Trump seeks Congress’ help on wiretap claim
Obama intel chief denies charges
PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Donald Trump turned to Congress on Sunday for help finding evidence to support his claim that former President Barack Obama had Trump’s telephones tapped during the election. Obama’s intelligence chief said no such action was ever carried out, and a U.S. official said the FBI has asked the Justice Department to dispute the allegation.
Republican leaders of Congress appeared willing to honor the president’s request, but the move has potential risks for the president, particularly if the House and Senate intelligence committees unearth damaging information about Trump, his aides or his associates.
Trump claimed in a series of tweets Saturday that his predecessor had tried to undermine him by tapping the telephones at Trump Tower, the New York skyscraper where Trump based his campaign operations.
Obama’s director of national intelligence, James Clapper, said nothing matching Trump’s claims had taken place.
“Absolutely, I can deny it,” said Clapper, who left government when Trump took office in January. The FBI has asked the Justice Department to dispute Trump’s allegations, a U.S. official said on Sunday.
No such statement has been issued by the Justice Department. DOJ spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores declined to comment Sunday, and an FBI spokesman also did not comment.
The New York Times reported that senior American officials say FBI Director James Comey has said the claim must be corrected by the Justice Department because it insinuates that the FBI broke the law.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Sunday that Trump’s instruction to Congress was based on “very troubling” reports “concerning potentially politically motivated investigations immediately ahead of the 2016 election.” Spicer did not respond to inquiries about the reports he cited in announcing the request.
Spicer said the White House wants the congressional committees to “exercise their oversight authority to determine whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016.” He said there would be no further comment until the investigations are completed, a statement that House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi took offense to and likened to autocratic behavior.
“It’s called a wrap-up smear. You make up something. Then you have the press write about it. And then you say, everybody is writing about this charge. It’s a tool of an authoritarian,” Pelosi said.
Spicer’s chief deputy, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said she thinks Trump is “going off of information that he’s seen that has led him to believe that this is a very real potential.”
Josh Earnest, who was Obama’s press secretary, said presidents do not have authority to unilaterally order the wiretapping of American citizens, as Trump has alleged was done to him. FBI investigators and Justice Department officials must seek a federal judge’s approval for such a step.
Earnest accused Trump of leveling the allegations to distract from the attention being given to campaignseason contacts by Trump aides with a Russian official, including campaign adviser Jeff Sessions before he resigned from the Senate to become attorney general.
Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said the committee “will make inquiries into whether the government was conducting surveillance activities on any political party’s campaign officials or surrogates.”