Well it looks like Donald Trump has to go back to the drawing board.
Not only have leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee said there is no indication of Trump tower being wiretapped before or after the election, but a growing list of lawmakers also say there is no evidence of foul play.
About two weeks ago, Trump accused former President Barack Obama of wiretapping him during the events leading up to last year’s election. The move would be illegal, but now Trump and his aids are saying the term is broad and covers a variety of surveillance techniques.
“Wiretapping is pretty old-fashioned stuff,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News Wednesday. “But that really covers surveillance and many other things.”
White House aides have also backtracked on the president’s accusations.
“Based on the information available to us, we see no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government either before or after Election Day 2016,” said the statement sent to USA TODAY by Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., chairman of the intelligence committee, and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va.
Earlier this week, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said that he didn’t “believe that there was an actual tap of Trump Tower.”
He said the House committee had conversations with people, but did not specify how it arrived at its conclusion.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., also dismissed Trump’s claims.
“We’ve cleared that up; we’ve seen no evidence of that,” he told reporters Thursday.
Trump first launched the accusation against Obama in a series of tweets posted Mar. 4. The claim comes in the midst of an investigation into whether he or his associates had Russian contacts attempt to hack Democratic Party officials during the election season.
