Claim Obama ordered wire tap is credible, insists White House
THE White House has doubled down on Donald Trump’s claim that his phones were tapped during last year’s election, putting up two spokesmen to brush off FBI denials and call for a Congressional investigation.
Mr Trump and his aides have so far offered no evidence to support his allegation – delivered in a string of tweets on Saturday – that Barack Obama ordered surveillance of him.
The New York Times reported that the head of the FBI, James Comey, has asked the Department of Justice to issue a statement saying that no such wiretapping took place.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the deputy communications director at the White House, appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America to defend the president.
Asked whether he accepted the FBI denial, she said: “No, I don’t think he does. I think he firmly believes this is a storyline that has been reported pretty widely by quite a few outlets.” She added Mr Trump wants a full investigation by the House Intelligence Committee.
At the same time Kellyanne Conway, Mr Trump’s senior aide, told another network that “credible news sources” had reported politically motivated activity during the campaign. Mr Trump’s accusations were apparently based on old reports that in October the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved a warrant for an investigation into members of the Trump team who had possibly been communicating with two Russian banks.
The issue was reheated last week by a Right-wing shock jock who said it was evidence of a “silent coup” designed to hand the presidency to Hillary Clinton. A story on the Breitbart website was circulated in the White House before Mr Trump’s outburst, according to aides.
Since then, Obama-era intelligence chiefs and officials have issued denials.
Even leading Republicans say they are not aware of any evidence to support the claims. Jason Chaffetz, who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told CBS’s This Morning: “I have not seen anything directly that would support what the president has said.”
Republicans in the US House of Representatives last night unveiled longawaited legislation to repeal much of Obamacare, the former president’s signature policy, including its expansion of the Medicaid programme for the poor. Mr Trump and fellow Republicans want to freeze enrolment in to Medicaid on Jan 1, 2020, and cap the use of federal funds for the scheme.