WH Rep: Trump Hasn't Budged, Believes He Was Wiretapped

The alleged wiretapping story inched forward—or backward, depending on your perspective—Monday morning by way of a Good Morning America interview with White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders. She tells George Stephanopoulos she doesn't believe President Trump buys reports that FBI chief James Comey thinks the allegations are false. Comey has reportedly asked the Justice Department to publicly reject Trump's claim that he was wiretapped by former President Obama in the fall. Sanders, the deputy White House press secretary, said "I think [Trump] firmly believes that this is a storyline that has been reported pretty widely by quite a few outlets," going on to name the New York Times, BBC, and Fox News.

Stephanopoulos pushed back, saying none of the publications she cited offered evidence in support of Trump's claim. It was the first of what Politico reports were five instances in which Stephanopoulos interrupted and disputed Sanders during the interview. "It does back up the fact that the administration was wiretapping American citizens," she countered. ABC News notes a rep for Obama framed his denial thusly: "No White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice. As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any US citizen." Sanders doesn't buy that line of thinking: "You don't get to just wash your hands of something, whether it's the Justice Department under which you control, which would have fallen under this administration." (More President Trump stories.)