Intelligence Chairman: No Evidence In Trump Tower Wiretap
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) -- The top Republican and Democrat on the House Intelligence committee are in total agreement that the president's claim that Trump Tower was wiretapped has no basis in reality.
"I want to say as I told you last week about the issue with the president talking about tapping Trump Tower, that evidence still remains the same that we don't have any evidence that that took place. In fact I don't believe just in last week of time, the people we talked to, I don't think there was an actual tap of Trump Tower," said Intelligence Chairman David Nunes (R-CA).
"I want to join in saying that, to date, I've seen no evidence that supports the claim that President Trump made that his predecessor had wiretapped he and his associates at Trump Tower," said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA).
All this, one day after White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the president would be vindicated.
"He feels very confident that we will ultimately come out of this. We will vindicate him," said Spicer on Tuesday.
Even the president's attorney general is at a loss to explain where Trump may have gotten the idea that former President Barack had tapped his phones.
Unlike other Trump tweets, alleging alternative facts on inaugural crowd size or illegal voting, this one doesn't seem so easily swept aside.
"You can't have a president in the White House who, because he has a hissy fit, is mad about something or excited about something makes an accusation like this with no foundation and then doesn't have any concern over the repercussions of what he said," said Rep. John Yarmouth (D-KY). "This is totally unjustified and not acceptable conduct on behalf of a president."
Intelligence officials are also still digging into whether or not anyone on the Trump campaign had conversations with Russians and the incidental collection of Americans tied to Trump that could have been leaked.
When asked if any evidence suggests people affiliated with the president had conversations with Russians, Nunes replied "not that I'm aware of."
Despite that he is still concerned about a number of things.
"As I expressed last week and I remain even more concerned, which are twofold, one the incidental collection of Americans that were possibly tied to the Trump campaign that could have been leaked, similar to General Flynn, and secondly the unmasking of Americans names potentially for political purposes, which we're continuing to ask more about that," said Nunes.
Intelligence officials said they still want the Department of Justice to respond to their call for evidence on the wiretap claims. Intelligence officials have said they are willing to subpoena the Justice Department for possible evidence. The department has until March 20th to respond.
