President Donald Trump claims that Obama and his administration ‘bugged’ his phones throughout the entire course of last year’s election, and Congress agreed to investigate.
Trump accused his predecessor, former Pres. Barack Obama, of attacking him in a ‘Watergate-style campaign.’ The administration demanded an investigation on this specific claim as soon as possible, or together with the Russian hacking investigation. Now that the Congress agreed, the latest ‘wire-tapping’ claim of Trump will be part of the investigation into Russia’s participation in the latest election.
Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, tweeted that he finds Obama’s alleged ‘silent coup’ against Pres. Trump as ‘very troubling.’
He wrote: “The reports that are concerning potentially politically-motivated investigations of the election last 2016 are very troubling.”
This follows Pres. Trump claiming that the previous administration had all of his phones at the Trump Tower wiretapped during the general election.
Obama calmly responded by branding the allegations as ‘simply false.’
FBI director, James Comey, rejected Pres. Trump’s claims as reported by the NY Times. He even argued within the Department of Justice that the words of the President should be publicly disproved by the country’s law enforcement officials because they are false. Comey had drawn negative impressions from Democrats over his handling of an investigation concerning Hillary Clinton when she was the Secretary of State.
In Spicer’s demand for a thorough investigation, he did not provide a single piece of evidence to support the claims of the President. All he gave was his opinion on the ‘reports’ from politically-motivated investigations. The reports that were in question have not been specified. However, right-wing news sites, including one that is run by Trump’s chief strategist, proposed the idea that the former President made dire efforts to undermine Trump’s campaign. This has prompted the President to demand congressional intelligence committees in exercising their oversight authority in order to determine if the executive branch’s investigative powers were intentionally abused in 2016.
The Congress and the FBI are currently investigating Russian activity during the election. American intelligence agencies concluded hackers from Russia actually broke into the Democratic Party servers supporting Trump.
Just an hour after White House’s request was made, Clapper appeared on ‘Meet the Press’ on NBC and he denied any directive on wire-tapping the Trump Tower during his tenure. According to Clapper, there was not a single wiretapping activity mounted against Trump, his candidacy, or his campaign.
The host of Meet the Press, Chuck Todd, asked Clapper whether he would know the existence of a federal court order if there is such, considering that he was the Director of National Intelligence.
Clapper replied with: “I would certainly know the existence of one… Absolutely.”
Todd’s follow-up question was whether Clapper could deny its existence or not and he said that he could actually deny it.
“So, there was no FISA or Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court order of anything for the Trump Tower?” the host pressed.
“No. Not that I know of,” Clapper said.
A FISA court order gives authorization to sensitive requests for surveillance.
