Did Obama WireTape W/House Befor Trump Victory

President Donald Trump unleashed a political firestorm with a series of weekend tweets claiming that the Obama White House wiretapped his personal communications as the 2016 election heated up.
“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!,” the president said Saturday via Twitter.
He continued: “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!”
Mainstream media and the U.S. political establishment are saying that Trump’s claims have no basis in reality. And the president has yet to provide clear evidence to back his charge against the Obama administration.
The New York Times reported Sunday that FBI director James Comey is currently working to convince Justice Department officials to make a public statement denying that any such wiretapping occurred. According to the FBI chief, Trump is simply spouting “alternative facts.”
White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday that Trump rejects Comey’s criticism and wants lawmakers to get involved.
“The president wants the truth to come out to the American people, and he is asking that it be done through the House Intelligence Committee and that that be the process that we go through,” the official said.
Whether or not Trump is vindicated in his claim, this is a good opportunity to get all Americans thinking about government surveillance. It’s also a good opportunity for Trump to embarrass himself if his claims turn out to be baseless, so it makes little sense that his detractors wouldn’t want an investigation into the matter if they believe the president’s claims unfounded.
In an opinion piece for The Hill, UC Berkeley School of Law lecturer William Fernholz provides three sound reasons to give the president the benefit of the doubt:
First, if law enforcement officials unsuccessfully applied for a wiretap, as Trump claims, then a government document exists in which federal law enforcement officers swear under penalty of perjury that there was probable cause to believe that Trump had or would commit a serious federal crime. Both liberals concerned with presidential overreach and conservatives concerned about misdeeds of the prior administration would like to see such a document.
Second, if a court eventually did authorize a wiretap, then a United States judge decided prior to the election that there was probable cause to believe that Trump had or would commit a serious federal crime.
Third, even if Trump’s claims are not true, it is a good opportunity for engaged citizens to consider the existing legal protections against government searches of our private information.
Other watchers, like Reason associate editor Scott Shackford, believe Trump is creating a needless distraction. From an article he published Monday:
There is plenty to discuss about problems with how surveillance authorities are granted here in the United States—the incidental collection of our own private data, the opaqueness of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), and the potential for intelligence sharing to be abused domestically to bypass the warrant requirements of the Fourth Amendment.
But none of those policy issues are being brought up in this fight at all. It’s all about Trump vs. President Barack Obama. This fight just turns real surveillance issues into political intrigue and just another tool in the battle over who controls the executive branch. Everything about this issue has been and will continue to be analyzed in the terms of what it all means for Trump—and only Trump.
So far, top fact-checking organizations and members of Congress, including conservative Rep. Trey Gowdy, have said that there’s absolutely no evidence that the president’s claims are true.