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THE WHITE HOUSE cited unproven media reports that President Barack Obama asked Britain’s signals intelligence agency, GCHQ, to monitor Donald Trump in order to “make sure there were no American fingerprints.”
Speaking from the White House podium press secretary Sean Spicer quoted at length from a Fox News report, which alleged Obama had used GCHQ to dodge US legal restrictions on monitoring US citizens.
The story was one of several offered by Spicer as evidence to support the president’s explosive claims that Obama had moved to “tap my phones.”
In a series of tweets on March 4, Trump accused Obama of a “Nixon/Watergate”-like plot that would almost certainly break US law.
Members of Congress from both parties who are investigating the claims have found no evidence to support them.
In the Fox report — which came almost two weeks later — Andrew Napolitano claimed that “three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command” to order the tap.
“He didn’t use the NSA, he didn’t use the CIA, he didn’t use the FBI, and he didn’t use the Department of Justice,” Napolitano said, adding that Obama used GCHQ.
Spicer’s citation, in front of the White House seal, raised some eyebrows in London and at the Cheltenham-headquartered agency, which has worked closely with US intelligence for decades.
“Recent allegations made by media commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano about GCHQ being asked to conduct ‘wire tapping’ against the then president-elect are nonsense,” one GCHQ spokesperson told AFP.
They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored.
Britain and the United States are — along with Australia, Canada and New Zealand — part of the “Five Eyes” intelligence sharing alliance forged from the embers of World War II.
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I am really looking forward to seeing Dad tomorrow, except on What’sApp video I haven’t seen him since 6th March, this is the longest we have ever been apart.
@Brianán McBride: I hope you both have a great time.
@Logan Shepherd: thank you Logan.
@Logan Shepherd: happy reunion
@Brianán McBride: I’m getting to see my mum on Wednesday – first time since late February as her nursing home locked down really early. Feels so long ago now. Hope your visit is brilliant Brianan & that your dad stays well xx
@Helen Thornbury: thank you Helen and the very same to you xx
@Brianán McBride: why don’t you take your Dad home to live with you!?
@marian: you pest
@marian: you toxic person
Bawling
No surprise that Middletown House coped so well. Fantastic management and staff. Well done Deepa, Helen and crew.
Great to see such happiness at this time.
Of course not all nursing homes are interpreting the changes in the same way. The one my dad is in is still only doing window visits and even next week it is a single person as the nominated contact who may get in subject to whatever management decide this week. Not easy.
“This is our new reality”
@8-Bit-Relic: Your new reality is whatever you make it yourself ..
have your say