Donald Trump forbids James Comey from leaking to media in veiled tweet

Sean Spicer, White House Press Secretary, in his press briefing, denied that President threatened the former FBI Director. He said, “That’s not a threat. He simply stated a fact. The tweet speaks for itself.”

Spicer did not answer to questions whether the White House taped the conversation between Trump and Comey. “I’ve talked to the president. The president has nothing further to add on that,” he responded to the query.

Before this, Trump, in an exclusive interview with NBC’s Lester Holt on Thursday, called the FBI chief a ‘showboat’ and ‘grandstander’. Justifying his decision, he had said, “FBI was in turmoil six months back, you know that, everybody knows that, it has not recovered since.”

The firing of James Comey has come under huge scrutiny as FBI is investigating alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US election, and possible Moscow ties to the Trump presidential campaign.

Referring to the recent dismissal, critics and Democrats have dubbed it ‘Nixonian’ and ‘the Tuesday Night Massacre’, in allusion to the ‘Saturday Night Massacre’, when Nixon dismissed the special prosecutor of ‘Watergate Scandal’ Archibald Cox.

(With inputs from agencies)

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