COMEY SAYS TRUMP WIRETAP TALE IS ... WRONG!
FBI boss urges Justice Dept. to debunk ‘Obama spied on me’ claim
FBI DIRECTOR James Comey blasted President Trump’s claim that his predecessor was wiretapping him — and he wants the Justice Department to back him up, according to reports Sunday.
After Trump’s explosive assertion that former President Barack Obama spied on him during the campaign, Comey asked Trump’s Justice Department to release a statement refuting the claim, a U.S. official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
But the department, led by Trump loyalist Jeff Sessions — who’s embroiled in his own scandal and facing calls for his resignation as attorney general — has yet to say a word. Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores declined to comment Sunday, and an FBI spokesman also did not comment.
It was mere months ago that Comey was accused of serving Trump the election on a shiny silver platter after an eleventhhour, nothing-to-see-here reopening of the investigation into Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s emails.
Although that October Surprise revealed no wrongdoing, angry Democrats said the last-minute meddling gave Trump the boost he needed to pull off the upset win.
Now Comey, with his obvious doubts about Trump’s spying story, is asking the Justice Department to intervene.
According to The New York Times, the FBI director was apparently concerned the President’s accusation that Trump Tower was wiretapped under Obama’s orders would make it seem like the FBI had broken the law on his watch.
As the Justice Department stayed mum on Sunday, the White House renewed its call for answers to “reports” of the Obama administration allegedly abusing its powers before the 2016 election.
“Reports concerning potentially politically motivated investigations immediately ahead of the 2016 election are very troubling. President Trump is requesting that as part of their investigation into Russian activity, the congressional intelligence committees exercise their oversight authority to determine whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said in a statement.
“Neither the White House nor the President will comment further until such oversight is conducted.”
Trump made his wiretapping assertion in a series of Saturday tweets that accused Obama of “McCarthyism,” and “Nixon/Watergate”-style dirty tricks.
He called Obama a “bad (or sick) guy.” Trump has produced no evidence to support his bombshell accusation.
But at least three Republicans sitting on intelligence committees said they’d probe Trump’s newest whims. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said the group will look into the claims as part of its wider probe into Russia’s alleged hacking during the campaign.
“One of the focus points of the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation is the U.S. government’s response to actions taken by Russian intelligence agents during the presidential campaign,” Nunes said in a statement.
“As such, the committee will make inquiries into whether the government was conducting surveillance activities on any political party’s campaign officials or surrogates, and we will continue to investigate this issue if the evidence warrants it.”
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, acknowledged on “Fox News Sunday” that he’s seen “no evidence” of Trump’s allegations, but he said his colleagues will look into it anyway. “We are going to review allegations of any kind of improper contacts between Russian officials and campaign officials or other American citizens. I’m sure that we will be reviewing any allegations such as this,” Cotton said. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who sits on the same committee, told CNN he was “not sure what it is (Trump) is talking about,” but that the committee would “gather the facts.” Democrats flat-out rejected Trump’s latest tirade.
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “there was no such wiretap activity mounted against” Trump before or after the campaign.
Obama’s press secretary, Josh Earnest, said on ABC’s “This Week” that no President has “the authority to unilaterally order the wiretapping of an American citizen,” and that the intelligence community would need approval from a federal court for such an action.
“This may come as some surprise to the current occupant of the Oval Office,” Earnest said.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called Trump’s action “a wrapup smear.”
“You make up something. Then you have the press write about it. And then you say, everybody is writing about this charge,” Pelosi said. “It’s a tool of an authoritarian.”
She also noted Trump’s tweets emerged right after the scandal erupted over Sessions’ meeting with a Russian ambassador. Appearing on CNN, she deemed the President the “deflector-in-chief.”
The spy squabble comes just days after Trump was lauded for the tone of a speech he gave to Congress that was generally free from his usual peevish bluster.
That speech made no mention of two of Trump’s favorite topics — the size of his inauguration crowd and the alleged voter fraud that cost him a popular vote victory to go along with his win in the Electoral College.
After Trump spread a fact-free story about 3 million to 5 million people casting illegal votes in the election, he vowed a “major investigation” into voter fraud.
Trump tried to discredit Obama years before his own presidential bid by spreading the false “birther” conspiracy — that the 44th President was not born in the United States. Trump pegged many of his allegations to anonymous sources, and did not admit Obama was an American-born citizen until just weeks before the 2016 election.
The Obama wiretap story appears to have originated from HeatStreet, a right-wing news site that published a piece the day before the election claiming the FBI received permission to probe Trump’s potential Russian ties. But even that story, which was based on two anonymous sources, said the FBI obtained a court order beforehand. It featured no explicit mention of Trump Tower wiretapping, or of Obama ordering any such thing.
One Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee called the entire situation a “mess” and demanded information on where Trump got his notion.
“Ok @PressSec, as a member of the committee onto which you’ve dumped this mess, I look forward to seeing your evidence,” Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut tweeted to Spicer.
Despite Spicer saying the White House would not comment further, spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders went on “This Week” and said the wiretapping would be “the greatest overreach and the greatest abuse of power that I think we have ever seen.”
But Sanders did not definitively declare, as Trump did, that the tapping occurred, and she would not say where Trump’s belief came from.
“I think he’s going off of information that he’s seen that has led him to believe that this is a very real potential,” she said.
Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis called Trump’s claims “simply false” and said Obama never ordered surveillance of any American citizens.