With No Evidence, Trump Demands Congress Investigate His Obama Wiretap Claim
Make no mistake, Donald Trump is trying desperately to distract from the gigantic scandal he is facing about Russia.
Donald Trump on Sunday called for Congress to investigate his baseless claim that Barack Obama ordered a wire tap of Trump Tower during the campaign. Donald Trump provided no evidence for his claim, and as usual it seems the claim comes from a story that ran in Breitbart.
“President Donald J. Trump is requesting that as part of their investigation into Russian activity, the congressional intelligence committees exercise their oversight authority to determine whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016,” Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, said in the statement.
Spicer also said that neither Trump nor the White House would comment further on this subject.
Barack Obama team responded Saturday rejecting categorically Trump’s claim. “A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice,” an Obama spokesperson said.
According to an article in the New York Times Saturday, White House lawyers scrambled on Saturday to try and find evidence for Trump’s Twitter claims. The New York Times said:
But a senior White House official said that Donald F. McGahn II, the president’s chief counsel, was working on Saturday to secure access to what Mr. McGahn believed was an order issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court authorizing some form of surveillance related to Mr. Trump and his associates.
The official offered no evidence to support the notion that such an order exists. If one does, it would be highly unusual for a White House to order the Justice Department to turn over such an investigative document, given the traditional independence of law enforcement matters.
