Today in “fake news from the Trump administration.”

Yesterday, Trump claimed that the Obama administration tapped his phones during the election, presumably to gather information about him for the purposes of blackmail and other efforts to thwart his election bid. There is no evidence for this, of course.

But that didn’t stop him from doubling down today, going as far as to have Press Secretary Sean Spicer release a statement demanding a Congressional investigation into whether President Obama abused his authority during the election. The statement was also reproduced in a series of tweets from Spicer’s account.

Presidents can’t actually order wiretaps, by the way. And where did this claim come from? Breitbart and conservative talk radio hosts. Obviously, very reliable sources.

According to the New York Times:

> > On Sunday, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the deputy White House press secretary, said the president was determined to find out what had really happened, calling it potentially the “greatest abuse of power” that the country has ever seen. > > > > “Look, I think he’s going off of information that he’s seen that has led him to believe that this is a very real potential,” Ms. Sanders said on ABC’s “This Week” program. “And if it is, this is the greatest overreach and the greatest abuse of power that I think we have ever seen and a huge attack on democracy itself. And the American people have a right to know if this took place.” > >

Indeed, the “greatest overreach and the greatest abuse of power that I think we have ever seen and a huge attack on democracy itself” would be a tremendous deal, had it actually happened, and was it not instead the product of the conspiratorial minds of people with zero credibility and an incurable persecution complex.

Suffice it to say, law enforcement and intelligence officials who worked for the Obama administration deny any such activities took place.

Photo by DonkeyHotey