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Trump claims Obama ordered phone tap before polls

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Published: 17:03, 4 March 2017   Update: 15:18, 26 July 2020
Trump claims Obama ordered phone tap before polls

International Desk: Donald Trump accused Barack Obama of tapping his phones before the November presidential election and compared the situation to the Watergate scandal that forced Richard Nixon to resign.

In an early morning tweet storm, Mr Trump claimed that Mr Obama had ordered his phones at Trump Tower to be tapped and accused his predecessor of engaging in “McCarthyism” — a reference to Senator Joe McCarthy, who spearheaded a witch hunt against US citizens suspected of being alleged communists during the early cold war.

“I'd bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!” Mr Trump tweeted at dawn on Saturday from his Mar a Lago resort in Florida.

Minutes later, Mr Trump claimed that he had evidence that Mr Obama had tapped his phones but did not provide any details. The White House did not respond to questions asking for an explanation about the tweets.

“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!” Mr Trump tweeted.

The string of tweets marked the end of a week that saw Mr Trump win praise for acting uncharacteristically presidential during his speech to Congress, before reverting to campaign attack mode after it emerged that Jeff Sessions, his attorney-general and close adviser, had misled Congress about two meetings with the Russian ambassador.

While Mr Trump did not explain the background to his accusations, he provided a hint in one of the tweets, which said: “Is it legal for a sitting President to be "wire tapping" a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!”

During the course of the election, there were reports — which the Financial Times was unable to verify — that US law enforcement and intelligence officials had requested a warrant to eavesdrop on certain targets related to an investigation into whether Russia interfered with the US election. If those reports were correct, the warrant would have needed to have been issued by the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

The accusations from Mr Trump come as he and his former campaign aides come under mounting scrutiny surrounding possible contacts with Russian intelligence officials during the presidential race. Mr Trump fired his first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, after only 24 days after it emerged that he had lied about the nature of phone conservations he held with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the US.

After one day of acting more presidential after his congressional speech, which called for unity, Mr Trump has since accused Democrats of conducting a “witch hunt” after they called on Mr Sessions to resign. To ease the pressure on him to step down, Mr Sessions recused himself from investigations that the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which falls under his justice department, into the presidential campaign and Russia.

Agencies


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