This is about the Obama administration’s spying, and the question isn’t whether it spied.” He added, “The question is who they did spy on, the extent of the spying —
that is, the Trump campaign, the Trump transition, Trump surrogates.”
The Times has reported that several of Mr. Trump’s associates are being investigated for their connections with Russians and
that law enforcement agencies have examined intercepted communications.
“I think the president was not correct, certainly, in saying
that President Obama ordered a tap on a server in Trump Tower,” former Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey said on “This Week.” “However, I think he’s right in that there was surveillance and that it was conducted at the behest of the attorney — of the Justice Department,” through the special court that authorizes eavesdropping on suspected foreign agents inside the United States.
At the same time, he said, “I would be very worried if, in fact, the Obama administration was
able to obtain a warrant lawfully about Trump campaign activity with a foreign government.”
This was hardly the first time Mr. Trump made a shocking accusation without evidence.
And last summer, he asserted that Mr. Obama was “the founder of ISIS.”
The White House remained firm on Sunday even after Mr. Obama’s office denied ordering a wiretap and James R. Clapper Jr., the former director of national intelligence, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press”
that there had been no wiretapping of Mr. Trump or his campaign.
Mr. Trump’s aides — including Mr. Bannon, an anti-establishment figure who has long questioned the motives of parts of the extensive intelligence bureaucracy — have believed for a long time
that the Obama administration colluded with federal investigators who were searching for activity between Russian officials and the Trump campaign surrounding the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails.