**This is a developing news story and as such may be updated as new information is received.**
FBI Director James Comey and former Obama administration Director of National Intelligence James Clapper have both come out refuting President Trump’s claims that former President Obama ordered the wiretapping of Trump tower but not that the wiretapping occurred.
Director Comey asked the Department of Justice this weekend to deny president Trump’s claim that then president Obama ordered the DOJ to seek a FISA warrant.
The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, asked the Justice Department this weekend to publicly reject President Trump’s assertion that President Barack Obama ordered the tapping of Mr. Trump’s phones, senior American officials said on Sunday. Mr. Comey has argued that the highly charged claim is false and must be corrected, they said, but the department has not released any such statement.
DNI Clapper said that the intelligence community was not involved in any wiretapping of Trump or his campaign.
“For the part of the national security apparatus that I oversaw as DNI, there was no such wiretap activity mounted against – the president-elect at the time,” Clapper said. “But I can’t speak for other Title III authorized entities in the government.”
Title III refers to Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, commonly called the “Wiretap Act.”
What’s critical to note is that neither Clapper nor Comey are denying that Trump tower was electronically surveilled – they only say that DNI was not involved and that President Obama didn’t order it.
The assertion that Obama didn’t order the tap would refute Trump’s tweet which did specifically charge that president Obama ordered the taps. Trump is often ineloquent in his tweets and he likely misinterpreted any information he might have been given.
On ABC’s this week, George W. Bush attorney general Michael Mukasey said that although the president got his words wrong, his claim was likely correct.
He’s right … there was surveillance and that it was conducted at the behest of the attorney general
“This is the difference between being right and being correct,” Mukasey said. “I think the president was not correct certainly in saying that President Obama ordered a tap on a server in Trump tower. However, I think he’s right in that there was surveillance and that it was conducted at the behest of the attorney general of the Justice Department through the FISA court.”
Obama’s attorney general Loretta Lynch could have sought a FISA warrant through the DOJ or, illegal and unlikely, could have ordered the surveillance without a warrant. Either of those scenarios would not have necessarily been done by order of President Obama nor would it have gone through the Director of National Intelligence.
Comey demanding the DOJ make a statement on a news story is at odds with the department’s stance made public just a few weeks ago when an FBI official approached White House press secretary Sean Spicer to inform him that the Trump-Russia collusion stories were “absolute B.S.”
Spicer asked the FBI to issue a statement refuting the Russia story, but the FBI declined as they do not “call balls and strikes” lest they become required to do so on every news story.
If the DOJ does release a statement, the wording will likely include that the department does not believe that President Obama ordered the wiretapping of Trump tower, but will it deny that the tower was under electronic surveillance during the campaign?
As of the publication of this article, neither the F.B.I. nor Justice Department spokespeople have issued a statement nor have they made comment.
**This is a developing news story and as such may be updated as new information is received.**
