Donald Trump's aides 'trying to keep him off Twitter and away from TV during Comey testimony'

The White House has a plan to react to Comey's testimony, and that includes keeping Mr Trump off Twitter

Donald Trump’s Twitter account has been unusually quiet during former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony to the Senate. No counter attacks have been shot out in 140 characters to discredit the testimony. Nothing.

The White House reportedly scrambled to create a strong outside operation to respond to Mr Comey’s testimony, but aides to the President reportedly didn’t want the commander in chief to take part in that effort. Instead, they tried to keep him busy with meetings during the testimony, hoping to keep him away from televisions broadcasting the hearing so he wouldn’t be tempted to tweet.

“But if he wants to watch it, it’s not like we can say, ‘oh, the TV doesn’t work,” one official told Politico.

Mr Comey’s testimony became one of the most anticipated public hearings in recent memory. His written public testimony, released the day before he was scheduled to travel to Capitol Hill, was described by one former White House lawyer as Mr Trump’s equivalent to the “Nixon Tapes” that led that former president to resign from the Oval Office.

The former FBI director delivered fiery opening remarks that diverged from that written testimony, accusing the White House of lying about his relationship with the FBI, and defaming him. Mr Comey stopped short of alleging that the President attempted to obstruct justice by asking him to drop an investigation into former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn’s ties to Russia. He did, however, say that it was not his place to make that classification.

The former FBI director noted that the President, during his time at the head of the FBI, was not under investigation. Republican senators jumped on that admission, wondering why none of the leaks to the press about the investigation noted that Mr Trump was not a subject of investigation by the FBI. Democratic senators said that the timing of Mr Comey's firing was suspicious.