Trump Aides Address His Wiretap Claims: 'That's Above My Pay Grade'
By GLENN THRUSH and MAGGIE HABERMANMARCH 7, 2017
WASHINGTON President Trump has no regrets. His staff has no defense.
After weeks of assailing reporters and critics in diligent defense of their boss, Mr. Trumps team has been uncharacteristically muted this week when pressed about his explosive and so far proof-free Twitter posts on Saturday accusing President Barack Obama of tapping phones in Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign.
The accusation and the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, and the former national intelligence director, James R. Clapper Jr., emphatically deny that any such wiretap was requested or issued constitutes one of the most consequential accusations made by one president against another in American history.
So for Mr. Trumps allies inside the West Wing and beyond, the tweetstorm spawned the mother of all messaging migraines. Over the past few days, they have executed what amounts to a strategic political retreat trying to publicly validate Mr. Trumps suspicions without overtly endorsing a claim some of them believe might have been generated by Breitbart News and other far-right outlets.
more
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/us/politics/trump-wiretap-claim-obama.html?emc=edit_th_20170308&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=57435284&_r=0