President Trump accuses the former president of bugging his phones
President Donald Trump in back in South Florida again at his Mar-A-Lago estate in Palm Beach. Meanwhile, President Trump has begun to start a Twitter war over allegations that his phones at the Trump Tower, were bugged by former President Barack Obama, during the presidential campaign.
President Trump fired off a series of tweets Saturday morning accusing former president Barack Obama of tapping his phone at Trump Tower in New York during the election season.
Trump tweeted that the alleged wiretapping occurred “in October, just prior to (the) election” but he did not provide further details or evidence to back his claim to date.
His source for the allegations came from a report Friday posted by Brietbart and written by Charlie Spiering. The story claims that the Obama administration obtained authorization to eavesdrop on the Trump campaign.
Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017
I’d bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017
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
Trump compared the alleged wiretapping to the Watergate scandal under former President Nixon.
Quick to respond to President Trump’s tweets was Ben Rhodes, former deputy national security adviser to Obama. He offered the legal point that presidents can’t simply order wiretaps as Trump suggests
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
On Friday, Fox’s Brett Baier asked House Speaker Paul Ryan whether he was concerned “that the Obama Administration may have been surveilling members of the Trump campaign in a pretty detailed investigation during the election?”
Ryan responded by saying: “I don’t think that’s the case.”
Meanwhile, President Trump, came to his Winter White House Friday night after stopping off in Orlando.
He was met there by a solid group of supporters including Gov. Rick Scott. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and Education Secretary Betty DeVos were on Air Force One, along with Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka, according to the press pool report.
The school that Trump visited in Orlando was Saint Andrew Catholic School, where he visited a fourth-grade class. Scott, who campaigned on expanding school choices for parents, and Rubio joined Trump at the school.
President Trump looked like he was having fun and asked two students to join him for a picture, and told them, “We’re going to make you famous, OK?”
Trump will stay in Palm Beach working until the end of the weekend before heading back to Washington late Sunday.