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Thread: WHITE HOUSE WALKS BACK PRESIDENT TRUMP'S WIRETAPPING CLAIMS

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  1. #11
    Senior Member Judy's Avatar
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    It's been a great week.

    No Trump campaign collusion with the Russians.

    No Obama breaking wiretapping laws investigating such collusion.

    BIG FAT NOTHING BURGERS sold by a Corrupt Media to interfere with our democracy.
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  2. #12
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    Trump changes his story after wiretapping debunked

    Actually, Mr. President, wiretapping doesn't cover a lot of things


    By Jim Sciutto, Chief National Security Correspondent
    Updated 4:30 PM ET, Thu March 16, 2017

    Washington (CNN)In the face of firm denials from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Attorney General Jeff Sessions of any evidence that President Barack Obama wiretapped then-candidate Donald Trump, Trump appears now to be walking back his explosive accusation by redefining the terms of the charge.

    "Wiretap covers a lot of different things," Trump told Fox News' Tucker Carlson in an interview aired Wednesday night. "I think you're going to find some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next two weeks."

    White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer made a similar argument in the White Press press briefing Tuesday, telling reporters, "The President used the word wiretap in quotes to mean broadly surveillance and other activities."




    Spicer changes his tune on wiretapping 01:53


    To be clear, when President Trump made the accusation in four early morning tweets on March 4, he did not describe surveillance in broad terms. He specifically accused the outgoing president of ordering wiretapping of the incoming president.

    Mr. Trump tweeted first: "Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!"


    In another one he wrote: "How low has President Obama gone to tapp (sic) my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!"


    There are several crucial elements to Trump's accusation. One, that Obama himself -- not the FBI or intelligences agencies -- ordered the tapping. Two, that the target of the tapping was Trump himself -- not Trump associates or others. And, three, that it was wiretapping Obama ordered -- not, as Spicer described, "surveillance and other activities."

    Such activity would be illegal, since the President cannot order this kind of surveillance. Rather, it requires US law enforcement to seek a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act through a FISA court.




    Trump spokeswoman grilled over evidence 02:44


    FBI Director James Comey was the first to dispute the accusation, and was described by law enforcement officials to CNN last Tuesday as "incredulous" after Trump tweeted his claim.

    On Wednesday, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a Republican and a Trump appointee, said that he had not given the President reason to believe Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower.


    "Look, the answer is no," Sessions said when asked about the issue.

    Thursday, House Speaker Paul Ryan said that "no such wiretap existed," citing intelligence reports to House leaders.


    And Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Burr and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, issued a statement Thursday, saying "based on the information available to us, we see no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government either before or after Election Day 2016."


    Also Wednesday, Nunes, a fellow Republican, told reporters he too does not believe "there was an actual tap of Trump Tower."


    His Democratic colleague, committee ranking member Adam Schiff, went further, saying: "There is absolutely no evidence of that and no suggestion of evidence of that."


    But Nunes, like Spicer, appeared to leave the door open to something short of the President's original accusation.


    "If you're not going to take the tweets literally and there is a concern that the President has about other people, other surveillance activities looking at him and his associates -- either appropriately or inappropriately -- we want to find that out," said Nunes.




    Leon Panetta: What the hell is going on? 01:06


    The distinction is crucial.
    CNN and other news outlets have reported that US intelligence intercepted communications between Trump advisers and Russians known to US intelligence during the presidential campaign.

    These communications were intercepted during routine -- and legal -- intelligence gathering directed at foreign officials and other foreigners. By US law, when US citizens are on the other end of such conversations, their identities are "minimized": that is, their names removed and contents of their portion of the conversations obscured.


    If Trump, Spicer and others are now saying such surveillance is what the President was referring to in his March 4 tweets, they have more facts to back up the existence of such surveillance.


    However, that is not what Trump said when he accused Obama of targeting himself, a US citizen, and thereby breaking US law. And that's precisely what the attorney general, Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and the director of the FBI all say did not take place.

    http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/15/politi...ons/index.html

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  3. #13
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    Trump Team Apologizes to Brits After Spying Claim

    Press secretary Sean Spicer repeated a report that British intelligence spied on Trump at his predecessor’s behest, sparking backlash from the U.K.

    By Gabrielle Levy, Political Reporter | March 17, 2017, at 12:21 p.m.


    The press secretary made the controversial statement Thursday during the daily White House press briefing. (ANDREW HARNIK/AP)


    The Trump administration reportedly has apologized to the British government after White House press secretary Sean Spicer repeated a claim that British intelligence spied on Donald Trump at the request of former President Barack Obama.

    "We've made clear to the U.S. administration that these claims are ridiculous and should be ignored," a spokesman for British Prime Minister Theresa May said Friday. "We've received assurances from the White House that these allegations will not be repeated."


    RELATED CONTENT

    Spicer: Trump Wiretapping Claims Will Be Vindicated




    A White House official told CNN that British officials placed "at least two calls" on Thursday after Spicer stated the claim. A senior administration official also said both Spicer and H.R. McMaster, Trump's national security adviser, offered the equivalent of an apology to the British government.

    McMaster spoke with his British counterpart on Thursday to assure that Spicer's comment was "unintentional," and conveyed that British officials' "concerns were understood and heard and ... would be relayed to the White House," the White House official told CNN.

    Spicer also reportedly spoke with the British ambassador to the U.S., Kim Darroch, on Thursday night, according to The New York Times. But British officials would not confirm if the press secretary offered an apology.


    The bipartisan leadership of the House and Senate intelligence committees, both of which have looked into Trump's wiretapping claims amid larger probes into Russia's efforts to influence last year's presidential election, said this week that no evidence had been found to back up allegations that Obama had ordered surveillance of Trump Tower ahead of last November's election.

    During Thursday's contentious White House press briefing, Spicer attempted to cast doubt on their conclusions. He cited multiple media reports and in so doing highlighted comments made by Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano, who reported that Britain's equivalent to the National Security Agency had conducted surveillance on Trump at Obama's behest.


    "Judge Andrew Napolitano made the following statement, quote, 'Three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command (to spy on Trump). He didn't use the NSA, he didn't use the CIA, he didn't use the FBI and he didn't use the Department of Justice – he used [the Government Communications Headquarters],'" Spicer told journalists. "'He's able to get it and there's no American fingerprints on this.'"

    The British agency, known as the GCHQ, quickly issued a rare statement condemning Spicer's remarks.


    RELATED CONTENT

    Trump’s ‘Hard Power’ Budget




    "Recent allegations made by media commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano about GCHQ being asked to conduct 'wiretapping' against [Trump] are nonsense," the agency said. "They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored."

    At a later press conference, a Downing Street spokesman said the close relationship between the two nations helped smooth over the flap.

    "This shows the administration doesn't give the allegations any credence," the spokesman said. "We have a close special relationship with the White House and that allows us to raise concerns as and when they arise, as was true in this case."

    https://www.usnews.com/news/politics...rump-for-obama

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