WIRE TAPPING TIME LINE






WASHINGTON — In the 11 days since President Trump woke up early at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., and accused his predecessor of tapping his phones, the White House has offered a series of ever-changing responses, explanations and clarifications.

What started as officials “reviewing” what the president had said soon morphed into “I have no reason to believe” that an investigation exists, and finally became using wiretap “in quotes.”

Here’s a timeline of the administration’s responses:

March 4, Early Morning

 Twitter post that started it all came early on a Saturday morning, and was followed by several others, including one in which Mr. Trump accused former President Barack Obama of engaging in behavior similar to that of Richard M. Nixon during Watergate. “Bad (or sick) guy!” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Obama.

That same afternoon, the president’s spokesman took a wait-and-see approach, suggesting only that the administration’s chief lawyer would review options.

“White House counsel is reviewing what options, if any, are available to us.” — Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary.

Other officials, speaking on background, suggested that the chief counsel was looking for evidence to back up the president’s claim.

March 5

The second-day response was twofold: criticize the news media coverage and try to shift the responsibility for providing information to Capitol Hill by demanding a congressional investigation.

“Everybody acts like President Trump is the one that came up with this idea and just threw it out there. There are multiple news outlets that have reported this. And all we’re asking is that we get the same level of look into the Obama administration and the potential that they had for a complete abuse of power that they’ve been claiming that we have done over the last six months.” — Sarah Huckabee Sanders, deputy White House press secretary, on ABC’s “This Week.”

March 7

By the Tuesday after the tweet, administration officials were trying to move past the issue. Several sought to stick to Mr. Spicer’s previous admonition that the White House would not comment any further until congressional investigations took place.

“No, that’s above my pay grade.” Sean Spicer
“No comment.” — Attorney General Jeff Sessions
“I don’t know anything about it. If the president of the United States said that, he’s got his reasons to say it.” — John F. Kelly, the homeland security secretary.

March 8

The next day, Mr. Spicer seemed to shift gears, suggesting to reporters in his daily briefing that the White House did not believe that an investigation into the wiretapping of Mr. Trump existed, as the president had suggested on Twitter.

March 9

But the day after, presented with the “no comment” from the F.B.I. about whether there was an investigation, Mr. Spicer backtracked. He suggested to reporters that his previous comments should not have been interpreted as suggesting that the White House knew, one way or the other, whether Mr. Trump was under investigation.

“No comment” about whether there’s an investigation. — Federal Bureau of Investigation
“I said — right, I said I’m not aware and — we’re not aware and that’s why we want the House and Senate to do what the president has asked of them, to look into this. But no, we’re not aware.” — Sean Spicer