The White House said today that Congress should expand its investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election to include President Donald Trump's unverified allegation that former President Barack Obama stepped over the legal line in the campaign.
While Trump claimed, without evidence in a series of tweets yesterday, that his predecessor had tapped the telephones at Trump Tower, Obama's director of national intelligence said no such action was carried out against the New York businessman as a candidate or against his campaign.
"Absolutely, I can deny it," said James Clapper, who left his job when Trump took office January 20.
An Obama spokesman has said Trump's accusation was "simply false." Lawmakers from both parties appealed for Trump to provide proof for the startling claim, yet the White House said there would be no further comment until "such oversight is conducted" by the congressional intelligence committees.
"It's called a wrap-up smear. You make up something. Then you have the press write about it. And then you say, everybody is writing about this charge. It's a tool of an authoritarian," said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer announced the request for a congressional inquiry in a statement that referred to "very troubling" reports "concerning potentially politically motivated investigations immediately ahead of the 2016 election."
He did not elaborate or respond to inquiries about those reports.
Trump said the wiretapping happened in October at the New York skyscraper where he ran his campaign and transition.
Spicer said the White House wants the committee to "exercise their oversight authority to determine whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016."
Spicer's chief deputy, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said she thinks Trump is "going off of information that he's seen that has led him to believe that this is a very real potential."
Josh Earnest, who was Obama's press secretary, said presidents do not have authority to unilaterally order the wiretapping of American citizens, as Trump has alleged was done to him. FBI investigators and Justice Department officials must seek a federal judge's approval to investigate by demonstrating that probable cause exists.
Earnest accused Trump of leveling the allegations to distract from the attention being given to campaign-season contacts by Trump aides with a Russian official, including campaign adviser Jeff Sessions before he resigned from the Senate to become attorney general. The FBI is investigating those contacts, as is Congress.
Rep Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that the committee "will make inquiries into whether the government was conducting surveillance activities on any political party's campaign officials or surrogates.
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