Washington - US President Donald Trump
accused predecessor Barack Obama on Saturday of wiretapping him
during the late stages of the 2016 election campaign, but
offered no evidence for an allegation which an Obama spokesman
said was "simply false".
Trump made the accusation in a series of early morning
tweets just weeks into his administration and amid rising
scrutiny of his campaign's ties to Russia.
"How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during
the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad
(or sick) guy!," Trump wrote in one tweet. "I'd bet a good
lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President
Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!"
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
I'd bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017
Is it legal for a sitting President to be "wire tapping" a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017
The remarkable tussle between the current and former
presidents just 45 days since the handover of power is the
latest twist in a controversy over ties between Trump associates
and Russia that has dogged the early days of his presidency.
US intelligence agencies concluded last year that Russia
hacked and leaked Democratic emails during the election campaign
as part of an effort to tilt the vote in Trump's favor. The
Kremlin has denied the allegations.
Trump has accused officials in Obama's administration of
trying to discredit him with questions about Russia contacts.
Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis said it had been a "cardinal
rule" of the Obama administration that no White House official
ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the
Department of Justice.
"Neither President Obama nor any White House official ever
ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion
otherwise is simply false," Lewis said in a statement.
The statement did not address the possibility that a wiretap
of the Trump campaign could have been ordered by Justice
Department officials.
Trump said the alleged wiretapping took place in his Trump
Tower office and apartment building in New York, but there was
"nothing found." The White House did not respond to a request to
elaborate on Trump's accusations.
Trump was spending the weekend at his Florida seaside
resort, Mar-a-Lago. He was scheduled to meet with Attorney
General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly
before a dinner with officials also including adviser Steve
Bannon and White House Counsel Don McGahn, the White House said.
Amid a political storm, Sessions on Thursday announced he
would stay out of any probe into alleged Russian meddling in the
2016 presidential election after it emerged he met last year
with Russia's ambassador, although he maintained he did nothing
wrong by failing to disclose the meeting.
A Trump spokeswoman said the president spent part of
Saturday "having meetings, making phone calls and hitting balls"
at his golf course in West Palm Beach.
His supporters, meanwhile, staged small rallies in at least
28 of the country's 50 states, most of which passed off
peacefully. But there were clashes in the famously left-leaning
city of Berkeley, California, where protesters from both sides
hit each other over the head with wooden sticks.
Trump's tweets caught his aides by surprise, with one saying
it was unclear what the president was referring to.
Members of Congress said Trump's accusations require
investigation or explanation.
Senator Ben Sasse, a Republican, described the allegations
as serious and said the public deserved more information. He
said in a statement it was possible that Trump had been
illegally tapped, but, if so, the president should explain what
sort of tap it was and how he knew about it.
U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the
House Intelligence Committee, called Trump's assertion a
"spectacularly reckless allegation".
"If there is something bad or sick going on, it is the
willingness of the nation's chief executive to make the most
outlandish and destructive claims without providing a scintilla
of evidence to support them," Schiff said in a statement.
Former Obama adviser Ben Rhodes strongly denied Trump's
allegations: "No president can order a wiretap. Those
restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people
like you," Rhodes wrote on Twitter.
Trump's administration has come under pressure from Federal
Bureau of Investigation and congressional investigations into
contacts between some members of his campaign team and Russian
officials during his campaign.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said he had no knowledge
of any wiretapping but was "very worried" about the suggestion
Obama had acted illegally and would also be concerned "if in
fact the Obama administration was able to obtain a warrant
lawfully about Trump campaign activity."
Several other Republicans again urged an investigation into
a series of intelligence-related leaks.
Obama imposed sanctions on Russia and ordered Russian
diplomats to leave the United States in December over the
country's involvement in hacking political parties in the November 8
US presidential election.
Under US law, a federal court would have to have found
probable cause that the target of the surveillance is an "agent
of a foreign power" in order to approve a warrant authorizing
electronic surveillance of Trump Tower.
Several conservative news outlets and commentators have made
allegations in recent days about Trump being wiretapped during
the campaign, without offering any evidence.
Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn,
resigned in February after revelations that he had discussed
U.S. sanctions on Russia with the Russian ambassador to the
United States before Trump took office.
Flynn had promised Vice President Mike Pence he had not
discussed US sanctions with the Russians, but transcripts of
intercepted communications, described by US officials, showed
that the subject had come up in conversations between him and
the Russian ambassador.