Ex-US official says Barack Obama didn't record private meetings

Washington: Former US President Barack Obama did not record private meetings in the White House, an ex-official told CNN.

"We obviously didn't record private meetings," the former White House official said on Saturday. 

"The Obama White House didn't secretly record private meetings."

The White House press office had a stenographer in meetings with journalists in order to have an independent transcript of the interviews, a common practice, the official said.

"None of that was hidden," he told CNN. 

"The stenographer sat in interviews with a tape recorder and sometimes even a boom mic -- the same stenographers would tape and transcribe press briefings and gaggles. Journalists who interviewed President Obama would have been familiar with that."

On Friday, President Donald Trump tweeted a warning to former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director James Comey, whom he fired earlier this week, saying he "better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press."

The President`s controversial tweet about Comey and `tapes` is not the first time he has levelled remarks on the subject of having private conversations monitored, reports CNN.

In a series of tweets in March, the President accused Obama of tapping the phones in Trump Tower at the tail end of the election, saying in one message: "Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my `wires tapped` in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!"

When asked to clarify Trump's tweet about Comey, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the tweet was "not a threat", but he did not rule out the possibility that the President is taping his calls.