The White House has said Donald Trump does not believe Barack Obama wiretapped him “personally” - even if as it called on the Congress to press ahead with a probe into the president’s allegation.
Mr Trump last weekend accused Mr Obama of electronically eavesdropping on him shortly before the November election. He did so without providing any evidence, and the White House called on Congress to investigate the claim.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer insisted Mr Trump still believed the allegation he had made. Yet he said the president had used the word “wiretap” to more broadly refer to surveillance or other activities.
“He does not think Obama went out there and wiretapped him personally,” he said. “There are are a whole host of techniques to or surveil someone.”
In a series of of early morning tweets on March 4, Mr Trump’s accusation was not only startling, but very specific.
“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism,” he wrote.
He added: “How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy.”
Mr Obama denied through a spokesman that he had ever ordered such actions. The White House, scrambling to provide evidence to back up the president’s claims, said Mr Trump had based his accusation on media reports, including the right wing Breitbart News.
