Former national intelligence director James Clapper rejects President Trump's accusation Barack Obama wire-tapped him during his election campaign.
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A former senior intelligence official has rejected President Donald Trump’s accusation that his predecessor Barack Obama wire-tapped him during his election campaign.
Even so his press secretary Sean Spicer has used social media to reveal that the White House is going ahead with calling on Congress to investigate the matter.
Specifically Trump wants an examination of whether the Obama administration abused its powers.
(2/4) President Trump is requesting that as part of their investigation into Russian activity, the congressional intelligence committees
— Sean Spicer (@PressSec) March 5, 2017
(3/4) exercise their oversight authority to determine whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016.
— Sean Spicer (@PressSec) March 5, 2017
Trump also took to Twitter to make an unprecedented personal attack on Obama and called the alleged tapping “Nixon/Watergate” refering to the 1972 political scandal which brought down President Richard Nixon.
How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017
Earlier the former director of national intelligence James Clapper, interviewed on NBC, denied there was any wire-tapping activity: “I can’t speak officially anymore, but I will say that for the part of the national security apparatus that I oversaw as DNI, there was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president elect at the time, or as a candidate, or against his campaign.”
Trump has offered no evidence to back up his allegations and the FBI’s chief has now also rejected his claims. Democrats accuse Trump of trying to distract from the rising controversy about possible ties to Russia.