--- title: Donald Trump Wiretap Claim Dismissed by FBI Head James Comey description: The Department of Justice and the FBI have "no evidence" to support President Trump's unfounded claim that Barack Obama wiretapped him. canonical: https://time.com/4706720/james-comey-donald-trump-barack-obama-wiretap/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-03-20T15:29:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T03:55:45.142Z article:section: Politics og:title: FBI Director: There's 'No Evidence' Obama Wiretapped Donald Trump og:description: "I have no information that supports those tweets" og:url: https://time.com/4706720/james-comey-donald-trump-barack-obama-wiretap/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt140414dd5428e3b2/6988bf134dd215a63defe300/comey.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2000 og:image:height: 1125 og:image:alt: US-INTELLIGENCE-POLITICS-RUSSIA og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: FBI Director: There's 'No Evidence' Obama Wiretapped Donald Trump twitter:description: "I have no information that supports those tweets" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt140414dd5428e3b2/6988bf134dd215a63defe300/comey.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # FBI Director James Comey Says There's 'No Evidence' Obama Wiretapped Donald Trump > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Ryan Teague Beckwith](https://time.com/author/ryan-teague-beckwith/) ## Ryan Teague Beckwith Mar 20, 2017 3:29 PM UTC  FBI Director James Comey speaks during the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on Russian actions during the 2016 election campaign, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on March 20, 2017. FBI Director James Comey speaks during the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on Russian actions during the 2016 election campaign, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on March 20, 2017. Nicholas Kamm—AFP/Getty Images by [Ryan Teague Beckwith](https://time.com/author/ryan-teague-beckwith/) ## Ryan Teague Beckwith Mar 20, 2017 3:29 PM UTC The Department of Justice and the FBI have “no evidence” to support [President Trump’s unfounded and widely-dismissed claim](http://fortune.com/2017/03/04/president-trump-obama-wiretapping-trump-tower/) that Barack Obama wiretapped him, [FBI Director James Comey](http://time.com/4706646/fbi-russia-james-comey-testimony/) said Monday. Speaking at a hearing of the House Intelligence Committee, Comey confirmed what [top Republican lawmakers](http://time.com/4705124/donald-trump-wiretapping-republicans/), Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Obama’s camp representatives have said about Trump’s claims, which [were first tweeted](http://time.com/4691226/barack-obama-president-donald-trump-wiretap/?iid=sr-link2) earlier this month. “With respect to the President’s tweets about alleged wiretapping directed at him by the prior Administration, I have no information that supports those tweets and we have looked carefully inside the FBI,” Comey said. “The Department of Justice has asked me to share with you that the answer is the same for the Department of Justice and all its components. The Department has no information that supports those tweets.” Comey reiterated that any wiretapping of a U.S. citizen would require a “rigorous, rigorous process that involves all three branches of government” and has been in place since the 1970s. He said that “no president could” unilaterally order that kind of wiretapping. There was only one issue on which Comey demurred. Asked about a tweet from Trump which claimed that Obama was “turned down” by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for a request to do the surveillance, Comey said he could not comment “one way or another” on that subject, but said not to read too much into his non-response. > [](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/837993273679560704) At the same hearing, National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers also shot down the White House’s repeat of a claim from a conservative pundit that Obama might have asked British intelligence to wiretap Trump. “That would be expressly agains the construct of the Five Eyes agreement that’s been in place for decades,” he said. The British spy service GCHQ had previously [rebuffed the claim](http://time.com/4704774/donald-trump-barack-obama-gchq/), calling it “utterly ridiculous.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4706720/james-comey-donald-trump-barack-obama-wiretap/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4706720/james-comey-donald-trump-barack-obama-wiretap/"},"headline":"FBI Director James Comey Says There's 'No Evidence' Obama Wiretapped Donald Trump","datePublished":"2017-03-20T15:29:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T03:55:45.142Z","description":"\"I have no information that supports those tweets\"","url":"https://time.com/4706720/james-comey-donald-trump-barack-obama-wiretap/","keywords":["intelligence","russia","Congress","FBI","Donald Trump","James Comey","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt140414dd5428e3b2/6988bf134dd215a63defe300/comey.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Ryan Teague Beckwith","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/ryan-teague-beckwith/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt140414dd5428e3b2/6988bf134dd215a63defe300/comey.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"US-INTELLIGENCE-POLITICS-RUSSIA","caption":"US-INTELLIGENCE-POLITICS-RUSSIA","creditText":"Nicholas Kamm—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/intelligence/","name":"intelligence"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4706720/james-comey-donald-trump-barack-obama-wiretap/","name":"FBI Director James Comey Says There's 'No Evidence' Obama Wiretapped Donald Trump"}}]}] ```