Obama spokesman denies Trump's wiretap allegation

PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska is calling on President Donald Trump to explain himself following the Saturday morning Twitter allegations that his phones were tapped on orders of former President Barack Obama during last year's campaign.

President Trump Arrives Back To The White House From Newport News, Virginia
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The tweets provided no evidence, just the allegation. Sasse says Trump should explain himself, "ideally to the full public, and at a bare minimum to the U.S. Senate."

A spokesman for former President Barack Obama says that "neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen." Kevin Lewis says "any suggestion otherwise is simply false."

Trump said in one of a series of angry early morning tweets that he "just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!'

He also compared the alleged events to "Nixon/Watergate" and called Obama a "Bad (or sick) guy."

It's not clear what prompted Trump's outrage.

In recent days, the Breitbart News website has published reports citing other anonymously sourced or unconfirmed reports about Obama administration attempts to investigate Trump campaign ties to Moscow. The Associated Press has not confirmed those reports.

Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that Trump was making "the most outlandish and destructive claims without providing a scintilla of evidence to support them."

Trump is spending the weekend at Mar-a-Lago, his waterfront estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

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