Wire tapping claim

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.

READ MORE: Donald Trump stands by phone-tapping claims

"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".

Wire tap claim

TRUMP STANDS BY WIRE TAP CLAIM
March 17, 2017




By Jeff Mason and Mark Hosenball | WASHINGTON


 

WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump stood by unproven claims on Friday that the Obama administration tapped his phones during the 2016 White House race and shrugged off a dispute with Britain over the notion their spy agency had a hand in it.
British Prime Minister Theresa May's spokesman earlier in the day dismissed the charge against Britain's GCHQ spy agency as "ridiculous" and said the White House had promised not to repeat it.
But at a news conference Trump brushed aside a question about whether it was a mistake to accuse British intelligence of eavesdropping.
"We said nothing. All we did was quote a certain very talented legal mind who was the one responsible for saying that on television. I didn't make an opinion on it," Trump said.
He was referring to Fox News analyst Andrew Napolitano who on Tuesday accused Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) intelligence agency of having helped Obama, a Democrat, wiretap Trump, a Republican.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer on Thursday quoted Napolitano's comments about GCHQ during a testy briefing with reporters.
But speaking at the White House news conference, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, at his side, Trump distanced himself.
"That was a statement made by a very talented lawyer on Fox, and so you shouldn't be talking to me, you should be talking to Fox. OK?" Trump said while standing by his initial charge that the previous U.S. administration eavesdropped on him.

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

Wire tap allegations

I will follow the story concerning the president and wire tap allegations against former President Obama.






AIDES STRUGGLE TO DEFEND WIRE TAP ALLEGATIONS


By Ashley Parker and Jenna Johnson By Ashley Parker and Jenna Johnson

Politics

March 6 at 7:40 PM

The White House on Monday attempted to defend President Trump’s unfounded claim that former president Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower near the end of the presidential campaign, sending out several administration officials — both on and off camera — to reiterate the assertion without providing supporting evidence.
In tweets over the weekend, Trump claimed he had “just learned” that Obama wiretapped his midtown Manhattan skyscraper, where he lives and which housed his presidential campaign — accusing the former president of a potentially illegal act and writing that Obama was a “bad (or sick) guy.”
Trump has since provided no proof to back up his assertion, which has been rebuffed by Obama, FBI Director James B. Comey and former director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. On Monday, senior administration officials contorted themselves trying to defend the president’s claims, which seemed to emanate largely in response to a rant on conservative talk radio and in an article on Breitbart News, the conservative website that Stephen K. Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist, formerly led.
Speaking to reporters from the White House briefing room without cameras present, White House press secretary Sean Spicer referred reporters to his weekend statement calling on the House and Senate intelligence committees to investigate the wiretapping charges as part of their broader probe of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. He refused to add clarity or context to Trump’s Twitter missives, saying neither the president nor the White House would comment further until the congressional investigations are completed.
“I’m just going to let the tweet speak for itself,” Spicer said. “I think the president speaks very candidly