Spicer says wiretap was ‘politically motivated’
Surveillance allegations are revived despite lack of proof
WASHINGTON — The White House on Friday revived President Donald Trump’s unproven wiretapping allegations against the Obama administration, insisting that there is new evidence that it conducted “politically motivated” surveillance of Trump’s presidential campaign.
Senior government officials, including James Comey, the FBI director, and lawmakers from both parties have repeatedly and forcefully rejected the president’s claim, saying they have seen no evidence of direct surveillance. A spokesman for former President Barack Obama has denied that Obama ever ordered surveillance of Trump or his associates.
But Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, asserted to reporters during his daily news briefing that members of Obama’s administration had done “very, very bad things,” just as Trump alleged without proof on March 4 when he posted messages on Twitter accusing Obama of “wire tapping” his phones at Trump Tower.
“The question is why? Who else did it? Was it ordered? By whom?” Spicer said. “But I think more and more the substance that continues to come out on the record by individuals continues
to point to exactly what the president was talking about that day.”
Spicer appeared to be basing his assertions on reports from rightwing news outlets that took out of context a month-old interview with a former Obama administration official.
Spicer’s comments came in the midst of a drumbeat of developments in the multiple investigations into Russian contacts with Trump’s associates, and a week after the president failed to make good on his campaign promise to replace Obama’s signature health care law.
The two storylines have helped drag down Trump’s approval ratings, which slumped to a low of 35 percent in Gallup’s tracking poll Wednesday.
Spicer’s remarks Friday seemed designed to give new life to the allegations against Obama after weeks of trying to focus attention on the damage that Spicer said had been caused by leaks from the investigations into Russia’s involvement in the 2016 presidential campaign.
The allegations dominated his briefing, crowding out other parts of the White House agenda, including the president’s signing of two executive orders on trade and meeting with manufacturing executives.
Trump hastily left that signing ceremony without adding his signature to the trade orders as a reporter shouted a question about possible testimony in the Russia probe by Michael Flynn, his former national security adviser. The White House said Trump had signed the directives later.
At Spicer’s news conference, the press secretary chastised reporters for failing to accept that Trump had been right all along.
“The substance we are talking about continues to move exactly in the direction that the president spoke about in terms of surveillance that occurred,” Spicer said, even as he deflected questions about the White House’s role in providing intelligence reports to Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
The senior Democrat on that committee, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, arrived later in the day at the White House to view the intelligence reports. In a statement, Schiff confirmed that they were the same materials Nunes had seen, and said nothing justified Nunes’ failure to share them with the entire committee.
“The White House has yet to explain why senior White House staff apparently shared these materials with but one member of either committee, only for their contents to be briefed back to the White House,” Schiff said in a statement.
Spicer provided no evidence of the surveillance allegations. But he pointed several times to news reports that he claimed backed up the president’s accusations.
One was a March 2 interview with Evelyn Farkas, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Obama administration until leaving the government in September 2015.
TheGatewayPundit.com, a rightwing site, called it a “notorious” interview and said it proved that Obama administration officials had disseminated “intel gathered on the Trump team.” Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, said on the Hugh Hewitt radio show that Farkas had made “just an incredible statement.” Breitbart News reported on Priebus’ comments.
The comments by Farkas, Spicer said, were evidence that Trump or his associates “were surveilled, had their information unmasked, made it available, was politically spread.” He said that such stories were proof that Obama administration officials had “misused, mishandled and potentially did some very, very bad things with classified information.”
In fact, the reports do not back up the allegations that Trump or any officials in his campaign were ever under surveillance. In the March 2 interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe program, Farkas said she had expressed concern to her former colleagues about the need to secure intelligence related to the Russian hacking of the U.S. election.
Farkas was commenting on a New York Times article a day earlier that documented how in the days before Trump’s inauguration, Obama administration officials had sought to ensure the preservation of those documents in order to leave a clear trail for government investigators after Trump took office.
In a statement she gave to the American Spectator, a conservative publication, Farkas said the furor over her remarks was “a wild misinterpretation of comments I made on the air in March.” She added, “I was out of government, I didn’t have any classified information, or any knowledge of ‘tapping’ or leaking or the NYT article before it came out.”
White House officials also confronted Friday the disclosure that Flynn, who resigned in February over his contacts with Russian officials, has offered to testify before the two congressional committees investigating the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia about those contacts in exchange for immunity from prosecution.
Trump said on Twitter Friday morning that he agreed with Flynn’s proposal.
“Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!” Trump wrote.
The president has been eager to dismiss as “fake news” all allegations that members of his campaign colluded with the Russians, and the post appeared to be an effort to discredit the congressional inquiries that are examining those claims. It also appeared to be aimed at defusing any speculation that Flynn might be seeking immunity because he has incriminating information to share about Trump or his associates.
It was not clear from the president’s post Friday whether he fully appreciated the potential effect on his administration if Flynn received immunity to participate fully in the investigation. Trump has said previously that seeking protection from prosecution is a telltale sign of wrongdoing.
“If you’re not guilty of a crime, what do you need immunity for, right?” he said in September at a campaign rally in Orlando, Fla. Trump was referring to Hillary Clinton aides who received immunity during an FBI inquiry into her use of a private email server.
Spicer declined to address the inconsistency, telling reporters Friday only that Trump “believes that Mike Flynn should go testify.”
“He thinks that he should go up there and do what he has to do to get the story out,” Spicer said.
The FBI is investigating whether any of Trump’s advisers colluded with Russia in its efforts to disrupt the 2016 election. An immunity deal would make it extraordinarily difficult for the Justice Department to prosecute Flynn.
Schiff said Flynn’s decision to seek immunity from prosecution was a “grave and momentous step,” but not one that investigators were ready to consider at this stage.
“While Mr. Flynn’s testimony is of great interest to our committee, we are also deeply mindful of the interests of the Justice Department in the matter,” Schiff said in a statement. He added that before considering immunity for any witness in the inquiry, “we will of course require a detailed proffer of any intended testimony.”