Donald Trump wiretapping claim

On March 4, 2017, Donald Trump wrote a series of posts on his Twitter account that accused former President Barack Obama's administration of wiretapping his phones at his Trump Tower office late in the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump called for a congressional investigation into the matter, and the Trump administration cited news reports to defend these accusations. His initial claims appeared to have been based on a ''Breitbart News'' article he had been given which repeated speculations made by conspiracy theorist Louise Mensch or on a Bret Baier interview, both of which occurred the day prior to his Tweets. By June 2020, no evidence had surfaced to support Trump's claim, which had been refuted by the Justice Department (DOJ).

Representative Devin Nunes, the then-chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said he would investigate the claim. At a committee open hearing on March 20, 2017, FBI Director James Comey stated that neither the FBI nor the Justice Department possessed any information to support Donald Trump's wiretapping allegations. Nunes stated on March 23 that the Trump administration's communications might have been legally monitored during the transition period as part of an " incidental collection". Intelligence Committee leaders later said they found no evidence to support the claim.

The DOJ declared in a September 1, 2017, court filing that "both the FBI and NSD confirm that they have no records related to wiretaps as described by the March 4, 2017 tweets", and confirmed this in another court filing of October 19, 2018. On September 19, 2017 CNN reported that the FBI wiretapped Paul Manafort before and after the presidential election, extending into early 2017, although the report did not make clear whether Manafort was monitored during his tenure with the Trump campaign from March through August 2016. The CNN report also stated that the Manafort surveillance began after he became the subject of an FBI investigation in 2014. Some commentators cited this report as vindication for Trump's claims, while others noted that it did not confirm the accuracy of Trump's original tweets, and that it is still unknown whether any surveillance of Manafort took place at Trump Tower. Manafort owned a condominium in Trump Tower from 2006 until its seizure by federal authorities following his 2018 convictions. Furthermore, the 2017 CNN report cited as partial vindication for Trump was refuted by a 2019 investigation by the DOJ's Inspector General, which stated: "We are aware of no information indicating that the Crossfire Hurricane team requested or seriously considered FISA surveillance of Manafort or Flynn."

In a 2019 call in to Sean Hannity's show, Trump said that his original allegation of "wires tapped" was not literal, and that he really meant: "surveillance, spying you can sort of say whatever you want". Trump also said that his allegations were made "just on a little bit of a hunch and a little bit of wisdom maybe", and that he thought his allegations were "pretty insignificant" when he made them.

Origin

On November 7, 2016, conspiracy theorist Louise Mensch reported in the right-leaning ''Heat Street'', that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had twice sought Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants in connection with its investigation of the Trump campaign's links to Russia. According to Mensch, the first request for a warrant which "named Trump" was denied in June 2016 and, a second, more "narrowly drawn" request was granted in October 2016. Mensch wrote that this warrant gave "counter-intelligence permission to examine the activities of 'U.S. persons' in Donald Trump's campaign with ties to Russia", and to "look at the full content of emails and other related documents that may concern US persons". Mensch further claimed that the October warrant was granted in "connection with the investigation of suspected activity between the server n Trump Towerand two banks, SVB Bank and Alfa Bank", and that "it is thought in the intelligence community that the warrant covers any 'US person' connected to this investigation, and thus covers Donald Trump and at least three further men". She said her story was based on two anonymous "sources with links to the counter-intelligence community". Mensch's original article only discussed e-mail exchanges and did not use the term "wiretap".

On January 19, 2017, ''The New York Times'' published an article which used two headlines, with the print headline reading "Wiretapped Data Used in Inquiry of Trump Aides" and the article published online with the title "Intercepted Russian Communications Part of Inquiry Into Trump Associates". The article stated that "American law enforcement and intelligence agencies are examining intercepted ussiancommunications and financial transactions as part of a broad investigation into possible links between Russian officials and associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump, including his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort." The article also noted the uncertainty regarding the scope of the communications, stating: "It is not clear whether the intercepted ussiancommunications had anything to do with Mr. Trump's campaign, or Mr. Trump himself."

On March 3, ''Breitbart News'', a far-right
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* ran an article by Joel Pollak headlined "Mark Levin to Congress: Investigate Obama's 'Silent Coup' vs. Trump." On the previous day, right-wing radio personality Mark Levin alleged that Obama and his allies were conducting a "silent coup" against Trump, and asked: "How many phone calls of Donald Trump, if any, have been intercepted by the administration and recorded by the Obama administration?" The claims were labeled conspiracy theories by CNN and ''The Los Angeles Times''. The ''Breitbart'' article alleged that "the Obama administration is now monitoring an opposing presidential campaign using the high-tech surveillance powers of the federal intelligence services". Citing Mensch's November article, ''Breitbart'' claimed the existence of a June FISA request "to monitor communications involving Donald Trump and several advisers", and of an October FISA warrant "focused on a computer server in Trump Tower". Breitbart cited a January 11 ''National Review'' article, which speculated about alleged "wiretaps" of the Trump campaign and their legal ramifications. Like the ''Breitbart'' article, the ''National Review'' article had also extensively relied on Mensch's piece.

Like Mensch, ''McClatchy'', BBC, and ''The Guardian'' reported on the existence of an October FISA warrant. However, these accounts differed substantially from Mensch's story with respect to the scope and purpose of the warrant. They alleged that the October warrant authorized to monitor financial transactions related to Russia — not communications. Unlike the derivative accounts in ''National Review'' and ''Breitbart'', Mensch's original article did not use the term "wiretap" (implying voice telephone calls), but only made claims about e-mail exchanged with SVB Bank and the Russian Alfa-Bank. While Mensch did claim the e-mail server was located in Trump Tower, it was likely located in Lititz, Pennsylvania, as Trump outsourced e-mail to Listrak, which operates out of a data center there. Furthermore, ''The New York Times'' reported on October 31 that the FBI had concluded that the server traffic could have been explained by marketing emails or spam. Contrary to ''The Times'', Mensch claimed that the server's activity remained suspicious enough to lead the FBI to request the FISA warrant.

On the March 3 ''Special Report'' program, host Brett Baier cited an article from the now-defunct Circa online newspaper, mentioning the same allegations as Mensch, ''McClatchy'', BBC, and ''The Guardian'', and asked Ryan: "Have you heard that?" Ryan responded: "Well, again, like I said, none of us in Congress or anybody I know in Congress has been presented with anything to the contrary of what you just said." However, there may have been a misunderstanding between Baier and Ryan throughout the interview, with Baier asking about undue surveillance of the Trump campaign, and Ryan responding that intelligence gathering had produced no evidence of collusion between Russia and Trump. Ryan stated, in response to a question about Trump's March 15 comments, that he had been unaware of any wiretapping allegations prior to his interview with Baier, and that "the intelligence committees ... have determined ... that no such wiretap existed."

The ''Breitbart'' article was circulated among White House staffers, and was reportedly given to Trump along with his morning newspapers and printouts. It was also reported that Trump watched the Bret Baier interview immediately before his tweets.

Accusation

Initial claim

In a succession of tweets on March 4, 2017, Trump stated he had "just found out" that former president Barack Obama had wiretapped his phones at Trump Tower "just before the victory". He did not say where he had obtained the information and offered no evidence to support it. Trump compared the alleged intrusion to McCarthyism and Watergate. Anonymous White House officials told ''The Washington Post'' that Trump did not appear to coordinate his comments with other White House officials.

Followup

Fact-checkers immediately requested supporting information for these claims from the White House communications team. In response to the requests from ''The Washington Post'', ''Politifact'' and ''FactCheck.org'', the White House provided five items:
* An article from the BBC, titled "Trump 'compromising' claims: How and why did we get here?"
* An article from Heat Street, titled "EXCLUSIVE: FBI 'Granted FISA Warrant' Covering Trump Camp's Ties To Russia"
* An article from National Review, titled "FISA and the Trump Team"
* A transcript of Bret Baier interviewing Paul Ryan on Fox the previous night, and
* An article from The New York Times, titled "Wiretapped Data Used in Inquiry of Trump Aides"

None of these articles corroborated the specific allegations made in the tweets, but rather contained terms and elements of stories which were mingled together and distorted. All the fact-checkers rated Trump's claims as false.

In the first official statement issued after the tweets, made through press secretary Sean Spicer on March 5, Trump asked congressional intelligence committees to "determine whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016" as part of their oversight authority of the Department of Justice and as part of the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the election. In response, multiple congressional committees agreed to investigate. None found any evidence supporting the wiretapping claim, and they reported their findings in the weeks following the tweets.

In interviews on March 5 and 6, Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders attempted to recast the president’s words with a softer tone. On '' This Week'' she said "I think there certainly could have been (a FISA warrant). And it sounds like there's something that we should look into and verify." On Monday morning's ''Today'' show, she said "the president firmly believes that the Obama administration may have tapped into the phones at Trump Tower, this is something that we should look into. We’d like to know for sure."

Later on March 6, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told Fox News's ''Fox & Friends'' that the president had "information and intelligence that the rest of us do not", although when asked about this, Press Secretary Spicer equivocated. Spicer spoke to reporters that day from the White House briefing room with an audio-only feed for the public, and was peppered with questions about the tweets. Spicer referred to his weekend statement requesting congressional investigation and did not to add clarity or context to Trump's tweets. Referring to Conway's claim, Spicer said "I can't specifically respond to you in terms of what she was referring to, whether she was referring to the exact nature of this charge or whether generally speaking he is given information."

Trump lowered his profile in the week following the tweets, limiting reporter access in contrast to the first six weeks of his administration.

Extension of claim

During an interview on March 12, 2017, Conway was asked by ''The Record'''s Mike Kelly, "do you know whether Trump Tower was wiretapped?" She answered "what I can say is there are many ways to surveil each other. You can surveil someone through their phones, certainly through their television sets — any number of different ways, microwaves that turn into cameras" However, Conway's comments resulted in a headline which read "Kellyanne Conway Alludes to Even Wider Surveillance of Trump Campaign" which directly led to question from CNN's New Day anchor Chris Cuomo. On that show, she attempted to walk back her microwave quip, stating that "I'm not Inspector Gadget, I don't believe that people are using the microwave to spy on the Trump campaign." She faced similar questioning on ''Today'' and '' Good Morning America'' but ended her media tour roundly mocked as "the microwave lady."

At a March 13 press briefing, Spicer claimed that Trump was referring to general surveillance rather than direct wiretapping. Spicer also said that the White House believed that the Obama administration was responsible for the surveillance, not Obama himself, said Trump's tweet which specifically named the former president.

Trump spoke on his own behalf regarding the tweets for the first time in a March 15 interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News. He cited the March 3 interview with Paul Ryan on an episode of ''Special Report with Bret Baier'' on Fox News and the January 19 ''New York Times'' article as the origin of his allegations.

The White House press briefing on March 16 became very contentious when Spicer was confronted by the press corps with the bipartisan doubts of congressional leaders about Trump's wiretap claims. The back-and-forth between Spicer and reporters lasted almost ten minutes and was marked by Spicer repeating news reports about possible GCHQ involvement in spying on Trump, further inflaming the media firestorm.

In an April 2 interview with the UK-based ''Financial Times'', Trump expressed very little regret for his tweets, saying "I don’t regret anything, because there is nothing you can do about it. You know if you issue hundreds of tweets, and every once in a while you have a clinker, that’s not so bad. Now my last tweet, you know the one that you are talking about perhaps, was the one about being in quotes wire tapped, meaning surveilled. Guess what, it is turning out to be true." This was echoed in a much later 2019 interview with C-SPAN, when asked whether he regretted any of his tweets, Trump said "Not much, honestly not much...I sent the one about the wiretapping...and that turned out to be true." On April 25, 2019, when calling in to Sean Hannity's Fox news show, Trump said that his original allegation of "wires tapped" was not literal as he had used quotation marks, saying that he really meant: "surveillance, spying you can sort of say whatever you want". Trump also said that his allegations were made "just on a little bit of a hunch and a little bit of wisdom maybe". Trump elaborated that he thought his allegations were "pretty insignificant" when he made them.

Allegation of British involvement

In the summer of 2016, long before the first public statement from the Obama Administration on October 7, 2016, about Russian interference, "Robert Hannigan, then the head of the U.K.'s intelligence service the G.C.H.Q., had recently flown to Washington and briefed the C.I.A.'s director, John Brennan, on a stream of illicit communications between Trump's team and Moscow that had been intercepted. (The content of these intercepts has not become public.)" "The matter was deemed so sensitive it was handled at 'director level'."

This information became public on April 13, 2017, when ''The Guardian'' reported that GCHQ and other European intelligence agencies had intercepted secret communications between members of the Trump campaign team and Russian intelligence agents, and shared this intelligence with their U.S. counterparts. The communications were obtained through "incidental collection" as part of routine surveillance of Russian intelligence assets, not from a targeted operation against Trump or his campaign.

Before ''The Guardians report, during a March 14, 2017, ''Fox & Friends'' interview, Andrew Napolitano said that "Three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command", using the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) to implement surveillance to avoid leaving "American fingerprints". Napolitano accused Robert Hannigan, who resigned from the GCHQ on January 23, of ordering the wiretap. Hannigan reportedly resigned for personal reasons. Fox News anchor Bret Baier later stated that "the Fox News division was never able to back up apolitano'sclaims". Napolitano was reportedly temporarily taken off air by Fox due to the allegations. One of Napolitano's sources was former intelligence officer Larry C. Johnson, who later told CNN that Napolitano had misrepresented the statements he made on an online discussion board. Johnson, citing two anonymous sources, claimed that the GCHQ was passing information on the Trump campaign to US intelligence through a "back-channel", but stressed that the GCHQ did not "wiretap" Trump or his associates and that alleged information sharing by the GCHQ was not done at the direction of the Obama administration.

On March 16, Spicer repeated Napolitano's claim at a White House press briefing. The following day, GCHQ responded with a rare public statement: "Recent allegations made by media commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano about GCHQ being asked to conduct 'wiretapping' against the then president-elect are nonsense. They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored." A British government source said the allegation was "totally untrue and quite frankly absurd". Admiral Michael S. Rogers, director of the National Security Agency (NSA), said he has seen nothing to suggest that there was "any such activity" nor any request to do so. Former GCHQ director David Omand told ''Financial Times'' that "The suggestion that arack Obamaasked GCHQ to spy on Trump is just completely barking — that would be evident to anyone who knew the system."

The claim started a diplomatic dispute with Britain. Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader in Britain, said "Trump is compromising the vital UK-US security relationship to try to cover his own embarrassment. This harms our and US security." ''The Telegraph'' said that two U.S. officials had personally apologized for the allegation. The British government also said that the U.S. government promised not to repeat these claims. The White House denied reports that it had apologized to the British government, saying Spicer was merely "pointing to public reports" without endorsing them.

Surveillance of Trump associates

Reports

On January 11, 2017, ''The Guardian'' reported that the FBI initially applied for a FISA warrant in June 2016, requesting to "monitor four members of the Trump team suspected of irregular contacts with Russian officials". This initial request was denied. A source told ''The Guardian'' that the FBI then submitted a more narrowly focused request in October, "but that has not been confirmed, and it is not clear whether any warrant led to a full investigation". ''The Guardian'' article was not cited by the White House in connection with Trump's wiretapping claim.

The day after ''The Guardian'' report, ''BBC
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