Sean Spicer says Trump is 'extremely confident' that DOJ will find evidence of wiretapping
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said on Tuesday that President Donald Trump is "extremely confident" the Department of Justice will find evidence that the Obama administration wiretapped him before the election.
Spicer made the comment during Tuesday's press briefing when he was asked whether Trump is confident that any evidence will surface to support Trump's claims of surveillance.
"I'll let them do their job, I'll let the House and Senate and I'll let the DOJ report this but as I've commented in the past, I think there's significant reporting about surveillance techniques that have existed throughout the 2016 election," Spicer said.
"I'll leave it to them to issue their report, but I think he feels very confident that what will ultimately come of this will vindicate him."
In a series of tweets earlier this month, Trump accused President Barack Obama of tapping his phones.
"How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process," Trump tweeted. "This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!"
But Spicer said Monday that Trump "doesn't really think" Obama "personally" wiretapped Trump Tower.
Spicer claimed that Trump had accused Obama of general surveillance, rather than a literal wire tap of Trump's phones, arguing that Trump put quotation marks around "wire tapping" in two of his four tweets, thus indicating the term should not be taken literally.
"I think there is no question that the Obama administration, that there were actions about surveillance and other activities that occurred in the 2016 election," Spicer said. "That is a widely-reported activity that occurred back then."
While intelligence agencies reportedly intercepted communications between the Trump campaign and Russian officials through an investigation into Russian attempts to interfere in the US election, no credible mainstream news outlets have reported that Obama or his administration conducted surveillance on Trump or the campaign.
Spicer and Trump may have been referring to a Breitbart report concerning conservative radio host Mark Levin's allegations that Obama sought to "undermine" Trump's campaign in the final days of the presidential election.
On Monday, the DOJ requested more time to respond to a request from members of the House Intelligence Committee to provide evidence of the Obama administration wiretapping Trump.
Eliza Relman contributed to this report.
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