There’s Zero Evidence Obama Tapped Trump’s Phones — but Trump is Calling for An Investigation Anyway

This article originally appeared on VICE News.

One day after claiming, without evidence, that his predecessor Barack Obama tapped phones at Trump Tower during the election, President Trump called for congressional intelligence committees to investigate.

In a statement released Sunday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer called for congressional investigative committees to look into whether an Obama-led, "politically motivated investigation" took place. "President Donald J. Trump is requesting that as part of their investigation into Russian activity, the congressional intelligence committees exercise their oversight authority to determine whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016," Spicer said in the statement. He also took to Twitter:

Representatives of the Obama administration have denied the allegations of wiretapping. "A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice," Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis said in a statement Saturday. "As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false."

The president can't order a wiretap for political purposes, as Trump is claiming. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) approves taps on communications from abroad. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who served under Obama for six years, said Sunday morning on NBC's "Meet the Press" that, if there had been a FISA order to investigate Trump during the election, that he would have known about it — and there wasn't one.

Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, a Republican, issued a statement on Twitter Saturday, calling for the president to clarify his claims and for a transparent investigation into the allegations:

Donald Trump took to Twitter Saturday to unleash an evidence-free rant accusing former president Barack Obama of tapping his phones and engaging in a "Nixon/Watergate"-style plot against him.

To be clear: there's zero evidence that this occurred and any wiretap would not be approved by the president — the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) approves taps on communications from abroad, for example. The Washington Post, however, suggests that Trump may have been referring to story on the conservative website Breitbart, in which conservative radio host Mark Levin accuses the Obama administration of "police state" tactics. Axiosalso noted the possible connection to the Breitbart story.

The Washington Post's Robert Costa tweeted this morning that "Several Trump advisers woke up this morning surprised by the president's tweets. They weren't told of his plans, a 2nd official says."

Here are Trump's tweets from Saturday morning:

Trump's tweets alleging a vast conspiracy were followed by another shot at Arnold Schwarzenegger:

— Alex Lubben