The White House has formally apologized to the British government after Press Secretary Sean Spicer cited a bogus Fox News report that the British intelligence helped Obama spy on Donald Trump.
Video of Spicer using Fox News as a source:
https://youtu.be/59TPpwoCBOY
The Telegraph reported, “The US has made a formal apology to Britain after the White House accused GCHQ of helping Barack Obama spy on Donald Trump in the White House.”
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Reuters added that a spokesman for British PM Theresa May told reporters, “We’ve made clear to the administration that these claims are ridiculous and they should be ignored and we’ve received assurances that these allegations will not be repeated.”
The claim was originally made by Fox News’s Andrew Napolitano:
Napolitano said, “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. What is that? It’s the initials for the British intelligence-finding agency. So, simply by having two people saying to them president needs transcripts of conversations involving candidate Trump’s conversations, involving president-elect Trump, he’s able to get it and there’s no American fingerprints on this. Putting the published accounts and common-sense together, this leads to a lot.”
The British government had already debunked this claim, but Sean Spicer still trusted Fox News over the government of an ally.
The problems are numerous. The White House should not be using media over their own intelligence resources. The President can pick up the phone and clear up anything in a matter of moments, so why is he getting his information from a partisan cable news network?
The Trump White House has forced America to apologize because the person who is running the country is a volatile senior citizen who trusts Fox News more than his own government
Trump was never spied on by Obama, and the White House’s refusal to admit the truth is causing international incidents.
The lesson for all Americans is that they shouldn’t believe everything that they see on Fox News, and hopefully, someone with takeaway President Trump’s TV time before people start losing their lives.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
