On Saturday, president Donald Trump accused former president Barack Obama of plotting to tap the phones of his Trump Tower headquarters. This supposedly happened during the presidential campaign last fall. However, as usual, Trump did not provide any solid evidence for his claims. This made Barack Obama’s team respond and strongly deny that something like this ever happened.
Trump says that Obama wiretapped him
In a series of Twitter messages, the president accused Barack Obama of orchestrating the “wiretapping” of his New York headquarters. Moreover, that the former president wanted to influence the outcome of the presidential election by doing this. However, some senior U.S. officials who took part in the investigation surrounding the Russian intervention in the presidential election, stated that no such thing happened during the campaign. One of Obama’s spokesmen also released an official statement in which he strongly denies that a wiretapping or any sort of similar maneuver ever happened, especially from the part of the former president.
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
Trump’s claims do not have a solid base because such wiretaps cannot target any United States facility without a probable cause. More precisely, a solid proof that the phone lines and the Internet addresses were being used for espionage purposes by or on behalf of foreign governments. However, in US politics this would not be the first wiretaps have been found in politicians offices or hotel rooms. Some other people who know how the system works have Tweeted president Trump and explained that such a thing cannot happen. However, those latest tweets by Donald Trump are only proving that his team still thinks that Obama is behind those attacks involving the new administration and its connections with Russia. In conclusion, he decided to respond and orchestrate another attack, without having proof.
No President can order a wiretap. Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you. https://t.co/lEVscjkzSw
— Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) March 4, 2017
Trump’s aides do not defend him
On Sunday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer released an official statement in which he calls for an investigation into the president’s claims. He concluded the statement by saying that the White House would not comment on the situation anymore. This is interesting because one would have expected it to defend Trump’s claims. Instead, the White House chose to do nothing. Is this because the president’s accusations are completely baseless and there is nothing to defend?
.@PressSec suggests WH will not provide evidence to back up president’s claim or even comment further pic.twitter.com/wtlzag9jGF
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) March 5, 2017
This is not the first time Donald Trump has done this. He usually makes a big deal out of some usually baseless pieces of news which he sees in various places. Trump did the exact same thing when he claimed that Hillary Clinton received millions of illegal votes during her 2016 presidential campaign. Even if his claims are not true he has once again found away to dominate the news cycle.
All in all, it remains to be seen what is going to happen and if the White House will make efforts to defend Trump’s allegations or leave the situation as it is. Not matter if the President believed that his happened or if he is trying to dominate the news cycle he did and now the Democrats have to deal with it.
Image source: here
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