Wiretapping

Questioned by Hallie Jackson over Donald Trump’s failure to produce even a scrap of evidence to support claims that his phones were wiretapped, press secretary Sean Spicer gave the game away. Jackson made several attempts to get at the same issue: If Trump says he already “found out” about the supposed wire tapping, why not provide the information instead of asking for more investigations. Spicer coughed up several meaningless pills about “separation of powers” before letting free a few seconds of truth.

Over the weekend, President Trump leveled a bombshell accusation: that his predecessor in the Oval Office ordered that the phones at Trump Tower be “tapped” shortly before the general election. If true, as President Trump himself tweeted, it would be an abuse of executive power on a level with Richard Nixon’s.

It isn't out of the question. The former president's administration wiretapped journalists and spied on Congress.

This past weekend witnessed yet another major Trump controversy, this one triggered by a string of presidential tweets published on Saturday morning. The president accused his predecessor of "tapp[ing]" his phones during the election cycle, labeling the Obama administration's alleged actions "McCarthyism," and likening the situation to Watergate.

Top White House officials on Monday stood by President Trump’s charge that President Obama tapped his phones during last year’s campaign without providing additional evidence, as lawmakers and former intelligence officials sparred over the allegations.

President Donald Trump is the victim of double-barrel double standards when it comes to his unsubstantiated allegation that his Manhattan skyscraper was illegally wiretapped by former President Barack Obama, counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway said Monday morning, one from Democrats and another from the media.

President Trump does not accept the contention of the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, that Mr. Trump falsely claimed that President Barack Obama had him wiretapped, a White House spokeswoman said on Monday.

President Trump leveled an unproven allegation this weekend that former President Barack Obama tapped his phones at Trump Tower a month before the election. Yet there are reasons to take his charges seriously.

President Trump made a startling claim Saturday that former President Barack Obama had Trump Tower phones tapped in the weeks before the November 2016 election.