vanityfair.com]
- Mother Jones [motherjones.com]
- AP via Boston Globe [boston.com] (earlier story, before request)
- NPR [npr.org]
- CBS News [cbsnews.com]
- CBS News [cbsnews.com] (earlier story, before request)
- WWJ-TV [cbslocal.com] (CBS)
- Talking Points Memo [talkingpointsmemo.com]
- Breitbart News [breitbart.com] (earlier story, before request)
- Detroit Free Press [freep.com] (earlier story, before request)
- Fox News [foxnews.com] (video, opinion)(archived copy [webcitation.org])
- The Hill [thehill.com] (this is about the Fox News story above)
- Reuters [reuters.com] (earlier story before request)
A dictionary site's blog [oxforddictionaries.com] featured the word "Nixonian" prior to the president's Twitter posts.
related story:
President Trump Fires FBI Director James Comey [soylentnews.org]
