Have you been following the drama . Three days now since the u. S. President fired his fbi director and, still, its not clear why he did it. Instead of settling this matter, donald trump tweeted a threat warning comey against going public. Heres cnns jeff zelany to explain. Reporter President Trump adding new fuel to the fire in his escalating fight with the fbi. Making a threat on twitter to james comey. The president saying the fired fbi director better hope there are no tapes of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press. Stunning words from the commander in chief directed at the nations former top Law Enforcement official. The man who was leading an investigation into potential collusion between the Trump Campaign and russian operatives before being fired tuesday. The president refused to answer the question he raised himself in an interview with fox news. What about the idea in a tweet that you said there might be tape recordings. That i cant talk about. I wont talk about. All i want is for comey to be honest and i hope he will be. Reporter white house Secretary Sean Spicer also refused to answer whether there is a Recording Office in the oval office or whether the president is taping his conversations there or else where . The president has nothing further to add on that. Reporter when asked again, sean spicer added the whether any tapes exist still hanging in the air. The president s warning to comey was a threat. That is not a threat. Simply stated a fact. The tweet speaks for itself. Im moving on. Reporter unclear whether the president is moving on. After making his feelings clear in an nbc interview thursday. Look, hes a show boat. Hes a grandstander. Reporter at issue is a dinner the president invited comey to seven days after taking office. It is there that cnn has learned that he asked about loyalty. We had a very nice dinner and at that time he told me, you are not under investigation. Reporter the president s obsession with the investigation is what led to comeys firing. The credibility of the president and his advisors is in question as the white house becomes increasingly consumed by chaos in a crisis of leadership. The president is isolated and agitated, associates tell cnn. He finished a full week barely seen at the white house before making this brief afternoon appearance with the first lady. Hi, everyone. A friendly, beautiful group. Reporter but his views have been heard in a roaring twitter storm. He acknowledged conflicting explanations in the timeline of comeys firing offering no apology but bluntly conceding that accuracy seems optional. As a very affect president with lots of things happening, its not possible for my surrogates to stand with perfect accuracy. He went on to say maybe the best thing to cancel all future press briefings and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy. The White House Press secretary was back at the podium under siege after a perilous week. To make it more of a game of gotcha. Reporter the president is frustrated by his Communication Team telling fox news he might take matters into his own hands. Sean spicer, he is a wonderful human being. He is a nice man. Is he your press secretary today and tomorrow . Well, hes doing a good job but he gets beat up. Will he be there tomorrow . Hes been there from the beginning. Reporter for now spicer remains in place. Apparently just in time to be lampooned again on saturday night live. Melissa mccarthy filming this weeks episode. This chaotic week comes to an end still questions hanging over this weekend. Credibility and who will the next director be. Does the president have a recording device in the oval office or else where regarding these conversations . The white house will not talk about that. But Going Forward here this whole issue of firing james comey has stymied their legislative agenda. The first foreign trip of his presidency and theyre hoping that helps get the president back on track. Jeff zeleny, cnn, the white house. Thanks for the reporting. A lot to unpackage here. Lets bring in laurie who teaches relations live in london at this hour. Lets start with this threat, some sail a veil threat, clearly a threat to the former fbi director james comey on twitter by the president of the United States. First of all, what does this say about mr. Trump putting this on record and, second, leslie, what about the people around him who are supposed to be his advisora . I think his advisors have struggled to manage and contain the president. The biggest job is dealing what comes out of the president as opposed to what is coming out beyond the white house. Clearly, this seems to be a case where the management of all the fallout surrounding the last few days since President Trump fired the fbi director have made things much worse rather than better. A clear problem of the things that President Trump is saying are leading people to believe that he is potentially obstructing justice which, of course, is a criminal problem. The firing itself is deeply problematic, but not illegal, as we know. Its the things that have come out since that are making people very concerned. Did he actually meet with comey and pressure him to be loyal . This would, you know, suggest a grave doubt about the respect that he has for the independence of the fbi which is crucial to american democracy. A lot of core norms that form the basis of the United States that donald trump is violating right now that need to be, his advisors need to really pull him back. But theyre having a difficulty doing that. This is within the president s right to fire the fbi director. But certainly the timing of all of this given this is the fbi director who was overseeing an investigation into Trump Associates during the campaign and possibly in the administration. So, in this threat, again, it indicates that there may have been recording devices present during a conversation. Neither the president nor his press secretary would confirm nor deny that information. One of the implications if there are recording devices, leslie . Well, trump does have a history of recording. Recording wouldnt be beyond the law as far as i understand it. But a real question of will that come out . Give on the current context important to share that he probably will not. A question of what that conversation was. Again, has he respected the independence of the fbi and the fbis investigation. Was there undo pressure put on comey. What was the nature of that conversation . Were hearing many Different Things and hearing these things from the president , which is the great irony here. The other problem is what happens Going Forward. What weve seep in the past is that the president in recent appointments have gone out of his way to choose something, if you think about the when we lost T National Security adviser and who he appoints to be the next fbi director i think will take us a long way to understand how this crisis unfolds. Somebody who seems to be very credible and very independent and very serious person, that will help. Then there is a real question about whether were just going to see the current investigation managed by the fbi Going Forward and whether the house intelligence investigations go forward or see the appointment of a special council or independent commission. There have been called for both. At the moment, most republicans are lining up behind the president. The likelihood of getting an independent commission or a special committee as senator mccain has called for is not high at the moment. And it looks like the fbi is likely to simply proceed with the existing investigation now that the new fbi director will be critical to how much resource gets put into that investigation and whether it can Carry Forward in a very serious way or whether it is obstructed through a series of small measures. That is inest thetrusting, b again, we talk about right before the former fbi director was fired he was ramping up that investigation calling on more resources from the justice department. Look a good cnn. Com that i would invite our viewers around the world to check out. A president isolated and agitated. You heard jeff zeleny speak of that in his report. What does that do for his domestic agenda. He is a president who wants to bring jobs about and bring certain changes. What does all this do for that . This is tremendously distracting and detraistracting the president. Remember, this all came on the back of arguably President Trumps first legislative success, which was getting the Health Care Reform passed to the house. That still has to go to the senate where it will face great difficulties and now the broader context is that the congress is caught up, once again, not only in this broader investigation of russias cyberattacks and trumps relationship to russia with respect to that. But now with the comey firing. So, its a tremendous distraction at a time when the president hasnt accomplished very much at all. He wants to push forward tax reform. Remember that in just a few days he is about to get on an airplane for his first major foreign trip. I imagine that will take washingtons temporary focus away and turn it back to the world. But its not doing much to help push forward a legislative agenda as we push forward to the 150day mark of this presidency. He is carrying a great deal of baggage on that flight. Thank you. Thank you. Fascinating discussion there, george. Well stay with this story and several u. S. Agencies are investigating the meddling in u. S. Elections and, of course, whether there was any collusion with members of the trump team. Cnns tom foreman shows us why the fbi is top of the investigative tree. If you look at all the different agencies investigating the possible russian connection to the election and maybe to the trump team, its a lot of different groups out there from the department of justice and the fbi, the congressional committees to department of defense all the way down to the intelligence community. Tip of the spear, though, the fbi. They have the ability right now and they are right now collecting evidence, questioning people and analyzing an awful lot of data to see if anything was done wrong out here. If they find something, yeah, they can get together with the department of justice there and they can put together an indictment and have criminal charges against somebody. Is this aimed spe eed specifica team trump . No, it is not. It is aimed that question of russian involvement in the election, although the outgoing director, who was just fired said, yeah, they have to consider people on the trump team as part of that investigation. Beyond that, what about the congressional part of this equation. Right here in the middle. All these committees. What can they do . They can keep summoning witnesses, getting them on tv and on the record and keep the story front and center. They cant really produce criminal charges, but they can keep this story very much alive. If a bombshell comes out of something that they do out there, well, then that may help keep things going in a lot of different ways and it could produce a special commission or committee. They can name such a thing. If that happens, then you move into a whole separate phase here. What about those special commissions or committees . Are they bipartisan . Can be. But usually they will reflect the majority as you see it. So, you will see republicans who control the house and senate. Probably control such a committee. It would tend to be seen as a little bit more independent, a little bit more free of political influence and a factfinding group out there. I say it is what it is because each one of these seem to have its own rules about how long it will last and what it will do with its power out there. The bottom line, though, if you get to this point and this committee wants to, it can have real teeth in pursuing that investigation and leading towards bigger, political steps even as the criminal cases also being pursued. Tom foreman, thank you. Attorney general Jeff Sessions. Now to him. He was involved in firing comey who recused himself, again. Sessions did from any role in the Russian Investigation in early march. But now many people are asking whether sessions should have played a part at all in terminating. Randi kaye takes a closer look for us. I decided to recuse myself from any existing or future investigations of any matter relating in any way to the campaigns for president of the United States. Reporter attorney general Jeff Sessions recusing himself from the investigation into the Trump Campaigns alleged ties to russia. And its meddling in the president ial election. That was march 2nd, after sessions failed to disclose his meeting with Russian Ambassador during his confirmation hearing. I should not be involved investigating a campaign that i had a role in. Reporter more than two months later, right back in the thick of it. Despite sessions sidelining himself, many questioning if he violated his recusal on the decision to fire fbi director james comey. The fact is, sessions promised to recuse himself from any existing or future investigations of any matters related to the campaign. So, why was he in the oval office on monday this week counseling the president about comey, who was heading up the russia investigation . He asked them for their recommendation based on a conversation that they had on monday. He asked them to put that recommendation in writing, but they came to him on his own. Reporter the white house says the president reviewed those written recommendations and made his decision the following day. Still, lets remember the white house initially said comey was fired because of how he handled the Hillary Clinton email scandal. But we now know according to the president himself, that is not accurate. He says the russia investigation played a role in his decision to cut comey loose. Which brings us back to Jeff Sessions and his socalled recusal. Violated that public commitment when he made a recommendation to donald trump, to President Trump to fire comey. Theres strong evidence that the firing of comey was related to the investigation of russia and the Trump Campaign. Reporter democratic senator al franken slammed sessions in a statement. Saying he was deeply troubled. Franken called it a complete betrayal of his commitment to the public that he wouldnt be involved in the investigation. On top of that, weve learned sessions is also interviewing candidates to replace comey. Meaning, Jeff Sessions will have a key role in picking who will be in charge of the russia investigation. The very investigation he vowed not to be a part of. Based on his commitment from march, attorney general sessions needs to recuse from participating in the vetting of those candidates, as well. Attorney general sessions shouldnt be involved in selecting the next director of the fbi. Reporter the white house sees it very differently. Look, the fbi is doing a whole lot more than the Russian Investigation. He should absolutely have a role in seeing who runs that agency and that department. Reporter randi kaye, cnn, new york. Randi, thanks for that reporting. Stay with us on cnn newsroom. Computers crippled, totally useless unless you pay up. Well hear how to protect your own computer from this global cyberattack. male 1 its a Little Something ive done every night since i was a kid, empty my pocket change into this old jar. Its never much, just whats left after i break a dollar. And i never thought i could get quality Life Insurance with my spare change. Neither did i. Until i saw a commercial for the Colonial Penn program. Imagine people our age getting Life Insurance at such an affordable rate. Its true. If youre 50 to 85, you can get guaranteed acceptance Life Insurance through the Colonial Penn program for less than 35 cents a day, just 9. 95 a month. Theres no medical exam and no health questions. You know, the average cost of a funeral is over 8,300. 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