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By David Shepardson | WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump accused predecessor Barack Obama on Saturday of wiretapping him during the late stages of the 2016 election campaign, but offered no evidence for an allegation which an Obama spokesman said was "simply false".

Trump made the accusation in a series of early morning tweets just weeks into his administration and amid rising scrutiny of his campaign's ties to Russia.

"How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!," Trump wrote in one tweet. "I'd bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!"

The remarkable tussle between the current and former presidents just 45 days since the handover of power is the latest twist in a controversy over ties between Trump associates and Russia that has dogged the early days of his presidency.

U.S. intelligence agencies concluded last year that Russia hacked and leaked Democratic emails during the election campaign as part of an effort to tilt the vote in Trump's favor. The Kremlin has denied the allegations.

Trump has accused officials in Obama's administration of trying to discredit him with questions about Russia contacts.

Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis said it had been a "cardinal rule" of the Obama administration that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice.

"Neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false," Lewis said in a statement.

The statement did not address the possibility that a wiretap of the Trump campaign could have been ordered by Justice Department officials.

Trump said the alleged wiretapping took place in his Trump Tower office and apartment building in New York, but there was "nothing found." The White House did not respond to a request to elaborate on Trump's accusations.

AIDES CAUGHT BY SURPRISE

Trump was spending the weekend at his Florida seaside resort, Mar-a-Lago. He was scheduled to meet with Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly before a dinner with officials also including adviser Steve Bannon and White House Counsel Don McGahn, the White House said.

Amid a political storm, Sessions on Thursday announced he would stay out of any probe into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election after it emerged he met last year with Russia's ambassador, although he maintained he did nothing wrong by failing to disclose the meeting.

A Trump spokeswoman said the president spent part of Saturday "having meetings, making phone calls and hitting balls" at his golf course in West Palm Beach.

His supporters, meanwhile, staged small rallies in at least 28 of the country's 50 states, most of which passed off peacefully. But there were clashes in the famously left-leaning city of Berkeley, California, where protesters from both sides hit each other over the head with wooden sticks.

Trump's tweets caught his aides by surprise, with one saying it was unclear what the president was referring to.

Members of Congress said Trump's accusations require investigation or explanation.

Senator Ben Sasse, a Republican, described the allegations as serious and said the public deserved more information. He said in a statement it was possible that Trump had been illegally tapped, but, if so, the president should explain what sort of tap it was and how he knew about it.

U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called Trump's assertion a "spectacularly reckless allegation".

"If there is something bad or sick going on, it is the willingness of the nation's chief executive to make the most outlandish and destructive claims without providing a scintilla of evidence to support them," Schiff said in a statement.

Former Obama adviser Ben Rhodes strongly denied Trump's allegations: "No president can order a wiretap. Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you," Rhodes wrote on Twitter.

RUSSIA SANCTIONS

Trump's administration has come under pressure from Federal Bureau of Investigation and congressional investigations into contacts between some members of his campaign team and Russian officials during his campaign.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said he had no knowledge of any wiretapping but was "very worried" about the suggestion Obama had acted illegally and would also be concerned "if in fact the Obama administration was able to obtain a warrant lawfully about Trump campaign activity."

Several other Republicans again urged an investigation into a series of intelligence-related leaks.

Obama imposed sanctions on Russia and ordered Russian diplomats to leave the United States in December over the country's involvement in hacking political parties in the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election.

Under U.S. law, a federal court would have to have found probable cause that the target of the surveillance is an "agent of a foreign power" in order to approve a warrant authorizing electronic surveillance of Trump Tower.

Several conservative news outlets and commentators have made allegations in recent days about Trump being wiretapped during the campaign, without offering any evidence.

Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, resigned in February after revelations that he had discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia with the Russian ambassador to the United States before Trump took office.

Flynn had promised Vice President Mike Pence he had not discussed U.S. sanctions with the Russians, but transcripts of intercepted communications, described by U.S. officials, showed that the subject had come up in conversations between him and the Russian ambassador.

(Additional reporting by Melissa Fares in West Palm Beach, Florida, Richard Cowan and Steve Holland in Washington and Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee; Writing by Nick Tattersall and Richard Cowan; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Mary Milliken)

WASHINGTON Republicans cleared the first hurdle early on Thursday in their plan for a massive overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system backed by President Donald Trump, despite Democratic concern that the cost of the bill and its impact on the budget remain unknown.

The state of Hawaii requested emergency court intervention on Wednesday to halt a revised executive order from President Donald Trump placing U.S. entry restrictions on refugees and travelers from six Muslim-majority countries.

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump will meet with Main Street community bankers on Thursday to learn more about their difficulties in complying with the tougher Dodd-Frank financial regulations enacted after the 2007-2009 financial crisis.

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Trump claims Obama wiretapped him during campaign; Obama ...

Former president Barack Obama will be the 2017 recipient of the Profile in Courage Award, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation said Thursday.

Former president Barack Obama will be the 2017 recipient of the Profile in Courage Award, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation announced Thursday.

Caroline Kennedy, former ambassador to Japan, and her son, Jack Schlossberg, will present the award to Obama at a ceremony at the Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Dorchester on May 7.

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President Kennedy called on a new generation of Americans to give their talents to the service of the country, Kennedy said in a prepared statement. With exceptional dignity and courage, President Obama has carried that torch into our own time, providing young people of all backgrounds with an example they can emulate in their own lives.

Here is some background on the award:

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Origins: President Kennedys family established it in 1989. The award is presented annually to public servants who have made courageous decisions of conscience without regard for the personal or professional consequences.

It is named for Kennedys 1957 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, which recounts the stories of eight US senators who risked their careers, incurring the wrath of constituents or powerful interest groups by taking principled stands for unpopular positions.

The award: A silver lantern that symbolizes a beacon of hope for the future, according to the foundation. It is modeled after a lantern on the USS Constitution, Old Ironsides.

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How recipients are selected: By a bipartisan 14-member committee that includes US representatives and senators, professors, newspaper editors, and business representatives.

Why Obama: In many ways, President Obama shares a lot of qualities with President Kennedy, Albert Hunt, chairman of the award committee, said in an interview Thursday. He inspired a new generation to political action and tried to usher in a new era of racial reconciliation.

Hunt, a columnist for Bloomberg News, was quick to say that the choice was not a political statement.

The committee is a diverse, bipartisan bunch. In fact, we made the choice back in November, before the election, he said. If we tried to pick one event in [Obamas] presidency to recognize, I dont think we could find one wed all agree on. So, we decided to honor what he represents, rather than a single act.

Some past recipients: Former presidents George H.W. Bush and the late Gerald Ford; senators John McCain and the late Edward M. Kennedy; US representatives Gabrielle Gabby Giffords and John Lewis; and Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy.

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Former president Obama to be honored with John F. Kennedy ...

New York Times

Crown to Publish Books by Barack and Michelle Obama New York Times Crown is honored to continue its publishing relationship with President Obama and Mrs. Obama, both of whom are transformative figures in today's world, Maya Mavjee, the president and publisher of Crown Publishing Group, said in a statement. They ... New Obama books to be published by imprint of previous booksABC News all 23 news articles »

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Crown to Publish Books by Barack and Michelle Obama - New York Times

In the midst of the raging controversies over secret surveillance and new healthcare plans, there were some curious and unsettling sightings in the coverage. Individuals once thought to have passed from political existence reappeared to hold forth on the very subjects of their demise.

In ancient times such figures were called druagr or, in Old Norse, revenant. The two most recent revenants were James Clapper and Jonathan Gruber. They are ample proof that no one really dies in Washington; their scandals just fade away.

Clapper on Surveillance Programs

James Clapper is being widely quoted as proof that President Donald TrumpDonald TrumpWash. judge upholds fines for faithless electors Is Trump throwing Ukraine to the Kremlin sharks? Republican state strength will withstand Democrat lawsuits MORE was lying in saying that there was surveillance of Trump Tower carried out by President Barack ObamaBarack ObamaPence dodges on whether he believes Obama wiretapped Trump Tower Graham says he would subpoena for evidence on Trump wiretap claim Republican state strength will withstand Democrat lawsuits MORE. Clapper went public to say categorically that no such surveillance operations occurred. That ended the issue for many in the media. After all, as the former Director of National Intelligence, Clapper would know right?

Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!

When then-National Intelligence Director James Clapper appeared before the Senate, he was asked directly, Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans? Clapper responded, No, sir. Not wittingly.

Note this was not a situation like the controversy over Attorney General Jeff SessionsJeff SessionsArmstrong Williams op-ed: America will have to deal with Putin's Russia long after Trump leaves office Huntsman accepts ambassadorship to Russia: report Put Trump under oath MORE who went beyond a question asked him about how he would respond to any collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. Sessions voluntarily stated that he had no interaction with Russians in responding but failed to mention two brief meetings with the Russian ambassador.

Sessions insisted that he was thinking of campaign discussions not any meeting with any Russian at any time. In comparison, Clapper denied a direct question about the existence of a program that he was fully aware of and the question itself was all too clear.

"3 reasons to take Trump's wiretapping claims at his word ... for now" https://t.co/L7wIXXQRNB pic.twitter.com/na7j5zTs7B

Clapper later admitted that he did not want to answer the question and said that his testimony was the least untruthful statement he could make. Yet, of course, that would still make it an untrue statement which most people call a lie and lawyers call perjury.

What was particularly disturbing was the portrayal of Clapper and the Obama administration generally as denying that the administration would ever surveil political opponents in such a matter. This is the same administration that hid the massive secret surveillance program and put journalists under surveillance. Clapper himself played the most controversial role in misleading Congress on the existence of the program.

Unless media is looking for the least untruthful answer, Clapper would hardly seem a compelling witness on the existence of surveillance operations. This is not to say that the media was wrong in asking Clapper about the alleged surveillance given his earlier position. However, he has emerged apparently shed of his highly controversial history.

Gruber on Healthcare

With the move to repeal and replace ObamaCare, various media outlets turned to MIT professor Jonathan Gruber who is widely referred to as an architect of Obamacare. Gruber promptly denounced the replacement of the law and warned that it could result in 30 million people losing health insurance coverage. He previously juxtaposed "a strong and coherent health care agenda" of President Obama as opposed to Trump's "garbage salad of right-wing talking points.

Grubers resurrection as an architect of ObamaCare is impressive even by Washington metrics. It was not long ago that no one in the Obama administration appeared to know Grubers name. While a key person in the drafting of ObamaCare (who received $400,000 to work on Obamacare andmade over $2 million from the Department of Health and Human Services), Gruber became persona non grata after he spoke frankly about what was something of a bait-and-switch used to pass Obamacare.

Gruber told an audience at the University of Rhode Island in 2012 that they were able to pass Obamacare because of the lack of economic understanding of the American voter.

In another view from at an October 2013 event at Washington University in St. Louis, Gruber said that passed, because the American people are too stupid to understand the difference. Likewise, in 2009, Gruber denied that they were really trying to reduce costs as opposed to increase coverage saying that Obamacare might not produce lower cost health care for many citizens. This statement was made five months before the passage of the Act but not publicly known until long after passage.

Following these and other remarks, Democratic leaders suddenly began saying Gruber who? Democratic minority leader Nancy Pelosi expressed a complete lack of knowledge of who Gruber is, was, or will be. The Obama administration denied that he was really all that important after all.

So, with the move to repeal and replace, who surfaces to evaluate the proposals? The man who said that he and others secured passage of ObamaCare in part on the basis of the stupidity of the American citizen. Suddenly he is an architect again and a reliable source.

"GOP's health plan isn't perfect, but tackles ObamaCare's biggest flaws" https://t.co/fMLudX0gUa pic.twitter.com/V03KvGUOkx

What is fascinating is that there are ample reasons to question both the surveillance allegations and the proposals for a new healthcare system. Yet, there is no interest in the rather checkered history of either of these key players from the prior administration.

There are, of course, Republican revenants who seemed to rise Phoenix-like from their political ashes like Gov. Chris Christie or Gov. Rick Perry. Yet, the use of revenants like Clapper and Gruber reflects the limited attention span of modern media coverage.

It is too much to expect that the credibility of a former official would be relevant for a revenant, particularly when they fit a narrative of a story. It is Washingtons version of soap opera characters: major figures can suddenly return to life with a simple change in storyline like being found on a desert island or defrosted in some cryogenic lab.

The Obama administration itself had controversies of the veracity of statements on surveillance and health care. That does not make the statements of Trump or his administration any more true. As the New York Times new ad campaign states, Truth is hard to find. But it is all the more difficult when you are looking in all the wrong places.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University.

The views of contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.

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Discredited Obama-era insiders back from the dead to slam Trump - The Hill (blog)

Think what you will of former President Barack Obama, he was a great investor-in-chief.

On March 3, 2009, days before the start of the amazing bull market rally that turns eight this week, he told us that stocks had gotten so cheap they looked like a good deal.

Eight years on, the S&P 500 Index SPX, -0.23% is up 249%. Its posted a compound annual growth rate that would make Warren Buffett smile: 13%.

Now that the market has risen so much, apparently on expectations of business-friendly reforms from President Donald Trump, Id love to know what Obama thinks about whether to buy or sell, given his record.

Alas, we dont know his market view. The truth is, whatever he thinks might be tainted by partisanship. Theres a lot of that going around now. As an investor, you should try to avoid this pitfall, especially if you are on the left. Buffett, who backed Hillary Clinton, recently quipped that for half of his adult life this country had a president he didnt vote for, but that never kept him out of stocks.

But it feels like its time to sell. After all, Trump appears unpredictable, to put it mildly. And at least two signals are telling us to be cautious about this rally.

1. Insiders are bleak

We may no longer have Obama to help us with market guidance, but we can turn to other higher-ups: corporate insiders. The news is bleak for bulls. Insiders are selling this rally hard so hard theyre driving insider sentiment into extremely bearish territory.

Read: In stocks, nearly every type of active manager got worse at their job in 2016

The selling has pummeled an eight-week sell-buy ratio tracked by Vickers Weekly Insider, which analyzes insider activity. It is up to 6.3 from around 3 at the start of November. Insiders have continually stepped up selling, relative to buying, in the post-election rally. The current sentiment reading is solidly bearish, says David Coleman, of Vickers Weekly Insider.

2. Investors may be too bullish

I like to watch investor sentiment for contrarian signals. After all, the best time to buy is when investors are frightened. And a good time to sell is when investors are exuberant. This means there are fewer people left to come in to buy your shares and drive them higher. Besides, in the market, the crowd is often wrong.

Here too, though, we see bad news for bulls. Various sentiment measures I track show lots of optimism.

The Investors Intelligence bull-bear ratio, a measure of stock-newsletter-writer sentiment, rose to 3.82 last week. Generally, anything above 4 is a big red flag. The National Association of Active Investment Managers survey shows an allocation to stocks of 102%, the second-highest level on record. Put buying, a signal of bearishness, is low relative to call buying, which signals optimism.

Still too early to dump the Trump bump

Even though insiders are negative and investors are extremely optimistic often a bad combination for bulls its still too early to sell the Trump bump in the market. Heres why.

First, the insiders. Like many investment analysts, Coleman at Vickers Weekly Insider cautions investors against making decisions on the basis of insider sentiment alone. Insiders can be early. Markets can rally for a while even though they are negative.

Next, while sentiment seems very high, its not high across the board. There are several exceptions that suggest we arent at extremes, maintains Bruce Bittles, the chief investment strategist at Baird. I dont think theres enough optimism to overwhelm the trend in the market, which is decidedly bullish. You need more optimism than this to stop a market that has broken out of a trading range. Thats because, for him, the optimism is not deep-seated.

Also see: Bull markets eight-year anniversary reminds us that the Dow rewards the bold

Retail investors, for example, are still relatively cautious, he points out. The number of bulls in the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) survey recently stood at 37.9%, which is below average.

The yield on 10-year Treasury bonds is still around where it was in the fourth quarter of 2016, suggesting bond vigilantes are cautious on economic growth.

And the financial media remain cautious. Journalists are worth watching for a sentiment read, because they are often very good contrarian indicators. Theyre not necessarily dumb. Theyre just good at knowing what people want to read about. That makes them a good reflection of investor mood.

And, tellingly, the mood in the press remains skeptical of this rally. Nobody wants to talk about the market going higher, says Bittles. Every reporter I talk with is trying to get me to say the market is going to go down because of the uncertainty. But the uncertainty is what drives a market higher.

Here, Bittles is referring to the adage: The markets like to climb a wall of worry. Thats another way of saying you need cautious investors on the sidelines to come in and drive your stocks higher. The cautious media mood is telling us thats still the case.

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Opinion: Will Trump top Obama as investor-in-chief? - MarketWatch