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TOP WHITE HOUSE aide Kellyanne Conway has said she had no evidence to back up Donald Trump’s claim that his predecessor had wiretapped him, after suggesting her boss may have been spied upon using other methods.
The Trump administration is under mounting pressure to provide proof to shore up the president’s unsubstantiated allegation that Barack Obama ordered the phones to be tapped at Trump Tower during the election campaign.
“The answer is I don’t have any evidence and I’m very happy that the House Intelligence Committee are investigating,” Conway told ABC news.
Trump’s top aide was being pressed to explain weekend comments that seemed to suggest the Obama administration ordered wide-scale surveillance of her boss.
“What I can say is there are many ways to surveil each other,” Conway told New Jersey’s Bergen County Record in a wide-ranging interview published Sunday.
“You can surveil someone through their phones, certainly through their television sets — any number of ways,” including “microwaves that turn into cameras,” she told the paper.
We know this is a fact of modern life.
Conway backed away on Monday from the comments — which were greeted with ridicule on the internet — telling ABC’s Good Morning America she had been referring to “surveillance generally” and not to the president’s allegations regarding Trump Tower.
Conway said she was referring to a recent leak from Wikileaks which detailed CIA methods of spying that included phones and smart TVs.
Trump, meanwhile, appeared to take the media to task over its skeptical treatment of Conway in tweet sent this morning.
Both Obama, through a spokesman, and his former director of national intelligence James Clapper have denied ordering any wiretapping operation targeted at Trump.
But Trump’s White House is standing by its demand for a congressional investigation into the allegations.
The Republican chairman and the top ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee have written to the Justice Department asking for evidence to be provided by Monday in support of Trump’s allegation.
Democrat Adam Schiff said yesterday he doubted any evidence would be forthcoming, and said he would press the demand again during a wide-ranging open hearing set for 20 March on the issue of Russian meddling in the election.
Top Republican lawmaker and frequent Trump critic John McCain on Sunday challenged Trump to prove the wiretapping claim — or else retract it.
© – AFP 2017 with reporting by Rónán Duffy
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Practical solution? How about Russia withdraws back where they came from?
The Russians are desperate for any tiny victory and are getting more and more reckless and dangerous to grasp it.
@Tom Quinn: it takes them 2 months to capture a village we are gonna see them do worse things as this drags on
@Seán Ó Briain: Sean, instead of throwing a tantrum and going with the usual and predictable fake account, Russian bot BS because things aren’t going your way, how about looking at some cold hard facts?
Satellite images showing the position of the Russian forces, video of the attack and its aftermath. Note that they are approx 50 metres from a whole hell of a lot of nuclear waste. If you are comfortable with Ukraine dropping explosives that flaming close to a shed load of nuclear waste that’s fine by me but I doubt the rest of the world would agree with you.
It is a cold, hard fact that Ukraine fired explosives within an incredibly close distance of spent nuclear fuel and no amount of spin can get away from that. There was another strike there last night with the local officials saying that one of the missiles struck within 10 metres of the spent fuel. Although seeing as how the official is part of the occupational government I’d take his report with some reservation. In this case, I would wait until satellite imagery is available to confirm it.
The thing is that the only party so far to actually confirm that they have attacked the area is the Ukrainians themselves. While a drone strike would do little damage to the reactor, a hit on the spent fuel would be a disaster of their own making.
@Digital Marketing Growth with Jarvis.ai-Free Trial: But it is unavoidably Russias fault. They shouldn’t bloody be there in the first place, and no amount of half baked essays on ‘duh facts’ can cover that.
@TheJournal Here’s a link to your own comments policy because you obviously need a refresher. (thejournal.ie/comments-policy)
Is journal. ie censorship a thing. 16 comments yet only 9 on display.
My comment from earlier GONE
@Gerry Dornan: it certainly is Gerry and apparently on the rise. Plenty of lively and interesting threads deleted for no apparent reason.
Heard recently that the Russian plan is to survive till winter. When its gets bitterly cold in Europe and then they stop all gas supplies to Europe. Will Europe see electricity blackouts and rationing of energy. Europe is very much dependent on Russian energy and what will happen without it. Will we see industry forced to stop. Factories shut down. Germany is heavily dependent on Russian gas for electricity.
It’s all about Geopolitics…. a big game playing out in front of millions. The ruble vs the petrodollar!!!
@Diarmuid O’Braonáin: Russian gas exports are down overall but because of the price being so high they are actually making more for less. Add to that the fact that China, India and other countries taking up the slack from the EU and Russia is doing OK for themselves so far.
In the meantime the EU and especially Germany are screwed, we are paying over the odds for fossil fuels and all because of a knee-jerk reaction by our EU overlords. You can be guaranteed that the people who thought out (or didn’t as the case may be) these sanctions won’t be freezing this winter. No planning for future energy security and kowtowing to the US means that the whole of the EU is in a bad way.
Putin’s forces will dig into the areas that it has captured and slowly advance from there. In the meantime, people in the EU will start suffering blackouts and will have to watch their TVs while wrapped up in blankets and sleeping bags. It’s all very fine now but comes the winter it will be interesting to see what public sentiment is.
Russia has plenty of energy supplies to keep its population warm and its economy going something that the EU won’t have. When sanctions really start to bite and its people in the EU feel the worst effects I expect that people mightn’t be so harsh to criticise people like Sabina Higgins calling for ceasefire and negotiations.
@Digital Marketing Growth with Jarvis.ai-Free Trial:
what should the EU have done after the invasion happened?
Don’t tell us what they ‘shouldn’t have done’ we’ve got that from your comments already.
Tell us what they ‘should have’ done after February 23rd.
have your say