Comey: FBI Has No Evidence Obama Wiretapped Trump Tower

“The department has no information that supports those tweets.”

Yuri Gripas/Reuters

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Law enforcement officials have found no evidence supporting President Donald Trump’s assertions that former President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower during the 2016 election, FBI Director James Comey said Monday.

“With respect to the president’s tweets about alleged wiretapping directed at him by the prior administration, I have no information that supports those tweets,” Comey said during a House intelligence committee hearing on Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election. “We have looked carefully inside the FBI.”

Comey added that the Justice Department hasn’t turned up any evidence backing Trump’s claims, either. “The Department of Justice has asked me to share with you that the answer is the same for the Department of Justice and all its components: The department has no information that supports those tweets,” he said.

Comey’s remarks on Monday are the latest public rejections of Trump’s wiretapping claims from high-ranking officials, many of whom have called on the president to apologize for the accusation. Trump, however, has refused to back down from his claims, despite increasing pressure from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

At the hearing, when asked by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) whether as part of the Obama administration Comey had engaged in McCarthyism, Comey jokingly responded that he tries “not to engage in any ‘isms’ of any kind, including McCarthyism.”

Moments later, National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers dismissed suggestions by the Trump administration that the Obama administration had asked a British spy agency to conduct surveillance on Trump during the campaign.

“Did you ever request that your counterparts in GCHQ [the British version of the NSA] should wiretap Mr. Trump on behalf of President Obama?”

“No, sir. Nor would I,” responded Rogers.

Schiff then asked if there was any evidence that anyone else in the Obama administration did so.

“No, sir,” Rogers said again. “I have seen nothing on the NSA said that we engaged in such activity, nor that anyone ever asked us to engage in such activity.”

This story has been updated.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate