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British Intelligence: Linking Us To Trump Wiretapping Is 'Ridiculous'

British Intelligence: Linking Us To Trump Wiretapping Is 'Ridiculous'

British intelligence has blasted as "nonsense" an accusation leveled by White House spokesman Sean Spicer that former President Barack Obama used U.K. spies to wiretap Donald Trump during the presidential campaign.

At the White House press conference Thursday, Spicer referred to the theory, which had originally been presented on Fox News. In a TV appearance on "Fox & Friends," Andrew Napolitano, a former judge and current Fox analyst, accused the Government Communications Headquarters — the U.K.'s version of the National Security Agency — of spying on Trump.

GCHQ blasted the claim in a rare public statement Thursday. "Recent allegations made by media commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano about GCHQ being asked to conduct 'wire tapping' against the then President Elect are nonsense," said the statement provided to the British press and American journalists. "They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored."

A British government source had told Reuters earlier in the week that the Fox story was "frankly, absurd."

Spicer's comments were surprising and risked antagonizing a key American ally. At the press conference, he quoted Napolitano as saying that "three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command. He didn't use the NSA, he didn't use the CIA, he didn't use the FBI, and he didn't use the Department of Justice; he used GCHQ."

Obama was able to obtain Trump's conversations through British intelligence and "there's no American fingerprints on this," said Spicer, adding: "Putting the published accounts and common sense together, this leads to a lot."