Obama wiretapped Trump Tower
| Obama wiretapped Trump Tower | |
|---|---|
| FALSE | |
| "President Barack Obama had Donald Trump's phones in Trump Tower wiretapped before the 2016 election." | |
| Domain | Government, Law & Courts |
| Tactic | Fabrication Conspiracy Theory |
| Era | Current |
| First seen | March 2017 |
| Origin | Posts by President Donald Trump on Twitter on March 4, 2017 |
| Last reviewed | 2026-10-29 |
| Further reading: books on Government, Law & Courts | |
On March 4, 2017, President Donald Trump accused his predecessor of having his "wires tapped" in Trump Tower before the 2016 election. He offered no evidence. FBI Director James Comey told Congress there was no information supporting the claim, and in September 2017 the Justice Department said in a court filing that it had no records of the wiretaps Trump described.
The claim
Trump compared the alleged surveillance to Watergate and called it a new low.
What the evidence shows
- FBI testimony. On March 20, 2017, Comey told the House Intelligence Committee that the FBI and the Justice Department had no information supporting the tweets.
- Court filing. In a September 2017 filing in a public-records lawsuit, the Justice Department said its National Security Division and the FBI had no records related to wiretaps as described in the tweets.
- Presidential power. A president cannot lawfully order a wiretap on his own; surveillance of US persons for intelligence purposes requires a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
- What did exist. The FBI later obtained a surveillance warrant for Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser, in October 2016, after he left the campaign. A 2019 Inspector General report found serious errors in that warrant process. That warrant did not cover Trump Tower or Trump.
See also
Sources
- US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, open hearing with FBI Director James Comey, March 20, 2017.
- US Department of Justice, court filing in American Oversight v. Department of Justice, September 1, 2017.
- US Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, Review of Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane Investigation, December 2019.