{"id":9155,"date":"2017-04-24T18:32:20","date_gmt":"2017-04-24T18:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/?p=9155"},"modified":"2017-04-24T18:32:20","modified_gmt":"2017-04-24T18:32:20","slug":"trump-accuses-former-president-obama-of-wiretapping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/2017\/04\/24\/trump-accuses-former-president-obama-of-wiretapping\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump accuses former President Obama of wiretapping"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>William H. Kelly III
\n<\/strong>Editor-in-Chief<\/em><\/p>\n

Drama via social media continues to be a trend and for 45th President of the United States Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

On March 4, Trump accused former President Barack Obama of spying on him. Trump began tweeting at approximately 5:35 a.m. to his now 26.9 million followers, blaming the former president of wiretapping the Trump Tower in a series of four tweets.<\/p>\n

\u201cTerrible! Just found out that Obama had my \u201cwires tapped\u201d in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!\u201d said Trump via Twitter.<\/p>\n

Trump continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it legal for a sitting President to be \u201cwire tapping\u201d a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump goes on to add that the former president was \u201ctapping his phones in October, prior to election\u201d and that this is the \u201cnew Nixon\/Watergate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obama immediately responded with a statement through his representative and spokesperson, Kevin Lewis stating, \u201cNeither Barack Obama nor any White House official under Obama ever ordered surveillance of any U.S. citizen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lewis went on to say that the Obama administration\u2019s \u201ccardinal rule\u201d was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice.<\/p>\n

Jasmine Holmes, a sophomore business major from Ridgeland, Miss., disagrees with Trump\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump\u2019s entire argument was stupid and irrelevant. For him to say jail time, that\u2019s bogus,\u201d said Holmes.<\/p>\n

Natalie Nicholson, a senior history and political science major from Memphis, Tenn., is tired of the drama.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time CNN alerts come to my phone it\u2019s nonsense. Obama wiretapping the Trump Tower\u2026seriously for what reasons would Obama, who doesn\u2019t have to associate himself in the political arena anymore, have to wiretap the Trump Tower? Trump is focused on every thing but the right things,\u201d said Nicholson.<\/p>\n

Over the course of approximately three weeks since the tweets were made, Trump and Press Secretary Sean Spicer have updated \u201cfacts\u201d on the accusations made and the motive behind it.<\/p>\n

According to Trump, who spoke on Fox\u2019s Tucker Carlson Tonight, there was no actual evidence but instead he was influenced by an article about wiretapping in general.<\/p>\n

Trump and Spicer also suggested a theory that Trump did not intend to literally accuse Obama of actual wiretapping.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t forget, when I say \u2018wiretapping,\u2019 those words were in quotes,\u201d Trump told Carlson. \u201cThat really covers, because wiretapping is pretty old-fashioned stuff. But that really covers surveillance and many other things. And nobody ever talks about the fact that it was in quotes, but that\u2019s a very important thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

More recently, FBI Director James Comey released at a House Intelligence Committee hearing that no evidence was found that supported Trump\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith respect to the President\u2019s tweets about alleged wiretapping directed at him by the prior Administration, I have no information that supports those tweets and we have looked carefully inside the FBI,\u201d Comey said.<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cThe Department of Justice has asked me to share with you that the answer is the same for the Department of Justice and all its components. The Department has no information that supports those tweets.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

William H. Kelly III Editor-in-Chief Drama via social media continues to be a trend and for 45th President of the United States Donald Trump. On March 4, Trump accused former President Barack Obama of spying on him. Trump began tweeting at approximately 5:35 a.m. to his now 26.9 million followers, blaming the former president of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9155","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-campus-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}