TRUMP’S ALLIES MELTING AWAY ON WIRETAPPING CLAIMS
‘ Are you going to take the tweets literally? If so, clearly the president was wrong’
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s explosive allegation that Barack Obama wiretapped his New York skyscraper during the presidential campaign has left him increasingly isolated, with allies on Capitol Hill and within his own administration offering no evidence to back him up.
On Wednesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he had not given Trump any reason to believe he was wiretapped by President Obama. Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, chairman of the House intelligence committee, said he had seen no information to support the claim and then went further. He suggested the U. S. president’s assertion, made in a series of March 4 tweets, should not be taken at face value.
“Are you going to take the tweets literally?” Nunes said. “If so, clearly the president was wrong.”
Trump, in an interview Wednesday with Fox News, predicted there would be “some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next two weeks.” The president said he’d learned about the alleged wiretapping from news reports referencing intercepted communications.
Trump’s allegations have put him in a potentially perilous position as congressional investigations into Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election — and possible Russian contacts with Trump associates — ramp up. The FBI is also investigating.
If no evidence of wiretapping at Trump Tower emerges, his credibility would be newly damaged. If there is proof that the Obama administration approved monitoring of Trump or his associates, that would suggest the government had reason to be suspicious of their contacts with Russia and a judge had approved the surveillance.
The president, who appears to have made his allegation in a burst of anger, has asked lawmakers to investigate the claim. Lawmakers have since turned the question back toward the administration, asking the Justice Department to provide evidence of wiretapping activity.
The Justice Department missed a Monday deadline for providing the information to the House and was given a one- week extension.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, RS. C., who heads the Judiciary Committee’s crime and terrorism subcommittee, said the FBI will provide a classified briefing on the matter “at some time in the future.” Graham has previously said he would use subpoena power to get information from the FBI about whether a warrant was issued allowing the Obama administration to tap Trump’s phones during the campaign.
Longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone told The Associated Press Wednesday that he believes his own online exchanges with a Russianlinked hacker were obtained through a special warrant that allows the government to collect the communications of people suspected of being agents of a foreign nation. Stone communicated through Twitter direct messages with Guccifer 2.0, a hacker who has claimed responsibility for breaching the Democratic National Committee.
Stone said he was unaware at the time that U. S. officials believed the hacker had ties to Russia. He said he is willing to testify before any congressional committee that holds its hearings “in public and not behind closed doors.”
The House intelligence committee will begin holding public hearings on Monday. Nunes said FBI Director James Comey and Adm. Mike Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, will testify.