In a court filing on Friday night the Justice Department said there is no evidence to support President Donald Trump's assertions that former President Barack Obama wiretapped phone inside Trump Tower.
"Both FBI and NSD confirm that they have no records related to wiretaps as described by the March 4, 2017 tweets," the motion said, according to CNN. NSD refers to the national security division of the Justice Department. "The motion came in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by a group pushing for government transparency, American Oversight," CNN reported.
In March the president made the absurd claims and ironically it all started with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, as Salon has previously reported. After Sessions recused himself, right-wing radio host Mark Levin said, "the incredible scandal here is the Obama administration was investigating top officials in the Trump campaign, maybe even Trump himself — during the course of the election!"
Hours later the comments were picked up by alt-right website that is once again being run by Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon. The Breitbart article was placed "in Trump’s daily reading pile shortly before the president sent out his wiretap tweets the next morning."
Trump then tweeted, "Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!"
"How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!" Trump wrote in another tweet.
"I'd bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!" he also tweeted.
American Oversight, the group that received the motion from a FOIA request, said in a statement, "The FBI and Department of Justice have now sided with former Director Comey and confirmed in writing that President Trump lied when he tweeted the former President Obama 'wiretapped' him at Trump Tower."
Trump has yet to recant his claims, issue an apology, or otherwise acknowledge that what he said was false.
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