Sean Spicer repeated the allegations that GCHQ had helped to spy on Trump (Picture: Reuters)

The US has reportedly formally apologised after the claims were made that the UK had helped Barack Obama to spy on Donald Trump in the run up to his election as president.

In a rare statement, GCHQ rubbished the claims as ‘nonsense’ and ‘utterly ridiculous’ adding that they ‘should be ignored’.

British spies break silence to rubbish ‘utterly ridiculous’ claims by Donald Trump

It was drawn into the controversy when the American president’s official spokesman repeated the allegations.

Now, according to the Daily Telegraph, the US has formally apologised. They said that Mr Spicer and US National Security Adviser General McMaster have apologised over the claims.


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The PM’s spokesman said: ‘We have made clear to the (US) administration that these claims are ridiculous and that they should be ignored and we have received assurances that these allegations won’t be repeated.’



Asked if the allegations posed problems for the special UK-US relationship, he replied: ‘We have a close, special relationship with the White House and that allows us to raise concerns as and when they arise as was true in this case.’

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He added: ‘We have received assurances that these allegations won’t be repeated and this shows the administration doesn’t give the allegations any credence.’

Mr Trump’s spokesman Sean Spicer pointed to comments made on Fox News TV by former judge Andrew Napolitano, who said that Mr Obama did not ask America’s own CIA, FBI or National Security Agency to install wire-taps at Trump Towers, but ‘used GCHQ’.

Donald Trump claimed that he was spied on by Barack Obama via British spy networks (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

When US whistleblower Edward Snowden – a former NSA analyst – claimed the agency had the power to turn people’s mobile phones off and on and switch on the handset microphone to listen to what is happening around them, GCHQ kept quiet.

In BBC Panorama interview two years ago, Snowdon said that GCHQ allows agents to track a subject’s movements with greater than usual accuracy.

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A spokeswoman said at the time: ‘It is long-standing policy that we do not comment on intelligence matters.’

Similarly, when reports surfaced in 2015 suggesting that the spy agency had stolen confidential codes from a Dutch Sim card manufacturer to hack into mobile phones around the world, GCHQ declined to respond.

Yet when a Banksy artwork of 1950s-style agents using devices to tap into conversations at a telephone box appeared in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, just a few miles from GCHQ, the organisation admitted it was the ‘the first time we have ever been asked to comment on art’.

GCHQ doesn’t often speak out, but when it does… (Picture: PA)

A spokesman said: ‘Although we are not qualified critics, we are as intrigued as the rest of the residents of Cheltenham about the appearance of the mysterious artwork.’

The spokesman revealed that ‘modern day intelligence operatives’ may leave people ‘disappointed by the lack of trench coats and dark glasses’.

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GCHQ has become less secretive in recent years with recruitment adverts on pavements and the publication of a puzzle book.

The brain-teaser for amateur code-breakers featured more than 140 pages of codes, puzzles and challenges created by GCHQ’s experts in their spare time.

It followed their Christmas cryptography challenge, which saw some 600,000 people attempt to beat what was dubbed the ‘hardest puzzle in the world’.