Wiretap claim:
Aides defend President Trump’s claim that his phones were bugged by former President Barack Obama.
WASHINGTON — White House officials on Monday defended President Trump’s explosive claim that Barack Obama tapped Trump’s telephones during last year’s election, but they won’t say where the information came from and left open the possibility that it isn’t 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 false.
When asked whether Trump accepted Comey’s view, White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told ABC’s “Good Morning America”: “I don’t think he does.”
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,” Sanders told NBC’s “Today” show.
The House and Senate intelligence committees, and the FBI, are investigating contacts between Trump’s campaign and Russian officials, as well as whether Moscow tried to influence the 2016 election. On Sunday, Trump demanded that they broaden the scope of their inquiries to include Obama’s potential abuse of executive powers.
When asked where Trump was getting his information from, Sanders said the president “may have access to documents that I don’t know about.”
Likewise, Conway said that “credible news sources” suggested there was politically motivated activity during the campaign. But Conway also said Trump might have access to other information she and others don’t.
“He is the president of the United States,” Conway told Fox News’ “Fox & Friends.” “He has information and intelligence that the rest of us do not.”
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. Compounding the situation was the revelation last week that former U.S. senator and now Attorney General Jeff Sessions, an early Trump campaign supporter, had met twice with the Russian ambassador but didn’t disclose that to lawmakers when he was asked about it during his Senate confirmation hearing.
A U.S. official told the Associated Press on Sunday that Comey had asked the Justice Department to refute Trump’s allegation of illegal wiretapping. The official spoke on condition of anonymity. The department, however, has issued no such statement.
Trump’s request that the congressional committees widen their review carries some risk, particularly if the committees unearth damaging information about him or his associates. Committee Democrats will have access to the information and could wield anything negative against the president. Asking Congress to conduct a much broader investigation than originally envisioned also ensures the Russia issue will hang over the White House for months.
On Sunday, 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.
Trump said in the tweets that he had “just found out” about being wiretapped. Unclear was whether he was referring to having learned through a briefing, a conversation or a media report.