Fallout over FBI chief Comey sacking

Summary

President Trump warns fired FBI chief Comey over media leaks
Comey was leading inquiry into alleged Trump campaign-Russia ties
President's account of their dinner conversation differs from people close to Comey
Democrats call for an independent special prosecutor

Live Reporting

Rebecca Seales, Tom Spender and Max Matza

Trump 'told reporters he was taping them'published at 16:00 British Summer Time 12 May 2017
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Image caption,
Trump is "paranoid" about surveillance
Bloomberg columnist Timothy O’Brien, who has covered Mr Trump since 1989, has told the BBC that the president hates the idea of surveillance.
Quote Message
Take this morning. He got up and tweeted that he might have tapes of him and Comey talking. But he used to say the same thing to reporters – ‘I've got a recording system in my office and I'm taping you’, and he didn't have one.
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This whole idea of surveillance really gets to him, he's very paranoid about it. He's a paranoid person, and I think Russia has weighed much more heavily on his mind than people fully understand.
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The tweets this morning are akin to the wiretapping tweets about Obama. It’s not a diversion. What he's doing is waking up and saying, I feel this way about something and I'm going to let the world know, and I don't care about the consequences."
Opportunities at the FBIpublished at 15:48 British Summer Time 12 May 2017
This email is being sent around DC today.
Any takers?
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Another day, another news delugepublished at 15:39 British Summer Time 12 May 2017
Our North America Editor Jon Sopel is still valiantly holding out for a quiet day in the Trump White House. Best of luck, Sir...
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Buy him mittens! - US comedianpublished at 15:36 British Summer Time 12 May 2017
US comedian Arsenio Hall is appealing for Trump's family to intervene.
He also suggests that a more assertive chief of staff, like the one that served under President Ronald Reagan, should come to his rescue.
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Twitter executive reaches out to Trumppublished at 15:27 British Summer Time 12 May 2017
Twitter's Chief Operating Officer Anthony Noto has raised hackles by suggesting that if President Trump did dispense with press briefings, as he suggested earlier today, the void could be filled with "questions submitted via Twitter".
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Critics accused him of undermining the role of a free press.
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And the chairman of the Democratic Party says that perhaps there is a simpler solution.
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Spicer's backpublished at 15:25 British Summer Time 12 May 2017
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Killing the messenger?
White House press secretary Sean Spicer is due to hold a regular media briefing today - just hours after President Trump floated the idea of ending them.
Politico says that Mr Trump has been holding auditions, external for a new press secretary while Spicer has been on military reserves duty at the Pentagon.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the daughter of failed presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, has been briefing the press in the interim.
How will Mr Spicer handle questions over former FBI chief Comey's sacking?
By the way - the actress that plays "Spicey" on Saturday Night Live was filmed on the streets of New York earlier today.
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Trump lawyer: 'No income from Russian sources'published at 15:16 British Summer Time 12 May 2017
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AP news agency is reporting that President Trump's lawyer says his client's tax returns from the past 10 years show no "income of any type from Russian sources", although there are exceptions.
That raises a couple of questions: What are the exceptions, and will the president make them public?
Earlier this month Republican Senator Lindsey Graham - who leads a Senate judiciary panel - expressed interest in Mr Trump's business dealings in Russia and has said it would be "helpful" to see his tax returns.
Trump tweet 'witness intimidation' - Obama ethics czarpublished at 15:10 British Summer Time 12 May 2017
Norm Eisen - the ethics czar in the Obama White House between 2009 and 2011 - has tweeted that Mr Trump's warning to fired FBI chief Comey over possible leaks to the media could be seen as witness intimidation, were Mr Trump to face obstruction of justice charges as some are demanding.
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Senior Democrat: 'The president is dangerous'published at 14:55 British Summer Time 12 May 2017
Senior Democrat Senator Dick Durbin has told MSNBC that President Trump is "dangerous" and "may be obstructing justice" over the Russia investigation.
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Has Trump tapped his own phones before?published at 14:43 British Summer Time 12 May 2017
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Mr Trump denies listening in on his staff
Last June, Buzzfeed reported, external that Donald Trump had secretly listened in on phone calls at his Mar-A-Lago resort in the mid-2000s.
He allegedly had "a phone console near his bed that could connect to every phone in the estate", and several former workers "said Trump used it to secretly listen in on phone calls".
Buzzfeed said the billionaire wholly denied this however, noting:
"His spokeswoman Hope Hicks responded to written questions with one sentence: 'This is totally and completely untrue'."
Beef is real news - Trumppublished at 14:37 British Summer Time 12 May 2017
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Nothing fake about these American cows
The president's latest tweet is about US beef and other products being sold in China again - this is "real news", he says.
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He is referring to a 10-point trade deal agreed by the US and China that saw China lift its ban on US beef imports, and accept US shipments of liquefied natural gas.
The deal also opens the Chinese market to US credit rating agencies and credit card companies.
In return, Chinese cooked chicken will be allowed into the US market and Chinese banks can enter the US market.
US and China sign trade agreement
If Trump taped Comey, was it illegal?published at 14:16 British Summer Time 12 May 2017
After President Trump tweeted that James Comey "better hope there are no 'tapes' of our conversations", people are asking if it would be illegal to record him without consent.
The answer appears to be no, as Washington DC has "one party consent" when it comes to taping people.
That means even if Trump knew he was being taped and Comey didn't, recording the meeting would still be legal.
More information here, external...
Could Comey have records?published at 14:12 British Summer Time 12 May 2017
Matthew Miller, a former Department of Justice spokesperson under President Obama, has warned that James Comey is careful to leave a paper trail at key moments.
Would his talks with President Trump have qualified?
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'When does it end?' asks Trumppublished at 14:05 British Summer Time 12 May 2017
President Trump is continuing to tweet - now he is asking when people will stop alleging that there was possible collusion between Trump campaign officials and Russia during the US election.
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He quotes James Clapper - who was Director of National Intelligence at the time of the election - as saying there was "no collusion", but what Mr Clapper actually said was that he saw no evidence of collusion up until the time he left his post in January.
Mr Comey was leading an inquiry into alleged Russian meddling in the US election and possible collusion between Trump campaign officials and Moscow when he was fired.
Russia: The scandal Trump can't shake
Incredulous reporters react to 'tapes'published at 13:53 British Summer Time 12 May 2017
The warning that President Trump may have recordings of conversations with former FBI chief Comey has drawn incredulous responses from journalists.
Some see parallels with disgraced former president Nixon - who secretly recorded thousands of hours of phone calls and meetings that then proved instrumental in his downfall.
Others say the suggestion that recordings exist has created a set of new problems for the White House to explain.
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Trump warns Comey over 'leaks'published at 13:40 British Summer Time 12 May 2017
Breaking
President Trump has just tweeted again - a warning to Mr Comey not to leak information to the media because recordings of their conversations may exist.
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Is this a Trump apology?published at 13:38 British Summer Time 12 May 2017
By saying his "surrogates" can't "stand at the podium with perfect accuracy", the president seems to be excusing the inconsistencies produced by Vice President Mike Pence and Press Secretary Sean Spicer in recent days.
Is this, as New York Times White House correspondent Glenn Thrush tweeted, a Trump apology?
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Mr Pence had told the press the FBI boss was fired on the recommendation of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. But then Mr Trump contradicted him, telling NBC's Lester Holt: "I was gonna fire regardless of recommendation."
Meanwhile, Sean Spicer came under fire for insisting on briefing reporters in the dark on the White House grounds as the news broke, and refusing to be filmed.
The president then contradicted Mr Spicer's junior, deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
She had claimed the Comey firing could hasten the FBI's investigation into alleged Russian meddling. On Thursday, Mr Trump told NBC the reverse - that it could "lengthen out the investigation."
Trump: Why not cancel all press briefings?published at 13:14 British Summer Time 12 May 2017
The president's suggested solution for the mixed messages emerging from the White House is... Stop briefing reporters, and start writing down what you want them to say.
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Trump defends his press teampublished at 13:13 British Summer Time 12 May 2017
Reports suggest the White House press team have been scrambling to defend their boss, after failing to anticipate the furore Mr Comey's sacking would cause.
But according to the president, the sheer number of issues handled by his "surrogates" explains why the message they put out has varied.
Quite simply, they're too busy to be consistent.
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President Trump is awake and tweeting...published at 13:01 British Summer Time 12 May 2017
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