The White House on Monday refused to acknowledge reports that FBI Director James Comey had asked the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to refute US President Donald Trump’s claim that former US president Barack Obama wiretapped him during last year’s US presidential campaign, and said Trump still believes he was spied on.
Comey urged the justice department this weekend to push back against Trump’s claims, but the department has not said anything publicly.
The New York Times first reported about Comey’s request to the justice department on Sunday and other media outlets followed suit.
Illustration: Mountain People
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer dismissed the stories on Monday.
“I have not seen anything, aside from another report based on anonymous sources, that that actually happened,” Spicer said. “I’m not aware that that occurred. I don’t think that we’re aware that that occurred.”
Spicer did not say why Trump or other administration officials had not reached out directly to the justice department or Comey to find out whether Trump’s accusations are true.
In addition, Spicer provided little evidence to back up Trump’s claim about Obama.
At one point, Spicer pointed to comments by former US attorney general Michael Mukasey, who served in former US president George W. Bush’s administration, as evidence of the eavesdropping.
Mukasey on Sunday said in a TV interview that based on reports he had read in the media, he believed Trump was probably right about the surveillance.
“There’s no question that something happened,” Spicer said. “The question is: Is it surveillance, or wiretapping or whatever?”
Spicer said that Trump still had confidence in the FBI director.
“There’s nothing that I have been told by him that would leave me to believe that anything is different than it was prior,” Spicer said.
However, the president could be headed for a confrontation with Comey that would pit the administration against the head of the US’ leading law enforcement agency, which is conducting an inquiry into links between Trump’s associates and Russia.
Trump, who has already fired his national security adviser and acting attorney general, could dismiss Comey, but that would probably lead to significant backlash from lawmakers and federal authorities who would see such a move as an attempt to influence the Russia investigation.
Trump started the controversy early on Saturday morning with a series of Twitter posts.
“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!” Trump wrote.
“This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!” Trump added.
The White House has not officially said what led Trump to make the claims.
However, administration officials have acknowledged that they were primarily prompted by unverified claims by Breitbart News and conservative talk radio hosts that secret warrants were issued authorizing tapping the telephones of Trump and his aides.
Comey was said to be disturbed by Trump’s claims about Obama, which insinuated that the FBI had broken the law and raised the public’s expectations about how much evidence federal authorities might have had on Trump.
For the justice department to have obtained a warrant to eavesdrop on him, federal authorities would have had to prove to a judge that there was significant evidence that he was breaking the law or was the agent of a foreign power.
Along with asking the US House and Senate intelligence committees to investigate whether Obama eavesdropped on Trump, Spicer called on the committees to investigate what he called a steady stream of national security leaks since Trump took office.
Spicer said the White House would not commit to accepting the findings of those investigations.
“I don’t think you would ever just blanketly say, ‘I’m going to accept any outcome,’” Spicer said.
Some Republicans on Monday said that spying was a hallmark of Obama’s administration, claiming that during his time in office the US Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups. Other Republicans defended the impartiality of the justice department and the FBI.
“I don’t think the FBI is the Obama team, and I don’t think the men and women who are career prosecutors at DOJ belong to any team other than a blindfolded woman holding a set of scales,” US Representative Trey Gowdy said in an interview on Fox News.
“We have certain tools this country needs to keep us safe — and it is great and wise and prudent and legal for those tools to be used lawfully and appropriately,” Gowdy said, referring to court-approved wiretapping. “If they are not used lawfully and appropriately, there is a paper trail, and we will be able to find it out.”
Gowdy, who headed the committee that investigated the 2012 attacks on US outposts in Benghazi, Libya, said that with the Obama administration out of office, “any information that the current Department of Justice has that suggests the previous Department of Justice acted inappropriately — they are welcome to release it.”
US Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, said he had “never seen anything so outlandish, outrageous or incomprehensible” as Trump’s claims.
“I’ve never seen anything like this — ever — since I’ve been here,” Leahy said. “It is completely unprecedented, and it is destructive of our democracy.”
Additional reporting by Mark Landler and Eric Lichtblau
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