FBI: No information to support Trump wiretap claim
March 20, 2017
Al Jazeera
Top US intelligence officials, including the director of the FBI, say they have no information supporting President Donald Trump's claim that his predecessor Barack Obama ordered a wiretap of him during the 2016 election campaign.
FBI Director James Comey appeared on Monday before a panel of Congress members looking into possible intelligence breaches, allegations of Russian hacking, and links between Moscow and Trump's campaign.
"With respect to the president's tweets about alleged wiretapping directed at him by the prior administration, I have no information that supports those tweets," Comey told members of the House Intelligence Committee.
"And we have looked carefully inside the FBI. The Department of Justice has asked me to share with you that the answer is the same ... The department has no information that supports those tweets," he said.
Comey confirmed there is an active investigation looking into alleged Russian interference in the US election.
Russia denies it attempted to interfere in the November 8 presidential vote.
In a separate statement, the White House said on Monday: "There is no evidence of Trump-Russia collusion and there is no evidence of a Trump-Russia scandal".
Michael Rogers, director of the National Security Agency, said he has "seen nothing on the NSA side".
Rogers denied claims made by Trump spokesman Sean Spicer that British intelligence had spied on the Republican candidate, on behalf of President Obama.
"That would be expressly against the construct" of the US agreement with allies on matters of intelligence, he said.
'Utterly ridiculous'
The high-stakes testimony in the House Intelligence Committee - the first public hearing into both controversies - came as Trump sought to steer the news focus by calling the Russia issue, which has been a cloud over his victory, "fake news".Trump created controversy in early March when he tweeted without giving evidence that Obama's administration had wiretapped Trump Tower in New York City.
The White House went so far last week as to suggest Britain's GCHQ signals intelligence agency cooperated with Obama in the alleged surveillance.
The charge riled the British government and GCHQ, a close ally of US spy agencies, sharply rejected it as "utterly ridiculous".
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