Spicer rebuffs question on whether Trump will offer evidence for refuted wiretap claim

White House press secretary Sean Spicer was noncommittal on Tuesday when asked if President Donald Trump would offer evidence this week to support his unproven, and now publicly refuted, claim that former President Barack Obama illegally tapped his phones at Trump Tower.

“Let’s see how the week goes,” Spicer told reporters at the afternoon briefing.


After other officials had come forward to deny it, FBI Director James Comey formally shot down Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that his predecessor surveilled Trump Tower during the presidential campaign. In what amounted to a public rebuke of the president, Comey clearly said Monday that there is no evidence to support the explosive allegation in the FBI or elsewhere in the Justice Department.

Trump, though, has not yet come forward to renounce the claim, which appeared in some right-wing media sources before he raised it on Twitter in early March.

In an interview last week, Trump told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson that he was standing by the allegation and suggested that he might be speaking about it the following week. Evidence would emerge to support it soon, he offered.

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“I think you're going to find some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next two weeks,” Trump told Fox.

Reminded of those comments by a reporter on Tuesday, though, Spicer did not endorse them.