WASHINGTON (Reuters) – FBI Director James Comey on Monday said that neither the Department of Justice nor his own agency had evidence to support a claim by U.S. President Donald Trump that his Trump Tower headquarters had been wiretapped during the 2016 election campaign.
“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 told a congressional hearing.
“And we have looked carefully inside the FBI. 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.
Trump created a controversy in early March when he tweeted without giving evidence that former President Barack Obama’s administration had wiretapped Trump Tower in New York.
(Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu; Writing by Alistair Bell; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Bill Trott)