However, the practice operates on the honor system and advisers are not searched before entering. One administration official said Monday that there isn't a belief in the White House that Manigault Newman poses a larger national security risk after taping her conversation with Kelly in the Situation Room since she wasn't part of any classified or secret discussions of a national security nature during her time in the West Wing.Īides are not supposed to bring personal electronic devices into the Situation Room, which in reality is a highly secure complex of conference rooms, and there are small lockers outside of the door where staffers place their phones. Trump himself used the tactic in his life as a private businessman and the question of whether he's taping his conversations in the Oval Office arose last year when he suggested there might be recordings of an encounter with former FBI Director James Comey (none ever materialized). Several senior aides said Monday that they doubted Manigault Newman was the only person taping her conversations at work. The official declined to specify what specific legal steps were being considered. The White House has no way of knowing how many tapes Manigault Newman might have, the official said, even as they explore legal avenues for preventing their release and punishing her for making them. Nevertheless, the tapes have only deepened a pre-existing sense of paranoia among Trump staffers, according to senior administration officials, fueling an underlying suspicion that everyone inside the West Wing is out for themselves. The recordings she has released so far are shocking only because they were created by a White House employee the content is enlightening but not scandalous. What is contained in the remainder of Manigault Newman's tapes is a mystery, at least for now. "I'm expecting that they're going to retaliate and so I'm just going to stand back and wait." I'm going to watch to see," Manigault Newsman said Monday when asked on MSNBC whether she would make more of her recordings public. And they are girding for Manigault Newman to release more of her tapes, which she has teased at in a string of television interviews. Now, aides are wondering who else might be using a recording device to capture audio from private conversations. But the tapes' mere existence confirmed a longstanding reality: in Trump's White House, there are few norms or expectations of decorum that cannot be shattered. Neither contained outwardly embarrassing language. Earlier, Manigault Newman released a tape of chief of staff John Kelly doing the firing in the White House Situation Room. On Monday, the former senior aide revealed a recording she'd made of the President phoning her on the day after she was fired. International relations and national security