Cornered Trump accuses Obama administration of spying on his campaign
Just when US President Donald Trump was facing increasing pressure over allegations of his campaign having a collusion with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign and that he repaid his attorney for paying hush money to a porn actress to keep mum about her alleged sexual encounter with the president more than a decade ago, he came up with a new allegation against the administration of his immediate predecessor Barack Obama.
On Thursday, May 17, Trump cited sources in a tweet to allege that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under Obama spied on his campaign during the 2016 poll campaign and added that the revelation could be "bigger than Watergate", the scandal that had floored president Richard Nixon in the 1970s.
"Wow, word seems to be coming out that the Obama FBI "SPIED ON THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN WITH AN IMBEDDED INFORMANT."Andrew McCarthy says, 'There's probably no doubt that they had at least one confidential informant in the campaign.' If so, this is bigger than Watergate!" Trump said referring to a National Review report by Andrew McCarthy published on May 12.
Wow, word seems to be coming out that the Obama FBI “SPIED ON THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN WITH AN EMBEDDED INFORMANT.” Andrew McCarthy says, “There’s probably no doubt that they had at least one confidential informant in the campaign.” If so, this is bigger than Watergate!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 17, 2018
According to the report, agencies led by Obama monitored Trump's presidential campaign.
This is, however, not the first time that the Obama administration has been charged with spying on the Trump campaign. In 2017, Trump had accused Obama of wiretapping his Trump Tower ahead of the 2016 election.
Trump said in a tweet in March last year: "Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped,' in Trump Tower just before victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!"
The White House later clarified that Trump did not literally mean that the Trump Tower was "wiretapped" and it was rather a general way to describe broad surveillance.
"There is no question that the Obama administration, that there were actions about surveillance and other activities that occurred in the 2016 elections," former White House press secretary Sean Spicer said.
A National Review report mentioned that other sources also pointed out about an FBI spy who met with George Papadopoulos, the low-level campaign adviser who spoke to an Australian diplomat about Russia's possessing damaging information on Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in the 2016 election.