Trump considers cancelling press briefings during major Twitter rant

Amid a major tweetstorm, President Trump has raised the possibility of cancelling press briefings following a slew of contradictions in the White House's account of FBI Director James Comey's firing.

Over two tweets on Friday 12 May, Trump said: "As a very active President with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy! Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future "press briefings" and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???"

It came after inconsistencies emerged over the firing of James Comey.

Trump and his team first said the FBI director was fired after the recommendation of the attorney general and his deputy, but the president himself contradicted that version only a day later.

"I was going to fire regardless of the recommendation," Trump told NBC News's Lester Holt.

Trump's account on Thursday not only ran counter to his letter, but to the narrative recounted by Vice President Mike Pence and White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Both sought to portray Comey's ousting as a carefully made decision rooted in the Justice Department's recommendation.

Among the latest strong of tweets, Trump issued a veiled threat to Comey saying: "James Comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!"

The threat has echoes of President Richard Nixon, who famously refused a subpoena to turn over audio recordings of his Oval Office conversations – ultimately constituting an article of impeachment against him.