The White House is continuing to stand by President Donald Trump's insistence that former President Barack Obama wiretapped his phones at Trump Tower in New York.
Spokesman Sean Spicer faced off Thursday against a roomful of reporters who wanted to know why Trump keeps insisting it is true even after top lawmakers on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees say it never happened. He accused the journalists of "mischaracterizing" what happened in the Senate committee.
He also accused reporters of "cherry picking" what they choose to cover, and of ignoring House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes who said it was "very possible" there was surveillance of Trump. But Nunes said he does not believe Trump's phones were tapped.
Spicer said Trump put the word "wiretap" in quotes in his original Twitter accusation. Spicer said that means there was widespread surveillance if not actual phone taps.
But the two top senators on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Republican Richard Burr and Democrat Mark Warner, said Thursday: “Based on the information available to us, we see no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government either before or after Election Day 2016.”
Their statement followed one from House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, who also dismissed the president's explosive claim March 4 that Obama ordered the eavesdropping. "We've cleared that up, that we see no evidence of that," Ryan said.
Trump, however, told Fox News late Wednesday that he "very soon" will produce evidence of Obama's actions. Top leaders of the House Intelligence Committee said Wednesday that Trump's allegation is unfounded, but the president said his administration "will be submitting things" to the panel and that he perhaps will be speaking about his claim next week.
"You're going to find some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next two weeks," Trump said.
Obama dismissed the allegation as "simply false," and Trump since then has not substantiated his claim until the Fox interview.
One key U.S. senator, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said, "I'm going to get to the bottom of this. Congress is going to flex its muscle."
He vowed, if need be, to subpoena the FBI to determine whether any U.S. judge issued a secret wiretapping edict that the FBI carried out.
白宫继续坚持川普总统的说法，就是前总统奥巴马曾下令窃听他在纽约川普大厦的电话。
白宫发言人斯派塞周四面对的满屋记者们想知道为什么在参众两院情报委员会的重要议员表示没有迹象显示川普大厦受到监视时，川普仍坚持窃听一说。斯派塞指责记者们对参议院委员会的情况作出“错误解释”。
他还指责记者们“只挑选”他们想要报道的东西，而忽视了众议院情报委员会主席努涅斯所说的“很可能”发生了对川普的监视。不过努涅斯说，他不认为川普的电话被窃听。
斯派塞说，川普最初在他的推文中把单词“窃听”加上引号，这意味着有广泛监视的意思，如果不是实际上的电话监听。
但参议院情报委员会的两位资深议员，共和党人理查德·伯尔和民主党人马克·沃纳周四表示：“根据我们可以得到的信息，我们没有看到在2016年的选举日之前或之后川普大厦是美国政府任何部门的监视对象。”
在他们发表声明之前，众议院议长保罗·瑞恩也回应川普总统在3月4号推出的有关奥巴马下令窃听的爆炸性指称说，“我们已经清楚的是，我们没有看到有关证据。”
但是川普总统周三晚些时候告诉福克斯资讯，他“很快”会提出奥巴马这一动作的证据。众议院情报委员重要议员星期三表示，川普的指控没有根据，但是川普说，他的政府将向众议院情报委员会“提交东西”，而且他可能在下周谈论有关问题。
川普说，“今后两周里你们会看到一些非常有趣的情况浮上台面。”
奥巴马驳斥这一指控是“纯属捏造”。川普自发推后一直没有重提他的说法，直到这次在福克斯的采访中。
美国参议院一名关键的议员、南卡罗来纳州的林赛·格雷厄姆说：“我要把这事查个底朝天，国会将大展拳脚。”
他誓言如有必要，将传讯联邦调查局，确定他们是否执行了任何法官下达的秘密窃听令。