The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Aides defend Trump’s claims of phone tapping
US President says Obama intercepted his calls
President Donald Trump’s explosive claim that Barack Obama tapped his telephones during last year’s election has been defended by White House officials.
However, they did not say exactly where that information came from and left open the possibility that it is not true.
The comments came even as FBI director James Comey privately asked the Justice Department to dispute the claim because he believed the allegations were not true.
When asked whether Mr Trump accepted Mr Comey’s view, White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told ABC’s Good Morning America: “I don’t think he does.”
Mrs Sanders and Kellyanne Conway, another top adviser, said the president still firmly believes the allegations he made on Twitter over the weekend.
The aides said any ambiguity surrounding the issue is all the more reason for Congress to investigate the matter.
“We’d like to know for sure,” Mrs Sanders told NBC’s Today show.
The House and Senate intelligence committees, and the FBI, are investigating contacts between Mr Trump’s campaign and Russian officials, as well as whether Moscow tried to influence the 2016 election.
On Sunday, Mr Trump demanded that they broaden the scope of their inquiries to include Mr Obama’s potential abuse of executive powers.
When asked where Mr Trump was getting his information from, Mrs Sanders said the President “may have access to documents that I don’t know about”.
Likewise, Mrs Conway said that “credible news sources” suggested there was politically motivated activity during the campaign.
But Mrs Conway also said Mr Trump might have access to other information she and others do not.
“He is the President of the United States,” Mrs Conway told Fox News’ Fox & Friends. “He has information and intelligence that the rest of us do not.”
Mr Trump is said to be frustrated by his senior advisers’ inability to tamp down allegations about contacts between his campaign aides and the Russian government.
He tweeted: “How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process.
“This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!” he tweeted, misspelling “tap”.