President Donald Trump wrote about the unauthorized data collection on Twitter on Tuesday. | Susan Walsh/AP Photo Trump calls unauthorized NSA collection of data ‘a disgrace’

President Donald Trump suggested Tuesday that the National Security Agency had violated Americans’ privacy through unauthorized collection of phone and text message data, seemingly attempting to tie the data collection to the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller.

“Wow! The NSA has deleted 685 million phone calls and text messages. Privacy violations?” the president wrote on Twitter Tuesday. “They blame technical irregularities. Such a disgrace. The Witch Hunt continues!”


The NSA announced late last month that it was deleting improperly collected phone and text message records that date back as far as 2015, according to The Associated Press. The agency blamed “technical irregularities” for the unauthorized collection of data. In its June 29 statement announcing the deletion, the NSA said it had addressed its processes to fix the problem that allowed the records to be collected in the first place.

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There is no known connection between the NSA’s deletion of communications records and Mueller’s probe, which Trump generally refers to as a “witch hunt.” The president did not make clear in his tweet what connection he was alleging.

The White House did not immediately respond to an email seeking clarity on the connection between the NSA and the Mueller probe and what, exactly, Trump believes to be a “disgrace” — the collection of the data or its deletion.