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Former President Barack Obama made a last-minute change to the way wiretapped intelligence is shared Jan. 12, which may have contributed to the proliferation ofleaks plaguing the Trump administration.

Obama changed the way National Security Agency intelligence is shared 8 days before leaving office, which allows globally intercepted communications to be disseminated across the entire intelligence community.

The change was part of a post-9/11 push by the executive branch to increase intelligence sharing, to ensure that NSA analysts do not miss critically important information. The change is simply widening the aperture for a larger number of analysts, who will be bound by the existing rules, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said at the time.

Obama administration officials also scrambled to spread classified intelligence related to Russian meddling in the 2016 election to as many people within the U.S. government as possible. These officials said they spread the intelligence around to ensure Trump administration officials would not be able to quash the investigation. The officials also fought to keep the related intelligence at a low-classified level, giving more officers access to the raw information.

We have people spouting off who dont know the difference between FISA surveillance and a wiretap or a counterintelligence probe versus a special prosecutor criminal case, and it has hurts our ability to get to the truth and has wrongly created the impression that intelligence officials have a political agenda, a U.S. intelligence official told Circa Wednesday.

These globally-intercepted communications included conversations during the presidential transition between thenNational Security Advisor-designate Michael Flynn and Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak. These communications were leaked by elements within the intelligence community to the Washington Post, prompting a government scandal and the resignation of Flynn in disgrace.

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How Are All These Intel Leaks Happening? Look At One Of The Last Things Obama Did Before Leaving Office - Daily Caller

Two people familiar with the matter say Trump's White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and Obama's former White House chief of staff, Denis McDonough, have spoken since Trump claimed, without evidence, that Obama had him wiretapped.

There have also been conversations between other former Obama officials and Trump officials since Saturday.

"There is a dialogue," one person familiar with the conversations said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the talks.

The question is whether these talks among advisers will ultimately lead to a conversation between the 44th and 45th presidents.

Spokesmen for Trump and Obama declined to comment.

Obama was irked and exasperated in response to his successor's uncorroborated wiretapping accusation, sources close to the former president tell CNN, though these sources say Obama's reaction stopped short of outright fury.

Obama and his aides responded with disbelief when they learned of Trump's Saturday morning tweets laying out the charges. Later in the day, an Obama spokesman said "neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any US citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false."

Obama's loyal army of supporters have been far more active in voicing their dissatisfaction with Trump. On social media and television, former aides have been aggressively pushing back on Trump in the first weeks of his presidency.

Presidents Trump and Obama have not spoken since Inauguration Day, when Obama welcomed Trump for coffee in the White House and accompanied him to the US Capitol for the swearing-in ceremony.

The two men had developed what Trump termed a "warm" relationship in the run-up to Trump's inauguration, fostered by an in-person meeting in the Oval Office and several phone conversations.

But people close to both men acknowledge that the bitterness of the presidential campaign, paired with Trump's longstanding antagonism toward Obama regarding his birth certificate, would make a close relationship improbable.

On the weekend that Trump levied his explosive charges, Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, were spotted at the National Gallery of Art in Washington on a private tour of artist Theaster Gates' new exhibition. The President was all smiles when he departed the museum, dressed casually and carrying a bag from the gallery's gift shop.

Asked Monday whether Trump's claims would damage the relationship between the 44th and 45th presidents, White House press secretary Sean Spicer downplayed any tensions.

"I think that they'll be just fine," Spicer said.

CNN's Kate Bennett contributed to this report.

This story has been updated to reflect CNN's latest reporting.

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Trump, Obama haven't spoken since inauguration, but advisers ...

Trump greets former President Barack Obama during the presidential inauguration. | Getty

The former president hits back at the charge, with a spokesman saying, 'Neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen.'

By Eli Stokols

03/04/17 07:45 AM EST

Updated 03/04/17 04:45 PM EST

President Donald Trump, under scrutiny for possible ties between his campaign and Russia and increasingly fixated with rooting out leaks, on Saturday sought to deflect attention by accusing former President Barack Obama of tapping his Trump Tower phones prior to the election.

He offered no evidence to support his claims, which appear to be based on commentary rising in conservative media circles and, above all, the presidents own agitation over the metastasizing Russia controversy.

Story Continued Below

Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my wires tapped in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism! Trump tweeted, as part of a six-tweet screed.

Trump went on to ask, Is it legal for a sitting President to be wire tapping a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!

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! Trump continued, also tweeting, How low has President Obama gone to tapp [sic] my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!

An Obama spokesman forcefully pushed back against the accusation. "A cardinal rule of the Obama Administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice," said Kevin Lewis, an Obama spokesman. "As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false."

Obama's former speechwriter, Jon Favreau, pointed out in a tweet that the former president's avowed lack of involvement does not mean that a legal FISA warrant could not have been granted to tap Trump's phones if the intelligence community had reason to do so. I'd be careful about reporting that Obama said there was no wiretapping. Statement just said that neither he nor the WH ordered it," Favreau tweeted.

Former deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes also tweeted back at Trump: No President can order a wiretap. Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you."

Trumps top aides were caught off guard by the tweets Saturday morning, a senior administration official said. The president was scheduled to spend a quiet day golfing and relaxing at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. After several days without a controversial tweet and a relative message discipline following his speech to Congress on Tuesday evening, Trumps angry Twitter tirade marked a return to form and a trusted tactic of turning around the exact words being used against him on his opponents.

Trumps allegation that Obama carried out Nixon/Watergate-like wire-tapping comes at a time when his own administrations constant leaks and controversies have drawn comparisons to Nixons White House. His complaints of McCarthyism come from a president who was mentored by McCarthy adviser Roy Cohn and whose focus on rooting out undocumented immigrants has troubled critics who fear allegiance tests.

It was not immediately clear what specifically prompted the outburst, but the accusations parrot those made by conservative radio host Mark Levin, who on Thursday evening asserted that Obama used police state tactics to undermine Trump in the last months of his presidential campaign.

Breitbart senior editor Joel Pollak then picked up Levins argument on Friday.

It appears that the crux of that argument comes from reporting that U.S. officials secretly monitored a computer server in Trump Tower to determine whether there were links to Russian banks. A New York Times article published on Jan. 19 just one day before Trumps inauguration reported that U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies had intercepted communications and financial transactions as part of a probe of links between Trumps campaign and Russian officials.

There has been no definitive reporting, however, that any phone lines belonging to the Trump campaign were tapped. If a judge found probable cause to conduct such secret monitoring, it likely would have been after being presented with enough evidence to suspect illegal conduct or communication with a foreign leader.

Trump and his team have been dogged by allegations of contacts between his campaign and Russian intelligence officials that occurred as Russians were allegedly attempting to tilt the election in Trumps favor by hacking Democratic targets.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham told attendees at a raucous town hall in Clemson, South Carolina, that he was "very worried" about the allegations. "The president of the United States is claiming that the former president of the United States ordered wiretapping of his campaign last year, Graham told the crowd. I dont know if its true or not, but if it is true, illegally, it would be the biggest political scandal since Watergate.

After several people in the crowd began to boo and yell, Graham asked them to calm down so he could continue. If the former president of the United States was able to obtain a warrant lawfully to monitor the Trump campaign for violating law, that would be the biggest scandal since Watergate, he said.

Republican Sen. Ben Sasse, who opposed both Trump and Hillary Clinton in the presidential campaign, called the current political atmosphere a "civilization-warping crisis of public trust" after Trump's allegations.

"The president today made some very serious allegations, and the informed citizens that a republic requires deserve more information," Sasse said. "If without [an authorization], the president should explain what sort of wiretap it was and how he knows this. It is possible that he was illegally tapped."

Democrats were also blunt.

"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," said Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. "No matter how much we hope and pray that this president will grow into one who respects and understands the Constitution, separation of powers, role of a free press, responsibilities as the leader of the free world, or demonstrates even the most basic regard for the truth, we must now accept that President Trump will never become that man."

The scandal flared up this week when it was revealed that Attorney General Jeff Sessions met with the Russian ambassador twice last year despite telling senators during his confirmation hearing that he had no communication with the Russians during the campaign.

Sessions was a key adviser to Trumps campaign.

On Saturday morning, Trump attempted to turn the scrutiny to the Obama administration.

The first meeting Jeff Sessions had with the Russian Amb was set up by the Obama Administration under education program for 100 Ambs...... Trump tweeted, adding, Just out: The same Russian Ambassador that met Jeff Sessions visited the Obama White House 22 times, and 4 times last year alone.

Trump's aggressive accusations come as his team has tried to battle numerous leaks regarding law enforcement and intelligence agency investigations into not only allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 election but also potential ties between his campaign and the Kremlin.

Trump has raised eyebrows by repeatedly singling out Russian President Vladimir Putin for praise. National security adviser Michael Flynn had to resign last month for misleading Vice President Mike Pence and others about the nature of his post-election conversations with Russian officials. Trump himself has denied that his people were in regular contact with Russian officials, but the controversy has spawned multiple congressional investigations and has fueled calls for a special prosecutor.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Saturday said the current congressional probes are not enough. The Deflector-in-Chief is at it again. An investigation by an independent commission is the only answer, she tweeted.

Trump finished off his tweetstorm on Saturday with an unrelated parting shot for a rival who has nothing to do with the Russia scandal. A day after Arnold Schwarzenegger blamed Trump for the dismal ratings of his version of "Celebrity Apprentice," Trump tweeted: Arnold Schwarzenegger isnt voluntarily leaving the Apprentice, he was fired by his bad (pathetic) ratings, not by me. Sad end to great show.

It had been less than four full days since he said, in his address to Congress on Tuesday night, that the time for trivial fights is behind us.

Burgess Everett contributed to this report.

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Trump accuses Obama of wire tapping Trump Tower phones

A spokesman for former President Obama issued a strong denial to President Trump's unsubstantiated accusation that the former commander-in-chief wiretapped Trump Tower phones during the election campaign.

"A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice," Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis said in a statement Saturday. "As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false."

The former president was responding to a series of tweets Saturday morning by Trump claiming that Obama wiretapped phones in Trump Tower in New York City during the presidential campaign.

Trump offered no proof for his claims. ABC News has asked the White House for comment but has yet to receive a response.

The president's tweets came after an article ran Friday on the right-wing news site Breitbart claiming that the Obama administration obtained authorization to eavesdrop on the Trump campaign.

Trump in his posts compared the alleged wiretapping to the Watergate scandal under former President Nixon.

He also suggests the possibility of a legal case over the alleged wiretapping.

Later in the morning, Obama's former deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, used Twitter to challenge Trump's claims.

"No president can order a wiretap," Rhodes, who continues to serve as a foreign-policy adviser to Obama post-presidency, said in one tweet. "Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you."

In response to Trump's suggestion that a good lawyer could make the case that Obama tapped his phones, Rhodes tweeted, "No. They couldn't. Only a liar could do that."

Republican Lindsey Graham, who has at times been critical of Trump, mentioned the president's claims during a packed town hall Saturday in the senator's home state of South Carolina.

"I am very worried," Sen. Graham told the crowd. "I'm very worried that our president is suggesting that the former president has done something illegal. I would be very worried if, in fact, the Obama administration was able to obtain a warrant lawfully about Trump campaign activity with a foreign government. So it's my job as the United States senator to get to the bottom of this. I promise you I will."

Democrats in Congress also weighed in.

Rep. Eric Swalwell of California commented on the president's accusation against Obama during an interview on "Fox & Friends."

"First, look, presidents do not wiretap anyone," the Democratic representative said. "These are pursued by the Department of Justice in accordance with the FBI and signed off by a judge."

The congressman continued that "President Trump is not credible when it comes to talking about Russia ... So at this point we don't know what's true and whats not. Im on the [House] Intelligence Committee. Our committee is pursuing its own investigation into prior Trump administration-team ties with Russia. But at this point I think this is just the president up early doing his routine tweeting."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi suggested in a tweet that the president was trying to deflect attention from questions surrounding contacts between members of his election campaign and Russia.

The Deflector-in-Chief is at it again," the California Democrat tweeted. "An investigation by an independent commission is the only answer.

Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden raised the question in a tweet of whether the president had gotten information from the FBI about its investigation of Russian contacts with Trump campaign associates, or whether "Trump is making it up."

"Either way Americans deserve an explanation," the Democratic senator wrote.

The rest is here:
Obama denies Trump's unsubstantiated claim that he wiretapped ...

President Trump has sparked a firestorm by accusing then-President Obama of wiretapping communications in Trump Tower during the 2016 presidential campaign, without providing any evidence for his claim.

But former Obama administration officials are hitting back, saying Obama did not order any wiretap. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said he was not aware of any foreign-intelligence court order authorizing a wiretap.

The White House hasn't given any more details about what Trump was referring to.

Here's what we know (and what we don't) about Trump's unsubstantiated wiretapping allegations:

In a series of tweets early Saturday morning, Trump alleged that Obama had the phones in Trump Tower in New York wiretapped before Election Day.

Trump hasn't provided any more detailed information about his allegations, so it's unclear if he's referring to a FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Court order; a criminal case wiretapping warrant; some kind of rogue extragovernmental action; something he read, saw on television or heard on the radio; or none of the above.

What Trump is saying: Trump's tweets say he "just found out" about "the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October" not adding any qualifiers. Trump hasn't offered any evidence to support his claim.

What the White House is saying: White House communications staffers have struggled to defend Trump's allegations in television appearances over the last 48 hours. Press secretary Sean Spicer tweeted that Trump "is requesting ... the congressional Intelligence committees ... determine whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016" and wouldn't comment further. But on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday, ABC News' Martha Raddatz asked White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders about the claim. "All we're saying is let's take a closer look. Let's look into this. If this happened, if this is accurate, this is the biggest overreach and the biggest scandal," Sanders said. "If, if, if, if," Raddatz replied, pointing out Trump asserted it as a fact. "I will let the president speak for himself," Sanders continued. "He's talking about could this have happened? Did this happen?" On "Good Morning America" today, Sanders told ABC's George Stephanopoulos that Obama's administration "could have done this" and Trump is asking only "that we allow the House Intelligence Committee to do its job."

What other officials are saying: The most pointed refutation of this claim came from Clapper on Sunday. Asked whether he would be aware of any wiretapping of Trump's phones or any FISA Court order authorizing it, Clapper told NBC's "Meet the Press" he "absolutely" would "know that." Then asked whether he could confirm or deny that Trump's phones were wiretapped, Clapper said, "I can deny it." He continued that "not to my knowledge" was there any FISA Court order of anything at Trump Tower. A statement from Obama did not deny any wiretapping of Trump's phones denying only that the White House "ordered" it or "interfered" with any Justice Department investigation. Former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau highlighted that distinction, tweeting, "I'd be careful about reporting that Obama said there was no wiretapping. Statement just said that neither he nor the WH ordered it."

What we don't know: Clapper has denied any "wiretap activity" against Trump from "the part of the national security apparatus that I oversaw" but admitted he "can't speak for other Title III authorized entities in the government or a state or local entity." Neither Obama nor any current Department of Justice official has unequivocally denied that there was any wiretapping. And because any wiretap would be protected under the highest levels of classification, it's not clear how many officials would be in a position to know about it. However, multiple former senior intelligence officials told ABC that in almost every circumstance, Trump would have the authority to ask and find out if he had been wiretapped. The only real circumstance in which he might not be privy to that info is if a warrant was focused on him.

What Trump is saying: In four tweets, Trump directly ties Obama to the alleged wiretapping, saying "Obama had my 'wires tapped'" and "Obama was tapping my phones." Trump hasn't offered any evidence to back those claims.

What the White House is saying: On "Good Morning America" on Monday, Sanders backed off the assertion that Obama was personally responsible, telling ABC News, "Whether it was directly ordered by this president specifically, his administration could have done this." On "This Week" on Sunday, she said "there certainly could have been" a FISA order that Obama did not order. She pointed to thenAttorney General Loretta Lynch's meeting with former President Bill Clinton on a tarmac during a Justice Department investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email server as evidence that Obama "got directly involved" in other investigations. (Lynch and Bill Clinton denied discussing the email case.) Sanders added that even if Obama wasn't involved, it "would have fallen under this administration and this past president."

What Obama is saying: A spokesperson for Obama said, "No White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice," in a statement on Saturday. "Neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false." The statement did not rule out that wiretapping was initiated by the Department of Justice. Former national security adviser Ben Rhodes tweeted a similar sentiment in a response to Trump, writing, "No President can order a wiretap. Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you."

What other officials are saying: FBI Director James Comey asked the Justice Department to publicly refute Trump's assertion that Obama ordered a wiretap of Trump's phones before the election, government sources told ABC News. Comey was concerned the president's tweets which he believes are inaccurate created the impression that the FBI acted improperly, and he wanted to set the record straight, the sources said. The FBI and Department of Justice declined to comment.

What we don't know: While Obama has denied any order or involvement and Comey asked his superiors for a public refutation, it's not clear whether it's possible a Justice Department investigation may have existed independently of Obama's influence or whether these top officials may be choosing not to publicly confirm the existence of such a highly classified and sensitive investigation. And while Clapper has denied the existence of a FISA Court order, we don't know whether there may have been a criminal wiretap warrant outside of a foreign intelligence-related investigation or if a state or local agency was involved.

What Trump is saying: Trump asked via Twitter, "Is it legal for a sitting President to be 'wire tapping' a race for president prior to an election?" He added that Obama was allegedly "turned down by court earlier." He compared the alleged action to "Nixon/Watergate." Trump hasn't offered any evidence supporting his claim.

What the White House is saying: On "This Week," Sanders told Raddatz that if this wiretap happened, "this would be the greatest abuse of power and overreach that's probably ever occurred in the executive branch." And Monday on "Good Morning America," Sanders asserted to Stephanopoulos more generally that "the administration was wiretapping American citizens" and "the fact that it was being done is a fact that we should be talking about." A spokesperson for Obama said, "No president can order a wiretap." The FISA Court has approved over 10,000 requests for electronic surveillance from the Justice Department since 2009.

What other officials are saying: Former Obama senior adviser David Axelrod tweeted, "If there were the wiretap @realDonaldTrump loudly alleges, such an extraordinary warrant would only have been OKed by a court for a reason."

What the law says: A wiretap order on Trump could have been legally obtained from the FISA Court, a secret tribunal with legal authority to grant warrants for electronic surveillance against suspected spies or terrorists. The court made up of 11 federal judges serving seven-year terms and selected by the chief justice of the United States meets in private, sometimes in the middle of the night. FISA targets are highly classified. A FISA Court order is not the only way to authorize a wiretap: Nonintelligence, criminal wiretap warrants can be obtained but require that the individual under surveillance is using the device in connection with a past or possible future crime.

What we don't know: While Clapper has said he's not aware of any foreign-intelligence-related court order and would be aware if there was one and Obama denied ordering a wiretap of Trump, we don't know whether a criminal wiretap order remains sealed or if Trump is alleging as with Richard Nixon and Watergate some kind of extragovernmental group working illegally.

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What we know about Trump's unsubstantiated wiretapping ...