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Article snippet: President Trump’s abrupt dismissal last week of the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, and his subsequent allusion to taped conversations with Mr. Comey continued to roil Washington on Sunday. In televised appearances, lawmakers in both parties said that the recordings could or should come to light if they exist, while a former director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., suggested that Mr. Trump was contributing to an erosion of democratic institutions. Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said the prospect that a conversation with Mr. Comey was recorded must be taken seriously. “You can’t be cute about tapes,” he said. “If there are any tapes of this conversation, they need to be turned over. I doubt if there are. But we need to clear the air.” On Fox News, Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, said if there are recordings, it was “probably inevitable” that they would be turned over to Congress, which is investigating possible connections between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russia. Both senators, along with others, were responding to the president’s warning to Mr. Comey, in a Twitter post on Friday, that he had “better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” The minority leader, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, said that President Trump should turn over such tapes “immediately,” if they exist, while Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking Demo... Link to the full article to read more