Ten days after Donald Trump made unfounded wiretapping accusations against Obama, the House Intelligence Committee has brought down their judgmental hammer. The president provided no evidence at the time, and the White House missed the deadline for doing the same, so the resulting ruckus has seen increasing levels of ridiculousness from his spokespeople. Kellyanne Conway spouted some gibberish about “microwaves” that spy, and Sean Spicer finally tried the “he didn’t mean it” excuse, but House Intel leaders are ready to shut this show down.
Trump’s baseless claims of a very serious crime by a former president arrived a few days after right-wing radio host Mark Levin tossed out a conspiracy theory of Obama running a “silent coup” against the president. Breitbart wrapped the theory up in Trump-friendly packaging, and the rest shall soon be history. The top Republican and Democrat from the House Intel Committee delivered a simple statement that surely will not please the president:
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said Wednesday that neither he nor the ranking Democrat on the committee have seen any evidence that then-President Barack Obama wiretapped Donald Trump last year, and want the Justice Department to respond to their requests from information by March 20.
“We don’t have any evidence that that took place and in fact I don’t believe — just in the last week of time, the people we’ve talked to — I don’t think there was an actual tap of Trump Tower,” Nunes said at a news conference, in reference to the baseless claim originally made by Trump.
Where does this non-scandal go from here? FBI Director James Comey is preparing to testify at a further hearing, but since Comey already asked the Justice Department to publicly reject Trump’s accusations, there’s no mystery on what stance he shall take. (Just FYI, Comey is expected to reveal whether the FBI is investigating Trump-Russia ties at some point later today.)
The president hasn’t yet tweeted about this new development, and he may be trying to physically restrain himself as we speak. After all, his accusations were not only prompted by a whack-ass conspiracy theory, but he’d also recently gone “ballistic” on staff after Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recusal from all investigations into Trump-Russia ties.
And speaking of Sessions, he wants absolutely no part of this wiretapping mess. MSNBC’s Kyle Griffin tweeted Sessions simple “Um, no” answer to whether he may have influenced Trump into thinking he was wiretapped.
Jeff Sessions just now: I did not give Trump any reason to believe he was being wiretapped. pic.twitter.com/FAPOTYFkA6
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) March 15, 2017