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Until Wednesday, Spicer had steadfastly declined to discuss Trump’s assertion that former President Barack Obama ordered wiretap surveillance of Trump Tower — an act that Trump condemned as a scandal comparable in scale to McCarthyism or Watergate.

Early into Wednesday’s briefing, Spicer stuck to the policy he has followed since the storm broke over Trump’s posts. Asked whether the president was the target of a counterintelligence inquiry, he replied: “I think that’s what we need to find out. There’s obviously a lot of concern.”

But after an aide slipped Spicer a note, he circled back to clarify that “there is no reason to believe there is any type of investigation with respect to the Department of Justice.” The press secretary insisted he was not disavowing the president, who posted his tweets early on Saturday morning from Mar-a-Lago, his resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

“The tweet dealt with wiretaps,” Spicer said. “The other is an investigation. They are two separate issues.”

While the FBI is conducting a wide-ranging counterintelligence investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election, there is no public evidence that Trump is a target. The Justice Department defines “target” as someone whom investigators have substantial evidence against and who is likely to be indicted.

Current and former officials have said repeatedly that although they were concerned about intelligence suggesting meetings between associates of Trump and Russian officials, they have developed no evidence of collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia’s hacking efforts. Spicer cited the former director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., who last Sunday made that point on the NBC program “Meet the Press.”