US President Donald Trump has asked Congress to determine whether Barack Obama ordered illegal wiretapping of Trump Tower during the 2016 presidential election.
Sean Spicer, White House press secretary, made this known in a statement on Sunday.
“Reports concerning potentially politically motivated investigations immediately ahead of the 2016 election are very troubling,” Spicer said.
“President Donald J. Trump is requesting that as part of their investigation into Russian activity, the congressional intelligence committees exercise their oversight authority to determine whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016.
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“Neither the White House nor the President will comment further until such oversight is conducted,” he added.
The request for investigation comes a day after Trump took to Twitter to accuse his predecessor of tapping his office in New York.
Several American lawmakers have asked Trump to provide evidence to back his claim.
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Marco Rubio, a member of the senate intelligence committee investigating Trump’s ties to Russia, said, “I’d imagine the president and the White House in the days to come will outline further what was behind that accusation”.
“The president put that out there, and now the White House will have to answer as to exactly what he was referring to,” he added.
Meanwhile, James Clapper, former director of national intelligence, has denied there was any wire-tapping of Donald Trump or his campaign.
Clapper told NBC that, “there was no such wire-tap activity mounted against the president-elect at the time, as a candidate, or against his campaign”.
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