Democrats respond to Trump's wiretapping claim
Democrats are pushing back on President Trump’s Saturday morning claims that President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower offices before the election.
While at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida for the weekend, Mr. Trump fired off a series of early morning tweets accusing President Obama, without citing evidence, of wiretapping Trump Tower. He described this as “Nixon/Watergate,” calling Mr. Obama a “bad (or sick) guy.”
Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser under Mr. Obama, denied Mr. Trump’s accusations and responded by saying presidents can’t order wiretaps:
No President can order a wiretap. Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you. https://t.co/lEVscjkzSw
— Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) March 4, 2017
And House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called for an “investigation by an independent commission” into Mr. Trump and his campaign’ ties to Russia:
The Deflector-in-Chief is at it again. An investigation by an independent commission is the only answer.
— Nancy Pelosi (@NancyPelosi) March 4, 2017
Others, including former Vermont Gov. and DNC Chairman Howard Dean and Rep. Ted Lieu, D-California, pointed out on Twitter that if Mr. Trump’s allegations are true a judge would have had to find probable cause to approve the wiretap request:
This means a judge found probable cause that Trump was engaging in criminal activity and issued a warrant for a wire tap https://t.co/cj85vrd7hp
— Howard Dean (@GovHowardDean) March 4, 2017
Either @realDonaldTrump is paranoid like Nixon, or judge found probable cause of crime for #wiretap. Either way our President is in trouble.
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) March 4, 2017