U.S. Justice Department requests more time to provide wiretapping evidence
U.S. president says Obama administration wiretapped his phones before the election
The U.S. Justice Department is requesting more time to respond to a congressional inquiry into President Donald Trump's unproven assertion that he was wiretapped by his predecessor.
The department had been expected to provide a response by Monday to the House intelligence committee, which has made Trump's wiretapping claims part of a bigger investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
But spokesperson Sarah Isgur Flores said in a statement Monday that the department has asked for more time to "review the request in compliance with the governing legal authorities and to determine what if any responsive documents may exist."
Claims of surveillance options
Over the weekend, senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway said the government has many options available to conduct surveillance against citizens beyond wiretapping.
Her remarks came after a congressional aide's statement over the weekend saying the House intelligence committee had asked the Trump administration to provide evidence by Monday that Trump's phones at Trump Tower in New York were tapped. Trump has alleged that then president Barack Obama ordered the surveillance — a charge Obama has denied.
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James Clapper, who was Obama's director of national intelligence, has said that nothing matching Trump's claims, made in a Twitter post, had taken place.
In an interview with New Jersey's Bergen County Record published Sunday, Conway said that people should think beyond wiretapping in terms of monitoring individuals, saying "there are many ways to surveil each other."
"You can surveil someone through their phones, certainly through their television sets — any number of ways," she told the paper.
"The answer is I don't have any evidence and I'm very happy that the House intelligence committee [is] investigating," Conway told ABC's Good Morning America. She later tweeted that the administration is "pleased" with the congressional investigation and "will comment after."
Trump's critics have slammed the president for making the explosive wiretapping claim on his Twitter account without evidence. Wiretapping a U.S. citizen would require special permission from a court, and Trump as president would have the ability to declassify that information.
Also this month, WikiLeaks released nearly 8,000 documents that purportedly reveal secrets about the CIA's tools for breaking into targeted computers, cellphones and even smart TVs.
Conway noted that development to justify Trump's claims.
'Microwaves that turn into cameras'
"What I can say is there are many ways to surveil each other now, unfortunately," including "microwaves that turn into cameras, et cetera," Conway told the newspaper. "So we know that that is just a fact of modern life."
She told Good Morning America that "I wasn't making a suggestion about Trump Tower." She said she was answering a question about surveillance "generally," and without specific reference to the current controversy.
Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!
—@realDonaldTrumpConway's response was unlikely to tamp down criticism of Trump's tweets earlier this month.
FBI Director James Comey has privately urged the Justice Department to dispute Trump's claim, but has not come forward to do so himself.
Senator John McCain, an influential Republican, said Sunday: "I think the president has one of two choices: either retract or to provide the information that the American people deserve, because, if his predecessor violated the law, President Obama violated the law, we have got a serious issue here, to say the least," the Arizona senator said.
Trump asserted in a tweet earlier this month: "Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!" He continued the allegation against Obama in other tweets, but offered no evidence.
The request for evidence by Monday was made in a letter sent to the Justice Department by the House committee chairman, Representative Devin Nunes, and the panel's ranking Democrat, Representative Adam Schiff, said the congressional official. The aide wasn't authorized to discuss the request by name and requested anonymity.