Congress asked to probe ‘wiretap’
• White House request comes after Trump alleges that Obama ordered the tapping of the phones at his campaign headquarters
The White House asked the US Congress on Sunday to examine whether the Obama administration abused its investigative authority during the 2016 campaign, as part of an ongoing congressional probe into Russia’s influence on the election.
The request came a day after President Donald Trump alleged, without supporting evidence, that then president Barack Obama ordered a wiretap of the phones at Trump’s campaign headquarters in Trump Tower in New York.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump and administration officials would have no further comment on the issue until Congress had completed its probe, potentially heading off attempts to get the president to explain his accusations. “Reports concerning potentially politically motivated investigations immediately ahead of the 2016 election are very troubling,” Spicer said.
Trump made the wiretapping accusation in a series of early morning tweets on Saturday amid expanding scrutiny of his campaign’s ties to Russia.
An Obama spokesman denied the charge, saying it was “a cardinal rule” that no White House official interfered with independent investigations by the justice department.
Under US law, a federal court would have to have found probable cause that the target of the surveillance is an “agent of a foreign power” in order to approve a warrant authorising electronic surveillance of Trump Tower. “There was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president-elect at the time as a candidate or against his campaign,” former director of national intelligence James Clapper, who left the office at the end of Obama’s term, said on NBC’s Meet the Press.
The White House offered no evidence on Sunday to back up Trump’s accusation and did not say it was true.
Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders, appearing on ABC’s This Week, said Trump had “made very clear what he believes, and he’s asking that we get down to the bottom of this. Let’s get the truth here”.
THE WHITE HOUSE OFFERED NO EVIDENCE ON SUNDAY TO BACK UP ACCUSATIONS BY (DONALD) TRUMP
Democrats said Trump was trying to distract from the rising controversy about possible ties to Russia.
His administration has come under pressure from investigations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Congress into contacts between some members of his campaign team and Russian officials during his campaign.
Attorney-General Jeff Sessions said last week that he would stay out of any probe into alleged Russian meddling in the election after it emerged he met Russia’s ambassador in 2016, although he maintained he did nothing wrong by failing to disclose the meeting.
Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, resigned in February after disclosures that he had discussed US sanctions on Russia with the Russian ambassador before Trump took office.
Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary under Obama, said the president did not have the authority to unilaterally order a wiretap of a US citizen. “The president was not giving marching orders to the FBI about how to conduct its investigation,” he said on ABC.
Meanwhile, supporters of Trump clashed with protesters at a rally in the famously leftleaning city of Berkeley, California, on a day of mostly peaceful gatherings in support of the US president across the country.
At a park in Berkeley, across the bay from San Francisco, protesters from both sides struck one another over the head with wooden sticks and Trump supporters fired pepper spray as police in riot gear stood at a distance.
Some in the pro-Trump crowd, holding US flags, faced off against opponents dressed in black. An elderly Trump supporter was struck on the head and kicked.
Organisers of the so-called Spirit of America rallies in at least 28 of the country’s 50 states said they expected smaller turnouts than the huge crowds of anti-Trump protesters that clogged the streets of Washington and other cities the day after the inauguration on January 20.
“There are a lot of angry groups protesting and we thought it was important to show our support,” said Peter Boykin, president of Gays for Trump, who helped organise Saturday’s rally that took place in Washington.
In many towns and cities, the rallies did not draw more than a few hundred people.
At some, supporters of the president were at risk of being outnumbered by anti-Trump protesters who gathered to shout against the rallies.
In Berkeley, the total of both supporters and detractors numbered 200 to 300 people, police said. Three people were injured in the clash and police made five arrests.
In Minnesota, 400 Trump supporters in St Paul were met by demonstrators, according to the Star Tribune.
Scuffles erupted and six protesters were arrested, the newspaper reported.
In Nashville, Tennessee, Trump supporters and counterprotesters swore at each other and occasionally made physical contact, but state troopers broke up the fighting, according to the city’s public radio station.