Note: The Guardian got around to defending their reporting. They are sticking by their report and have the same explanation for James Clapper’s comments as below.

The political spinners are working overtime on one of Trump’s more explosive tweet storms. I went into some detail on the investigation, sourced by reporting from major news organizations which, to my knowledge, have made no material changes to those reports. From what is public, Trump did appear to go too far when claiming the Obama administration wire tapped him or his tower, but there is a serious basis for his assertion. Yet, immediately news organizations and politicians claimed that there was no basis or evidence for the claim. Almost all of these responses, however, do not rebut any of the earlier reports, and some in fact indicate that it is very likely that the surveillance occurred.

The first comes from Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis.

“A cardinal rule of the Obama Administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice,” Obama spokesperson Kevin Lewis said in a statement on Saturday. “As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false”

The idea that US citizens were never surveilled under President Obama is simply false. So instead this does not appear to be a denial that there was surveillance, but that it was not ‘ordered’ by President Obama or any White House official. Depending on the definition of ‘order,’ this statement could be essentially meaningless. In normal circumstances it would not be his role to make the determination to wiretap in an individual case. Further, it implies that there was an investigation led by the DOJ and could very well mean that Obama ordered the investigation, just not specifically the surveillance.

Political lackeys also jumped to Obama’s defense, such as former deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes on Twitter with, ‘No president can order a wiretap.’ Just one of many such echoes of Obama’s statement, it does not deny that anyone in Trump’s camp was wiretapped, but just denies that the president ‘ordered’ it.

The seemingly strongest rebuttal came from former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper. He directly claims ‘there was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president-elect at the time as a candidate or against his campaign.’ However, what is ‘such wiretap activity?’ Well it is clarified to specifically mean a wiretap on Trump Tower, not a wiretap against anyone in the Trump campaign. So a seemingly blanket denial is actually just a specific denial that the Trump Tower was bugged. Am I being too pedantic? Perhaps, but this interpretation is given strength due to his silence for the past month or so when these reports were coming out. If multiple media outlets falsely reported FISA warrants on members of Trump’s campaign, why wait until now to rebut them?

The most recent news comes from the NYT alleging that FBI Director James Comey is attempting to have the DOJ put out an official statement rebutting the story. There hasn’t been an official statement, so it is unknown what exactly he wishes to correct the record on. Further, his hesitance to put one out without coordinating with the DOJ is evidence that there are complications to a blanket denial. In other words, this is most likely seeking to correct specific inaccuracies, such as the Trump Tower was targeted, rather than rebutting the news reports of FISA warrants on Trump’s associates.

Right now public reporting broadly supports Trump’s complaint, though perhaps not some of the specific details. The White House has called for an investigation of the matter and is now stating they will not comment on the issue until the investigation is complete. A little more sobriety than allowed by 140 characters is definitely required, so this is probably a positive development. A full investigation needs to take place post haste.