TRUMP TAKES ON OBAMA
Wiretap claim sparks firestorm
WASHINGTON • In the murky world of intelligence there are many shades of grey, but in this case the denial could hardly have been more emphatic.
Barack Obama’s director of national intelligence was crystal clear that the FBI had never been given a secret court order to carry out electronic surveillance at Trump Tower in New York.
“Absolutely, I can deny it,” James Clapper said with a steady gaze, adding for good measure: “Something like this? Absolutely I would know.”
The interviewer on NBC News spluttered, surprised that such a serious allegation by the president of the United States had been so categorically shot down. Just to make sure, he asked again.
“No,” Clapper replied firmly. “There was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president, the president-elect at the time, as a candidate or against his campaign.”
And that, one would have thought, would be that. But in Donald Trump’s Washington, it was not.
Sunday, he called on Congress to investigate whether Obama had abused his powers by obtaining the alleged secret court order. On top of that, he instructed his White House counsel, Donald McGahn, to pursue any information relating to secret court orders involving him and his campaign.
White House press secretary Sean 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 offence to and likened to autocratic behaviour.
“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.
Congressman Devin Nunes, chairman of the House intelligence committee, said it “will make inquiries into whether the government was conducting surveillance activities on any political party’s campaign officials or surrogates.”
FBI Director James Comey asked the Justice Department to publicly reject Trump’s assertion that Obama ordered the tapping of Trump’s phones, senior U.S. officials said Sunday, according to The New York Times. Comey has argued that the highly charged claim is false and must be corrected, they said, but the department has not released any such statement, the Times reported.
Comey, who made the request Saturday after Trump levelled his allegation on Twitter, has been working to get the Justice Department to knock down the claim because it falsely insinuates that the FBI broke the law, the officials said.
Trump said in the tweets that he had “just found out” about being wiretapped, though it was unclear whether he was referring to having found out through a briefing, a conversation or a media report. The president in the past has tweeted about unsubstantiated and provocative reports he reads on blogs or conservative websites.
The tweets stood out, given the gravity of the charge and the strikingly personal attack on the former president. Trump spoke as recently as last month about how much he likes Obama and how much they get along, despite their differences.
“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.’
Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis said Saturday that a “cardinal rule” of the Obama administration was not to interfere in Justice Department investigations, which are supposed to be conducted free of outside or political influence.
Lewis said neither Obama nor any White House official had ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. “Any suggestion otherwise is simply false,” Lewis said.
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.
Trump has been trailed for months by questions about his campaign’s ties to Russia. Compounding the situation is the U.S. intelligence agencies’ assessment that Russia interfered with the election to help Trump triumph over Hillary Clinton.