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" After two false starts, the White House is now trying to pin blame on Susan Rice, the Obama Administration’s national-security adviser.
Ever since President Trump tweeted, in the early morning of Saturday, March 4th, that “Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory,” the White House and its defenders have labored to find a justification for the false allegation. After two false starts, the White House is trying out another claim this week: Susan Rice, President Barack Obama’s national-security adviser, did it. This third swing at justifying Trump’s tweet is as bogus as the first two.
The first effort to defend Trump took his tweet literally and rested on thinly sourced reports that the FISA court may have issued a warrant that authorized spying on him. This claim was debunked by every official in a position to know the truth.
“If you take it literally, it didn’t happen,” Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told me two weeks ago.
James Clapper, the Obama Administration’s director of National Intelligence, denied Trump’s allegation in an interview with NBC News the day after Trump’s tweet. “For the part of the national-security apparatus that I oversaw as D.N.I., there was no such wiretap activity mounted against the President-elect at the time, or as a candidate, or against his campaign,” he said.
James Comey, the head of the F.B.I., confirmed Clapper’s assessment during testimony before Congress, on March 20th. “With respect to the President’s tweets about alleged wiretapping directed at him by the prior Administration, I have no information that supports those tweets, and we have looked carefully inside the F.B.I.,” Comey said. “The Department of Justice has asked me to share with you that the answer is the same for the Department of Justice and all its components. The department has no information that supports those tweets.”
Strike one "
Read more here: http://www.newyorker.com/news/ryan-lizza/susan-rice-and-the-latest-bogus-attempt-to-justify-trumps-wiretapping-tweet?mbid=social_twitter
Ever since President Trump tweeted, in the early morning of Saturday, March 4th, that “Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory,” the White House and its defenders have labored to find a justification for the false allegation. After two false starts, the White House is trying out another claim this week: Susan Rice, President Barack Obama’s national-security adviser, did it. This third swing at justifying Trump’s tweet is as bogus as the first two.
The first effort to defend Trump took his tweet literally and rested on thinly sourced reports that the FISA court may have issued a warrant that authorized spying on him. This claim was debunked by every official in a position to know the truth.
“If you take it literally, it didn’t happen,” Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told me two weeks ago.
James Clapper, the Obama Administration’s director of National Intelligence, denied Trump’s allegation in an interview with NBC News the day after Trump’s tweet. “For the part of the national-security apparatus that I oversaw as D.N.I., there was no such wiretap activity mounted against the President-elect at the time, or as a candidate, or against his campaign,” he said.
James Comey, the head of the F.B.I., confirmed Clapper’s assessment during testimony before Congress, on March 20th. “With respect to the President’s tweets about alleged wiretapping directed at him by the prior Administration, I have no information that supports those tweets, and we have looked carefully inside the F.B.I.,” Comey said. “The Department of Justice has asked me to share with you that the answer is the same for the Department of Justice and all its components. The department has no information that supports those tweets.”
Strike one "
Read more here: http://www.newyorker.com/news/ryan-lizza/susan-rice-and-the-latest-bogus-attempt-to-justify-trumps-wiretapping-tweet?mbid=social_twitter
