Fox News ‘Knows of No Evidence’ That Backs Up Trump’s Wiretapping Claim

The row began Thursday, as Spicer repeated the claim of Fox News personality Andrew Napolitano, who suggested that former President Obama had ordered GCHQ, the U.K.’s equivalent of the National Security Agency, to spy on his successor.

The Trump Administration said they would never invoke the report again, and Trump was asked today about whether he regrets making his claims against Barack Obama.

The White House official said Mr McMaster’s conversation with British Prime Minister Theresa May’s security chief, Sir Mark Lyall Grant, was “cordial”, and that Mr McMaster described Mr Spicer’s comment as “unintentional”, CNN said.

Regardless of whether the Justice Department leadership complies, FBI Director James Comey – who has already made clear that he wants senior Justice Department officials to publicly repudiate Trump’s claim – will get the chance to do so himself next week when he testifies at a high-profile hearing about Russia’s interference in the presidential election. “We’ve received assurances these allegations won’t be repeated”.

While Press Secretary Sean Spicer cited Napolitano’s claims, Smith emphatically put to rest suggestions that Fox News has any proof of such allegations. It’s the initials for the British intelligence-finding agency. “It’s a situation that simply wouldn’t arise”.

Mr Obama swiftly issued a denial, and the White House was swamped with questions over the basis of Mr Trump’s claim.

The agency said on Friday that it was “not unusual” for the agency to make public comment but acknowledged that “perhaps the tone of it was unusual”.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Twitter accused former president Barack Obama of tapping the phones at his NY skyscraper. “Fox News can not confirm Judge Napolitano’s commentary”, the anchor Shepard Smith said on air.

Trump told German reporters they should be asking Fox News about its report on Brit intelligence spying on Trump for then President Obama during the election.

A Republican lawmaker has called for US President Donald Trump to apologise for accusing former president Barack Obama of wire-tapping him during the election campaign.

Trump’s Friday morning tweets didn’t spark any similar controversy.

Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., chairman of the House panel, and California Rep. Adam Schiff, the committee’s ranking Democrat, issued an equally strong repudiation of the wiretap claim. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism! If, on the other hand, it turns out to be the already-disclosed investigation of the bank connections (which turned out to be a bust anyway), then that won’t really back up Trump’s tweet claims.

Just under two weeks later, in an interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, Trump appeared to walk back his original wiretapping allegations.