Trump claims Obama tapped Trump Tower phones before election
President Trump woke up at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Saturday morning firing off a tweetstorm claiming that President Obama essentially wiretapped, or bugged, Trump Tower offices before the election.
CBS News has been unable to confirm any of this new information.
But the president is clearly irritated.
In one tweet, Mr. Trump describes Mr. Obama as a “bad (or sick) guy.”
How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017
A spokesman for Mr. Obama responded in a statement on Saturday afternoon.
“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,” spokesman Kevin Lewis said. “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.”
This follows a week in which Mr. Trump mostly stayed on message as questions surrounding his team’s contacts with Russia persist, CBS News correspondent Errol Barnett reports.
Mr. Trump visited a fourth-grade class in Orlando, Florida, Friday as he tried to refocus attention on school-choice programs.
It caps a week of well-received speeches for the president, first to a joint session of Congress outlining his agenda and another address aboard a newly commissioned aircraft carrier promoting an expansion of the military.
“I am calling for one of the largest defense spending increases in history,” Mr. Trump said.
But that’s all being overshadowed by questions surrounding the growing list of advisers who met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during and after the election.
It includes Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and campaign advisers Carter Page and J.D. Gordon.
On Thursday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from any of his agency’s investigations into Russian election interference because he met with Kislyak twice last year.
“I never had meetings with Russian operatives or Russian intermediaries about the Trump campaign,” Sessions said.
Chuck Schumer and other Senate Democrats want Sessions to testify under oath about those meetings.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Republican Chuck Grassley rejected the request. Sessions will reply on Monday in writing to Democrats’ questions.
In response, the president tweeted photos Friday showing Schumer and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi with Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, suggesting they be investigated.
Roger Stone, who was an informal adviser to the Trump campaign, denied any connection to Russia in an interview with CBS News.
“It’s a witch hunt,” Stone told CBS News homeland security correspondent Jeff Pegues. “I know it is.”
The president was asked directly last month if he was aware of contacts between his team and Russian officials.
“How many times do I have to answer this question -- Russia is a ruse,” Mr. Trump said.
The president’s Twitter feud with Schumer continued throughout Friday, with Schumer saying that he would happily discuss his contacts with Russia under oath and in front of the press. There’s been no Twitter response from the president on that just yet.
Mr. Trump is scheduled to meet with his National Security Council in Florida and dine with his newly appointed Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.