title:  White House Has No Evidence Of ‘Wiretap’ Lie, So They’re Trying To Walk It Back (DETAILS)
text: Last week, the alleged president made some jaw-dropping accusations on Twitter, accusing his predecessor of wiretapping his phones before the election. Trump did this without offering any proof. After Trump s tweetstorm, his team twisted itself into a pretzel in order to try to defend Trump s unprecedented attack on his predecessor. Meanwhile, former President Barack Obama literally rolled his eyes after hearing of Trump s baseless claims.Trump s fact-free conspiracy theory even garnered the attention of House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA) and Ranking Member Adam Schiff (D-CA), who gave him until Monday to produce evidence to back up his claim. It s worth noting that Nunes is a staunch defender of Trump s and even went as far as to try to cover up the amateur president s Russian influence scandal so he must find this indefensible.On Monday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said that Trump  doesn t really think  that Barack Obama  tapped his phone personally,  in an attempt to walk back Trump s wild and unsubstantiated claim that his predecessor ordered an illegal wiretap of Trump Tower, Politico reports. He doesn t really think that President Obama went up and tapped his phone personally,  Spicer told reporters at the press briefing.Spicer tried to use Alt-words to defend his boss.Spicer tried to argue that Trump had accused the Obama administration of general  surveillance  activities, and not a literal wiretap, even though Trump himself had use the term  wire tapping  in one of several tweets making the claim without evidence on March 4. Spicer claimed that the fact that Trump put quotation marks around the words  wire tapping  in one tweet was proof that he was not speaking 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. That is a widely-reported activity that occurred back then,  Spicer said.  The president used the word wiretap in quotes to mean broadly surveillance and other activities during that. Ah, so if Trump used quotes (he did so only one out of three times) then we are not to take him literally. Weird. It is interesting how many news outlets reported that this activity was taking place during the 2016 election cycle, and now we re wondering where the proof is,  Spicer added.  It is many of the same outlets in this room that talked about the activities that were going on back then. No one knows what Spicer is talking about:It is unclear what reports Spicer was referring to. News outlets have reported that intelligence officials have been investigating whether there were inappropriate ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. As part of the probe into the country s suspected attempts to meddle in the election and regular surveillance on Russia s ambassador, they have reportedly intercepted communications between some campaign aides and Russian officials.There is no proof or credible source which has reported that Obama wiretapped and/or surveilled Donald Trump during the campaign.As we said, Trump only used quotes in one of three tweets, not that that should matter. Is it legal for a sitting President to be  wire tapping  a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!  Trump wrote in one tweet. 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!  another tweet read. How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!  Trump wrote in a misspelled tweet.So now, Trump  s Department of Justice has asked the chairman and vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee for  additional time  to collect evidence to support Trump s crazy-time claims. Meaning, Trump doesn t have proof. He just reads fake news sites such as Breitbart and Gateway Pundit then tweets the fake news.Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images.