Rep. Adam Schiff said he thinks a president recording conversations without someone’s consent is wrong, “whether it violates the law or not.”
Since President Trump implied that he may have recorded conversations with former FBI Director James Comey after details of a dinner the two shared leaked, the White House has refused to confirm or deny whether there are listening devices in the Oval Office.
Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, commented on this Wednesday.
“I think I would have an issue with recording people’s conversations without their knowledge, whether it violates the law or not,” Schiff told reporters at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. “I just think that’s a poor practice at a minimum, and it may be a lot more than that if it’s obviously a violation of law.”
“We’ve certainly seen in the past, as a practical matter, that it doesn’t particularly end well when people have [recorded] in the Oval Office.” (RELATED: White House Won’t Confirm Or Deny If There Are Recording Devices In The Oval)
(Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
When pressed if such recordings would be legal, Schiff said: “I think we need to find out if there are tape recordings, particularly of any discussions the president had with Director Comey. Those would be the very best evidence of those conversations, which appear to be the subject of dispute. We don’t have Director Comey’s side yet, we only have that in newspaper accounts from third parties…so I think we need to find out the answer to that question: if there are tapes.”
“In terms of whether it would have been legal,” he continued, “I think it may very well depend on the circumstances in which the recordings were made, and who is aware that the recordings were going on. As I understand it, and I’m not an expert, it depends in part on federal law and local law, whether these recordings were over the phone, and it may also depend on who was knowledgeable that the recordings were being made while they were party to the conversation.”
Schiff said the House Intelligence Committee hopes to subpoena the president’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn this week. He has already been subpoenaed by the Senate Intelligence Committee for a list of contacts he had with Russian officials. (RELATED: Are There Recordings Of Trump’s White House Conversations?)