US President Donald Trump used a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to deflect criticism about his unsubstantiated claim that the Obama administration spied on him, reviving a sensitive diplomatic incident in which the US was revealed to have snooped on her cellphone.
During the Press conference on Friday with Merkel, whose cellphone was tapped by the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2010, Trump quipped that he and the German leader had something in common, CNN reported.
“As far as wiretapping, I guess by this past administration, at least we have something in common, perhaps,” Trump said, turning to Merkel, who did not smile at the joke.
But Trump also said he did not endorse a Fox News claim that Britain’s GCHQ spy agency did the wiretapping for Obama — an allegation repeated by Trump’s spokesman Thursday, sparking a sharp rebuke from london.
“We said nothing” about the GCHQ claim, Trump told journalists. “That was a statement made by a very talented lawyer on Fox. And so you shouldn’t be talking to me, you should be talking to Fox,” he said.
Fox News said it could not confirm the allegations. “Fox News knows of no evidence of any kind that the now president of the United States was surveilled at any time in any way, full stop,” anchor Shepard Smith said, reading an official statement on-air.
Trump has accused Obama of ordering wiretaps at his Trump Tower in New York, but two weeks after the extraordinary claim, he has not delivered any evidence.
The claim has led to investigations in Congress and by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but so far no one has provided any evidence to substantiate it. Top Republicans and Democrats on the House and Senate Intelligence Committee have all said they have seen no evidence. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has remained quiet, however.
On Friday, the Justice Department said it had complied with requests from the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees in both houses of Congress for information related to surveillance during the 2016 election.