Trump's allies melting away on wiretapping claims
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| House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., right, accompanied by the committee's ranking member, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., talks to reporters, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March, 15, 2017, about their investigation of Russian influence on the American presidential election. Both lawmakers said they have no evidence to back up President Trump's claim that former President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Plaza during the 2016 campaign. |
WASHINGTON
(AP) -- President Donald Trump's explosive allegation that Barack
Obama wiretapped his New York skyscraper during the presidential
campaign has left him increasingly isolated, with allies on Capitol Hill
and within his own administration offering no evidence to back him up.
On
Wednesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he had not given Trump
any reason to believe he was wiretapped by President Obama. Republican
Rep. Devin Nunes, chairman of the House intelligence committee, said he
had seen no information to support the claim and then went further. He
suggested the U.S. president's assertion, made in a series of March 4
tweets, should not be taken at face value.
"Are you going to take the tweets literally?" Nunes said. "If so, clearly the president was wrong."
But
Trump, in an interview Wednesday with Fox News, predicted there would
be "some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next
two weeks."
Trump's allegations have put him
in a potentially perilous position as congressional investigations into
Russia's involvement in the 2016 election - and possible Russian
contacts with Trump associates - ramp up. The FBI is also investigating.
If
no evidence of wiretapping at Trump Tower emerges, his credibility
would be newly damaged. If there is proof that the Obama administration
approved monitoring of Trump or his associates, that would suggest the
government had reason to be suspicious of their contacts with Russia and
a judge had approved the surveillance.
The
president, who appears to have made his allegation in a burst of anger,
has asked lawmakers to investigate the claim. Lawmakers have since
turned the question back toward the administration, asking the Justice
Department to provide evidence of wiretapping activity.
The Justice Department missed a Monday deadline for providing the information to the House and was given a one-week extension.
Sen.
Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who heads the Judiciary Committee's crime and
terrorism subcommittee, said the FBI will provide a classified briefing
on the matter "at some time in the future." Graham has previously said
he would use subpoena power to get information from the FBI about
whether a warrant was issued allowing the Obama administration to tap
Trump's phones during the campaign.
Longtime
Trump adviser Roger Stone told The Associated Press Wednesday that he
believes his own online exchanges with a Russian-linked hacker were
obtained through a special warrant that allows the government to collect
the communications of people suspected of being agents of a foreign
nation. Stone communicated through Twitter direct messages with Guccifer
2.0, a hacker who has claimed responsibility for breaching the
Democratic National Committee.
Stone said he
was unaware at the time that U.S. officials believed the hacker had ties
to Russia. He said he is willing to testify before any congressional
committee that holds its hearings "in public and not behind closed
doors."
The House intelligence committee will
begin holding public hearings on Monday. Nunes said FBI Director James
Comey and Adm. Mike Rogers, the director of the National Security
Agency, will testify.
Ahead of the hearing,
the committee sent a letter to the FBI, CIA and the National Security
Agency requesting details by Friday about Americans who surfaced in
intelligence collections last year.
Identities
of Americans who show up in U.S. surveillance against foreign targets
are generally concealed, but can be unmasked by intelligence agencies in
certain circumstances. Those include situations when the communications
contain information that a crime has or is about to be committed, when
the Americans' identity is necessary to understand the importance of the
foreign intelligence collected or when the communication provides
information that an American may be an agent of a foreign power.
Asked whether Trump's communications may have been swept up in surveillance, Nunes said it was "very possible."
Sessions,
a staunch supporter of Trump during the campaign, recused himself
earlier this month from the Russia investigations after it was revealed
that he did not disclose his own contacts with Russia's ambassador to
the United States. Asked Wednesday if he had ever briefed Trump on the
investigation or given the president any reason to believe he had been
wiretapped by the Obama administration, Sessions said, "The answer is
no."
Trump has said little about his
allegations against Obama, largely leaving it to White House aides to
explain his inflammatory statements.
The White
House appeared to be backing away from Trump's claims on Monday, with
spokesman Sean Spicer saying the president was referring to general
surveillance that may have been approved by the Obama administration. On
Tuesday, Spicer said the president was "extremely confident" the
Justice Department would provide evidence vindicating him.
Graham
and Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley have both said they will hold
up hearings for Rod
Rosenstein, Trump's nominee to serve as deputy
attorney general, unless they get more information from the FBI. Given
Sessions' recusal, Rosenstein would take over responsibility for any
probes touching the Trump campaign and Russia's election meddling if
he's confirmed.
"It's just too bad that we have to go to this length," Grassley said.
