WEST
PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Trump on Saturday accused former President
Barack Obama of tapping his phones at Trump Tower the month before the
election, leveling the explosive allegation without offering any
evidence.
Mr.
Trump called his predecessor a “bad (or sick) guy” on Twitter as he
fired off a series of messages claiming that Mr. Obama “had my ‘wires
tapped.’” He likened the supposed tapping to “Nixon/Watergate” and “McCarthyism,” though he did not say where he had gotten his information.
How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!
A spokesman for Mr. Obama said any suggestion that the former president had ordered such surveillance was “simply false.”
During
the 2016 campaign, the federal authorities began an investigation into
links between Trump associates and the Russian government, an issue that
continues to dog Mr. Trump. His aides declined to clarify on Saturday
whether the president’s allegations were based on briefings from
intelligence or law enforcement officials — which could mean that Mr.
Trump was revealing previously unknown details about the investigation —
or on something else, like a news report.
Continue reading the main story
But
a senior White House official said that Donald F. McGahn II, the
president’s chief counsel, was working to secure access to what Mr.
McGahn believed to be 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. It would be a highly unusual breach of the Justice Department’s
traditional independence on law enforcement matters for the White House
to order it to turn over such an investigative document.
Any
request for information from a top White House official about a
continuing investigation would be a stunning departure from protocols
intended to insulate the F.B.I. from political pressure. It would be
even more surprising for the White House to seek information about a
case directly involving the president or his advisers, as does the case
involving the Russia contacts.
After
the White House received heavy criticism for the suggestion that Mr.
McGahn would breach Justice Department independence, a different
administration official said that the earlier statements about his
efforts had been overstated. The official said the counsel’s office was
looking at whether there was any legal possibility of gleaning
information without impeding or interfering with an investigation. The
counsel’s office does not know whether an investigation exists, the
official said.
Last
month, Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, came under fire
for asking a top F.B.I. official to publicly rebut news reports about
contacts between Trump campaign officials and the Russian government.
Sean
Spicer, the White House press secretary, said in a statement that the
“White House counsel is reviewing what options, if any, are available to
us.” Mr. McGahn did not respond to a request for comment. He was
traveling on Saturday to Florida to join the president at his estate,
Mar-a-Lago.
The
president’s decision on Saturday to lend the power of his office to
accusations against his predecessor of politically motivated wiretapping
— without offering any proof — was remarkable, even for a leader who
has repeatedly shown himself willing to make assertions that are false
or based on dubious sources.
It
would have been difficult for federal agents, working within the law,
to obtain a wiretap order to target Mr. Trump’s phone conversations. It
would have meant that the Justice Department had gathered sufficient
evidence to convince a federal judge that there was probable cause to
believe Mr. Trump had committed a serious crime or was an agent of a
foreign power, depending on whether it was a criminal investigation or a
foreign intelligence one.
Former
officials pointed to longstanding laws and procedures intended to
ensure that presidents cannot wiretap a rival for political purposes.
“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,” said Kevin Lewis, a spokesman for Mr. Obama. “As
part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House
official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen.”
Mr.
Trump asserted just the opposite in a series of five Twitter messages
beginning just minutes before sunrise in Florida, where the president is
spending the weekend.
In
the first message, the president said he had “just found out” that
“Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower” before the election. Mr.
Trump’s reference to “wires tapped” raised the possibility that he was
referring to some other type of electronic surveillance and was using
the idea of phone tapping loosely.
Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!
The
president was adamant in conversations with several people throughout
the day on Saturday that he believed he was right about the wiretaps,
according to three people with direct knowledge of those conversations.
Two people close to Mr. Trump said they believed he was referring to a Breitbart News article, which
aides said had been passed around among his advisers. Mark Levin, a
conservative radio host, had also embraced the theory recently in a push
against what right-leaning commentators have been calling the “deep
state.”
The
Breitbart article, published on Friday, claimed that there was a series
of “known steps taken by President Barack Obama’s administration in its
last months to undermine Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and,
later, his new administration.” Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s chief
strategist, once led Breitbart News.
If
Mr. Trump was motivated to take to Twitter after reading the Breitbart
article or listening to Mr. Levin, he was using a presidential megaphone
to spread dark theories of a broad conspiracy aimed at undermining his
presidential ambitions, and later his presidency.
Even
with the Breitbart article circulating, several of Mr. Trump’s advisers
were stunned by the president’s morning Twitter outburst. Those
advisers said they were uncertain about what specifically Mr. Trump was
referring to; one surmised that he may also have been referring to a
months-old news report about a secret surveillance warrant for
communications at his New York offices.
One
senior law enforcement official from the Obama administration, who has
direct knowledge of the F.B.I. investigation into Russia and of
government wiretapping, said that it was “100 percent untrue” that the
government had wiretapped Mr. Trump. The official, who asked for
anonymity to discuss matters related to investigations and intelligence,
said the White House owed the American people an explanation for the
president’s allegations.
Ben Rhodes, a former top national security aide to Mr. Obama, said in a Twitter message
directed at Mr. Trump on Saturday that “no president can order a
wiretap” and added, “Those restrictions were put in place to protect
citizens from people like you.”
The
House and Senate Intelligence Committees are moving forward with their
own investigations into Russia’s efforts to influence the election, and
they have said they will examine links between Mr. Trump’s associates
and the Russians.
Senator
Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, said on Friday that he believed
there were “transcripts” that would help document those contacts, though
he said he had not yet seen them.
“There
are transcripts that provide very helpful, very critical insights into
whether or not Russian intelligence or senior Russian political leaders —
including Vladimir Putin — were cooperating, were colluding, with the
Trump campaign at the highest levels to influence the outcome of our
election,” Mr. Coons told Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC. “I believe they
exist.”
No comments:
Post a Comment