Senior US lawmakers say they have seen no evidence to support President Donald Trump’s claim that his predecessor Barack Obama wiretapped his New York home and office building.
“We don’t have any evidence that that took place,” Devin Nunes, the Republican head of the congressional committee looking into the allegation, said at a press conference Wednesday.
“I don’t think there was an actual tap of Trump Tower,” said Nunes, whose House Intelligence Committee is also investigating suspected Russian interference in last year’s US presidential election.
Nunes’s conclusion was echoed by the panel’s top Democrat, Adam Schiff.
“To date I’ve seen no evidence that supports the claim that President Trump made that his predecessor had wiretapped he and his associates at Trump Tower,” Schiff said at the press conference.
“Thus far, we have seen no basis for that whatsoever.”
On March 4, Trump sparked a furor when he wrote on his Twitter account that Obama had put a wiretap on communications at Trump Tower, the New York home of the president and first family, before the November 8 election.
“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!”
“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!” he wrote in a second tweet.
The tweets set off a fierce controversy, in part because it was unprecedented for a US president to accuse a predecessor of a felony crime.
Source: AFP
