By Itunuoluwa Adebo
The White House on Monday had a new defense strategy, since President Donald Trump tweeted “wiretapping” in quotes, he didn’t actually mean wiretapping
“I think there’s no question that the Obama administration, that there were actions about surveillance and other activities that occurred in the 2016 election,” White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, said. “The President used the word wiretaps in quotes to mean, broadly, surveillance and other activities.”
Spicer’s comments were made the same day as the deadline for the Justice Department to provide evidence to the House Intelligence Committee to back up Trump’s claim. This defence is however very watery as two of those tweets didn’t include quotes.
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
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
A week earlier, Spicer said Trump’s tweet “speaks for itself” and declined to provide any further explanation.
But Spicer was not the only White House official to provide an alternative definition of the word “wiretap” despite Trump’s clear language.
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway also addressed the wiretapping claims in an interview with the Bergen County Record, suggesting that other covert surveillance methods used by the CIA revealed by Wikileaks could have been used in Trump Tower by the Obama administration.
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