Obama spokesman calls Trump wiretapping claims "simply false"

President Obama’s team is shooting down President Trump’s suggestion that he ordered wiretapping on Trump Tower during the 2016 election, with an Obama spokesman calling the claim “simply false.”

“A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice,” Kevin Lewis, an Obama spokesman, said in a Saturday afternoon statement. “As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen.”

“Any suggestion otherwise is simply false,” he added.

On Saturday morning, Mr. Trump fired off a string of early morning tweets alleging that Mr. Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower during election season, a claim for which he presented no evidence. He called the alleged wiretapping a “Nixon/Watergate” move, and said Mr. Obama is a “bad (or sick) guy.”

The allegations came after a week in which Mr. Trump and his campaign aides have been under scrutiny for possible ties to and communications with Russian officials during the presidential campaign.

Earlier Saturday, former Obama deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes tweeted about the claims, saying the president can’t order a wiretap.