Trump ‘wiretap’ claim debunked
Senate intelligence leaders find ‘no indications’ of surveillance
The leadership of WASHINGTON the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday flatly dismissed President Trump’s claims that his New York offices were wiretapped by the Obama administration ahead of the November election.
“Based on the information available to us, we see no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government either before or after Election Day 2016,” Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., said in a joint statement.
The rebuke comes a day after the House Intelligence Committee offered a similar assessment, leaving the White House virtually alone in asserting the surveillance claim.
The unusually strong, bipartisan statement left little room for the White House to continue its defense of Trump’s extraordinary allegations that implied former president Barack Obama engaged in a possible criminal act.
Later Thursday, a combative White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the president “stands by” general contentions that the government had engaged in some type of surveillance before the election.
He also maintained that the Senate and House committees made their conclusions without the input of the Justice Department. (Earlier this week, Justice officials asked for additional time to determine whether any evidence of surveillance at Trump Tower existed.)
Spicer also gave a lengthy recitation of past news reports — based on anonymous sources — as possible evidence of surveillance. Yet, Spicer acknowledged that the president himself has not directly asked government intelligence officials to provide any evidence that may support his claims that his offices were monitored.
“There’s a ton of media reports out there that indicate that something was going on during the 2016 election,” Spicer said.
This week, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence panel, and California Rep. Adam Schiff, the committee’s ranking Democrat, issued a
“There’s a ton of media reports out there that indicate that something was going on.” White House spokesman Sean Spicer
strong repudiation of the wiretap claim, similar to Thursday’s statement by the Senate panel.
“We don’t have any evidence that that took place,” Nunes said. “I don’t think there was an actual tap of Trump Tower.”
The definitive statements from two of the most powerful congressional committees also come just days before FBI Director James Comey is scheduled to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, where he is expected to be asked about Trump’s claims and the federal investigation into communications between Trump associates and Russian government officials.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., also threw cold water on Trump’s claim, telling reporters Thursday: “We’ve cleared that up. We’ve seen no evidence of that.”
Trump and his aides have tried to redefine the president’s claims, saying his use of the term “wiretapping ” covers a variety of surveillance techniques.
“Wiretapping is pretty oldfashioned stuff,” Trump told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson in an interview Wednesday, echoing comments his aides have made. “But that really covers surveillance and many other things.”
Obama’s spokesman has denied the assertion, noting that presidents are prohibited by law from wiretapping and that such surveillance would have to be approved by a special court.
Trump’s accusation, first made in a March 4 series of tweets, comes amid an investigation into whether the president or his associates had contacts with Russians involved in the effort to hack Democratic Party officials during last year’s campaign. Trump has said he had nothing to do with Russia and described the inquiries as “witch hunts.”
In his Fox News interview, Trump said: “We will be submitting certain things and I will be perhaps speaking about this next week. But it’s right now before the committee ... I have a lot of confidence in the committee.”
Trump said he had put the term “wiretapping ” in quotes in his March 4 tweet-storm, and “that’s a very important thing.”