Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on Monday said that he received a “sufficient” response from the Trump administration about President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that he was wiretapped by President Barack Obama.
“I’ve talked to all the appropriate people,” he told CNN. “I would say from our conversations, what we’ve gotten are sufficient answers.”
Burr would not say whether there is evidence to back up Trump’s claim, per CNN.
Burr’s comments came the same day that the Justice Department told the House Intelligence Committee that the department needed more time to respond to the committee’s request about Trump’s claim. A spokeswoman for the department said that they needed more time to “review the request in compliance with the governing legal authorities and to determine what if any responsive documents may exist.”
A spokesman for House Intelligence Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA), Jack Langer, suggested in a statement that the committee may subpoena the Justice Department if they do not receive a timely response about Trump’s claim.
“The Department of Justice has asked for more time to comply with the House Intelligence Committee’s request for information related to possible surveillance of Donald Trump or his associates during the election campaign,” Langer said in a statement, per CNN. “We have asked the department to provide us this information before the committee’s open hearing scheduled for March 20. If the committee does not receive a response by then, the committee will ask for this information during the March 20 hearing and may resort to a compulsory process if our questions continue to go unanswered.”
Asked about Trump’s wiretapping claims during the press briefing on Monday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said that Trump cited news reports when discussing his tweet with Spicer.
Logrolling, sandbagging–call it what you will.
Justice Department wants more time to study the request. Intelligence chairs says he has sufficient answers but won’t tell what the answer is. What am I missing here?
I suspect Benghazi will somehow enter into this investigation by the time it’s all wrapped up. It’s all about Benghazi for the Republicans/trump … and emails … and microwaves … and Inspector Gadget … as long as we don’t take anything they say literally.
They need more time to figure out how to formulate and obfuscate “Trumpie made it up” in enough incomprehensible gobbledygook that the rubes continue to believe Obama really did surveil using the microwaves in Turnip Tower, while avoiding legal action for lying themselves…
The President has the vast intelligence community at his disposal. All he has to do is ask for a briefing. Yet he prefers to get his info from “news” publications. Maybe his intelligence briefings should come in the form of a TV news program?