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FBI DIRECTOR JAMES Comey has asked the US Justice Department to publicly refute President Donald Trump’s explosive, unsubstantiated accusation that Barack Obama tapped his phone during last year’s election campaign, US media has reported.
Comey’s extraordinary measure questioning the president’s truthfulness provides an indication of the implications of Trump’s incendiary claim about his predecessor. The department has not made any statement.
Trump’s aides were scrambling yesterday to limit the political fallout of Trump’s accusation 24 hours after it was made — admitting it was still unproven, and calling on Congress to investigate.
Citing still undefined “reports” of “politically motivated investigations”, press secretary Sean Spicer said Trump was calling on Congress to “determine whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016″.
Trump spokeswoman Sarah Sanders echoed those comments.
“If this happened,” she told ABC, “this would be the greatest abuse of power, and overreach, that has ever occurred in the executive branch”.
Trump, who has returned to Washington from a weekend at his Mar-a-Lago estate in West Palm Beach, Florida, has not publicly commented further on his allegations.
On Saturday, he tweeted: “How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!” He provided no evidence to back up the claim.
Watergate is the generic term for the scandal that brought down president Richard Nixon in 1974. It began with the revelation of a secret wiretap in the offices of the Democratic National Committee at Washington’s Watergate Hotel.
Obama, via a spokesman, denied Trump’s new allegation as “simply false”.
US presidents can’t legally order such wiretaps, which require the approval of a federal judge and reasonable grounds for suspicion.
Obama’s director of national intelligence James Clapper told NBC there was “no such wiretap activity mounted against the president-elect at the time as a candidate or against his campaign”.
President ‘furious’
Trump’s comments appear to have been based on unverified claims made by the right-wing Breitbart News outlet. His chief strategist, Steve Bannon, used to run it.
The New York Times, citing senior US officials, first reported that Comey believes Trump’s claim to be false.
The FBI director made the request on Saturday because “there is no evidence to support it, and it insinuates that the FBI broke the law”, the paper reported the officials as saying.
Previous media reports have indicated that US prosecutors investigated communications between a server registered to the Trump Organization and a Russian bank.
In his roles as a reality TV showman and presidential candidate, and now as president, Trump has repeatedly embraced conspiracy theories, including the suggestion that Obama was not born in America. Obama was born in Hawaii, a US state.
Trump levelled the latest charges in a string of tweets early on Saturday, at the end of a week in which his administration was battered by controversy over links between his advisors and Russian officials.
Trump was said to be furious that good reviews of his maiden speech to Congress on Tuesday were overtaken by a series of revelations about aides’ meetings with Russian officials.
The president was also said to be angry that Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from any campaign or Russia-related investigations.
Sessions’ recusal came after it emerged that, speaking under oath during his Senate confirmation hearings about campaign contacts with Russia, he failed to disclose two meetings with Moscow’s ambassador in Washington.
Amid that and several other revelations of Trump aides holding meetings with Russian officials, the White House has denied allegations of collusion.
Diversionary tactics
US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin approved a campaign to meddle in last November’s presidential election in a bid to tilt it in Trump’s favor.
Former CIA director Leon Panetta yesterday accused Trump of diversionary tactics.
“They are trying to obfuscate and trying to cover up. They are trying to somehow raise other issues,” he told CBS.
In the end, it is going to be the truth that will determine what is involved here, and not tweets, but the truth.
However, the Republican chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Devin Nunes, said his panel would look into Trump’s claims.
“The Committee will make inquiries into whether the government was conducting surveillance activities on any political party’s campaign officials or surrogates, and we will continue to investigate this issue if the evidence warrants it,” he said in a statement.
Democrats and a growing number of Republicans in Congress have called for the appointment of a special prosecutor and a bipartisan inquiry to look into the Russia issue.
With approval ratings already low, Trump could do without another scandal in his young presidency.
Republicans have largely stood behind him, hoping he will enact tax cuts and other policies they favor. However, some Republican lawmakers appear to be losing patience with the drama of Trump’s presidency.
“We are in the midst of a civilization-warping crisis of public trust,” Senator Ben Sasse said, adding that Trump’s allegations of wiretapping “demand the thorough and dispassionate attention of serious patriots”.
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This stuff should be televised, reality TV meets Soap Opera, and unlike the Kardashians there’s comedy aplenty
But like the kardashians there’s loads of boobs involved.
@Mick Power:
Well there is one huge orange boob involved. Sadly he is currently POTUS.
And thats only Kanye
It’s not that funny. All it takes is one big terror attack and everyone will rally behind this man
Trump supporters will immediately identify this FBI refutation as more evidence of the anti-Trump conspiracy determined not to allow America to become great again.
The FBI is obviously full of Obama loyalists who don’t want America to be great again.
FBI will face a purge in the near future it cant remain as it is, highly politicised and motivated to steer public opinion and undermine democracy
Because they are telling the truth Tom? Trump nor Breitbart have produced one single iota of evidence to back up this claim. If they had any actual proof of it don’t you think they would have produced it by now. It was Trump who went to war with his Security Services. Now he is crying because they are biting back by not keeping silent and outing his lies.
Was it not the head of the FBI that scuppered Hillary’s campaign, were investigating your emails again, oh wait were not now it’s okay. Reaping what they sow ….
@Richie Prendergast:
If Obama will approve a wire-tap of Merkel, is it that impossible that he’d also wire-tap Trump?
You know when grandad starts rattling off about the aliens in the field stealing his cherry tomatoes?
If Trump hasn’t done anything wrong, then why is he afraid of the FBI and NSA ?
Well he’s done something wrong now. If his phone was tapped, that’s an issue of baronial security, it’s classified information and he broke the law by mentioning it in public. The alternative is his phone wasn’t tapped and he’s slandered Obama and proved himself yet again to be mentally unstable and unfit for the job.
Baronial? National security!
Trump is getting worse I be ashamed to call myself American with that thing they call a president
Don’t be ashamed, it’s not your fault. Embarrassed for your country as it becomes a joke to the rest of us may be more appropriate!
You only need to be ashamed if you voted for him.
Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump played golf over the weekend both completed their rounds in 18 shots each.
@Barty: Erm, no Kim Jong un managed to do an hit all 18 holes with one shot, while 45 was busy adjusting his toupee
Is there anything to be said for another mass?
Citing “unverified” sources Trump is guilty of the very thing he criticised last week…i.e…the media quoting against him with annonymous sources. At this stage we all must wonder how long the Republican party…let alone America and the rest of the workd, can put up with outrageous buffoon. Impeach!
@gowfc@yahoo.com W: yeah, did you ever think(I doubt it) that maybe he wants to highlight the media and the Dems hypocrisy and their own outrageous, unverified slurs against him.
He’s freaking out because he can’t send out crazy accusations because they have to be investigated and proof shown which there is none. He really is unpresidential.
I’m assuming Obama didn’t do it or know about it and if so is preparing the biggest possible slander case against that obnoxious dangerous twisted spanner.
I wonder if perhaps Trump was gullible enough to believe Breitbart.
Well he gullible enough to give their MD/Editor a job.
Either he is on drugs and completely paranoid or there’s a cover up of the highest order to get rid of him.
Mentally unfit. He’ll be sitting in a rest home going on and on about Hillary and Obama and talking to himself when he’s 90. The most embarrassing episode in world history.
“Mine was the greatest presidency ever. The best. I nailed it bigly.”
Drugs could only improve him….no, this kind of awkward, ego maniac is the result of years of privilege and lazy, loveless parents. I’d pity him if he weren’t so arrogant.
This business that he doesn’t drink is suspect. He’s acting like a drunk on Twitter.
@Avina Laaf: you mean yugely surely, get your trumpjetives right. He got a slagging over bigly and now uses yuuugely. :D
Never trust a man who never drinks.
Trump is a master manipulator, he’s manipulated all you muppets into continually spouting complete non arguments about the way he looks and sounds and you call him stupid – hilarious.
@TehJurolan: He manipulated people into thinking he’s stupid and has crazy hair? Why would he do that?
Ok,cmon All American people,enough is enough. The joke has gone on too long now.We get the joke ok! Now can you just put the Real President in place and take this knobend out and bring him straight to the sanitarium
Perhaps the story should be, why we’re his phones tapped? Perhaps he’s making a big issue because he is deflecting from the real story?? Also he said the press should name their sources when they leak a story! So why doesn’t he? It just proves they are all the same and they think we are all stupid.
why won’t he name his source? he’s adamant that everyone else does
Looks as if it’s time for trump to send in that big lawyer he tweeted about yesterday. That’ll show the fbi
You would want to rehire the enigma code breakers to decipher Trumps bigly words .LOL
@No To Forced Births!: Even Bletchley Park would struggle to make sense of them
Earth to Trump . . . Earth to Trump . . .
He can’t hear you. He has his MAGA breitbart sponsored tinfoil hat on again.
Personally, I’m blaming Enda.
The Donald is still acting as the king not the president.
So the FBI deny that the FBI illegally wiretapped Trump. Shocking!!
@stefanovich: If you read it carefully, they don’t. They have specifically denied:
(a) tapping of Trump’s phones “at the time as a candidate”
(b) slightly ambiguously, tapping of the phones of his campaign
They have not denied tapping anyone else’s phones, nor have they even denied tapping Trump’s phone at some other point. E.g. if they had tapped it during the primaries and before he got the nomination, both Trump and the FBI would be technically correct.
Was there not a scandal a few years back in which the Americans had access to the phone calls of world leaders like Angela Merkel Etc? It wouldn’t stretch the imagination too far to believe Trump was included also.
Different law for it to be done to an American citizen. Needs court approval. But he made the claim, let him offer the proof
Not supporting Trump in any of this stuff, but anyone who believes that national governments or security services only operate within the law is, I think, deluded.
Anonymous sources again. Amazing double standards. There’s more proof of this than the Russian stories.
Ye might want to wait before jumping on the propaganda train. Gloves are off now.
@Early Cuyler: I don’t think that misspelled tweets count as proof…
Well if Trump had his phones tapped a federal judge must have seen enough evidence to suggest he was acting illegally. I don’t believe any President, especially one who is as by the book as Obama, would order a tap on a presidential nominee. I just can’t see it happening after Nixon.
@Lisa Saputo: If you think Obama was “by the book”, you haven’t been paying attention. On his watch, the IRS was weaponised against the Tea Party. The senior official at the centre of it claimed to have broken no laws, then took the 5th Amendment and refused to testify. Her hard drive and all the backup tapes unfortunately turned out to have been destroyed in the middle of a Congressional investigation.
I have no idea whether Trump’s phone was tapped by the FBI, but I’m afraid the “pooh pooh what an idiot conspiracy theorist” response doesn’t cut it.
@Lisa Saputo: FISA court denied it, so looking like if it is proven it came from Loretta Lynch. I find it impossible to believe Obama was by-the-book, sorry.
@Ben McArthur: Ah Ben it’s not tinfoil if it’s their tinfoil. Double standards, everywhere. At least Trump is getting the media to acknowledge that standards of proof should be required for big accusations. By the FISA request alone he has more tangible proof of his statement than his opponents do of the Russians.
For more pettyness also see: Kellyanne with her feet on the couch, Last night in Sweden and – oh yeah – from Obama’s own mouth that he would return to fight Trump. A statement denied to exist which did come from Obama’s own mouth, as opposed to the statement in the article which is claimed to come from Obama but didn’t.
@Lisa Saputo: Lisa you are clearly a very foolish woman…Do some research…Obama was always an agent of the CIA…Your foolishness leaves me speechless! What did Obama do in Libya Lisa? Everything by the book you say…It is because of ignorance like yours that we are in this situation today…Look at the history of Obama and stop fake news please!
Standards of proof…what, like the time he accused Obama of lying about his birth certificate?
Felix has lost it bigly
@felix And from reading your (fact-free) comments we can gauge your foolishness. “Libya… Libtards… Blah blah blah…”
@Ruairi O Neill: One look at his Facebook page shows you everything you need to know about Felix, “self employed journalist” sharing Sheitbart articles all day long
I once seen breitbart and infowars described as “reactionary porn for morons”. Quite apt I think.
Did anyone notice FBI can be rearranged as fib… which is like a lie but not as bigly. Who could trust an organisation called FIB, they must be tell alternative facts bigly, probably leaking fake news to the terrible news papers…believe me.
The NYT citing “anonymous sources” say Comey has asked the justice department to refute the allegation.
You left that part out… conveniently.
Um, this whole story was started by media reporting anonymous sources ahem.. Cough… Breitbart… Cough
Kevin Lewis tweet admits wire tapping took place inside trump tower but target was not us citizen. Probably Russian. Nothing found from that tap as it would have been released before election.
Trump referred to Nixon, there is an irony in that. Believe me or I’ll twitterise you “can take that to the bank” lol
Why would they need to tap his phone when he tweets or publicly states every thought he has! Pure nonsense!
The greatest achievement of President Obama was that he gave the US and the world President Trump!!
They dont know it yet but he’s the hero they need not the hero they want.
All of this crap must be humiliating in the extreme for most ordinary intelligent Americans. Their leader is an attention seeking clown. Not a stupid man, make no mistake, but deeply flawed.
It seems strange but in this case he’s deflecting, he’s trying to get the focus away from the White House. Obviously bitterly disappointed that his midweek address to Congress didn’t smooth things out for Sessions
Obama should call for Trump to be impeached.
Here it is.
NYT article January 19 2017
Note the words “wiretapped communications had been provided to the white house.”
Game set and match.
Oh I see you’ve selected words from a source and decided not to link it the complete article, Good for you. But unfortunately that’s not reliable
@Joe Caulfield: yes and shows that Obama not only knew…he initiated it…MUST HAVE INITIATED IT WHY ARE ENEMIES OF TRUTH SO ACTIVE ON THIS IRISH SITE.
@Felix Quigley: Presidents are not allowed to initiate it; separation of powers.
If only Trump knew that before he shot himself in the foot with his tantrum-tweets.
The nuthouse in the whitehouse.
You say Trump is basing his allegation on an “unverified” Breitbart article yet you purposely exclude from your own article that the New York Times story was made from an “anonymous source” therefore also unverifiable. You are fake news.
Unverified is different than anonymous. Try a dictionary.
OBAMA WAS ALWAYS A CREATION OF THE CIA…OBAMA AS IN LIBYA ALWAYS DID THE BIDDING OF THE BRUTAL CIA
These are the forces that Trump is clearly up against.
When Trump is fighting against the CNN he is in reality fighting against the CIA because CNN is in effect owned by the CIA
These dictatorial forces aim for a brutal overthrow of Trump (who is quite weak politically speaking) and his replacement by a Pinochet type dictator.
These forces are desperate and should not succeed. But if Trump is indecisive and does not act BY ARRESTING OBAMA FOR TREASON AND SEDITION then the CIA forces in America will certainly install a Pinochet typoe dictatorship in America
@Felix Quigley: Is your tinfoil hat comfortable?
You should work for trump. Your crazy would fit right in.
Remember that James Clapper openly lied previously to a congress investigation under oath, when he stated that US citizens were not being monitored, bugged or being hacked.
You cannot trust a word out of his mouth – regardless if Trump’s accusation is true or not.
Listen folks the best illusionists use misdirection to get away with sleight of hand. Yes my taxes are hidden and my picks for cabinet are up to their armpits in Putin but look I could have been bugged!
Pretty soon the idiots will have cages back on their lawns saying lock him up with Obama inside. The press has a duty to inform, and they must present a full court press on Trump to prove his remarks or apologize.
WOULD IT BE A SURPRISE IF OBAMA HAD BUGGED THE TRUMP HQ…NO!!!
We do not yet know if the Trump HQ was bugged by Obama…If it was done it would be with the knowledge of Obama…we do not yet have that information. But it would not be a surprise. That latter is certainly true. Obama is a total liar…Look how he lied about Gadhafi in the American and NATO bombing of Libya
What we do know is that since the election result was made known there has been a continual effort coming from Obama especially to overthrow the election result.
Now if you know your history around Germany 1933 you will know that that is a step towards Fascist Rule and it centres on Obama. Obama should already be arrested.
Is your tinfoil hat comfy. Trump only came up with this because he read it on breibart.
@Felix Quigley: Trump HQ? If stupdity was squeaking, you’d be running around with WD40, all day long.
Important to remember that top NSA whistleblowers have previously explained that the NSA is spying on virtually all of the digital communications of Americans. Bill Binney, the highest-level NSA whistleblower in history who created the agency’s mass surveillance program for digital information says:
“NSA has all the data through the Upstream programs (Fairview/Stormbrew/Blarney) and backed up by second and some third party country collection.
Plus the FBI and CIA plus others, as of the last month of the Obama administration, have direct access to all the NSA collection…
(metadata and content on phones,email and banking/credit cards etc.) with no attempt at oversight by anybody. This is all done under Executive Order 12333 [the order which allows unlimited spying no matter what intelligence officials claim] ….
FBI would only ask for a warrant if they wanted to be able to take it into court at some point given they have something meaningful as evidence. This is clearly true given the fact the President Trump’s phone conversations with other country leaders were leaked to the mainstream media”
Essentially Binney is saying that Trumps phones were bugged by the NSA without a warrant and they shared the raw data with the CIA, FBI and other agencies.
This is a credible story.
Emmet, none of that is a wire tap. Are you not getting tired of reinterpreting Trump’s words in a way that makes you feel better? Also, Trump and the foreign leaders talked about their phone calls with the press.
Trump is like a senile old man with a twitter account. Just spouting the most random of things, unfortunatly he is now the POTUS and his nonsense now has ramifications.
Trump has been moneylaundering for the Russians for years .The Russians will hang him out to dry in the end.
Bored silly with this fool. He should get on with doing the job he was elected to do and stop all the attention seeking. Just shut down his publicity machine and donyt mention his name
Note how fools do not answer specifics but instead engage in personal attack…so the June request for surveilance of Trump denied…but October was allowed
Who requested…The Justice Dept.
Did White House of Obama know? Chances of not ZERO
THIS IS ALL GOING TO COME OUT
There must be a paper trail
Who was the judge? He will be judged in turn
There’s a big difference between knowing somebody else did something vs you requesting it to happen… Get a grip.
@Gary Rowe: Bear in mind you are talking to a “self employed journalist”, who thinks sheitbart is a reliable source of news
If Obama tapped Merkels phone, surely he could tap Trumps
If Trump were Obama, Yemen would be the new Benghazi.
John 11:35………
No it’s not Mo, it’s 12:47 by my clock
have your say