President Trump's unraveling claims that his New York offices were wiretapped by the Obama administration continued to shadow him Friday when during a White House meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the president once again defended his surveillance allegations.
"As far as wiretapping by this past administration, at least we have something in common, perhaps,'' Trump said during a joint news conference with the German leader, referencing past disclosures during the Obama administration that Merkel's cellphone had been monitored.
Trump, however, rejected suggestions that the White House also was casting suspicion on Britain's intelligence service for reportedly collaborating with the Obama administration on alleged surveillance of Trump offices.
"We said nothing; all we did was quote a very talented legal mind,'' Trump said, referring to a disputed Fox News account by commentator Andrew Napolitano alleging that President Obama used Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) to conduct Trump surveillance.
British officials repudiated the claim after White House spokesman Sean Spicer on Thursday offered the report as possible evidence that such surveillance had taken place.
The GCHQ characterized the claim as "nonsense, while Prime Minister Theresa May, through a spokesman, described it as "ridiculous.''
"We have made clear to the [U.S.] administration that these claims are ridiculous and that they should be ignored and we have received assurances that these allegations won't be repeated," the spokesman said.
Spicer, following Trump's remarks during the brief Friday news conference, was not yielding.
"I don't think we regret anything," Spicer said. "We just reiterated the fact that we were just simply reading media accounts."
Fox News anchor Shepard Smith said on air just after Trump's press conference that the network cannot confirm Napolitano's account and has "no evidence of any kind" that Trump was under surveillance.
Trump's continued defense of the surveillance allegations come after the claims have been strongly discredited by the bipartisan leadership of both the Senate and House intelligence committees earlier this week.
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