WASHINGTON – With questions still swirling over President Donald Trump's unsubstantiated claims that he was wiretapped on orders of President Barack Obama, the Justice Department on Thursday declined to confirm statements a day earlier from the White House that Trump was not the target of a counterintelligence investigation.
Officials also said the White House had not relied on any information from the Justice Department in offering a statement denying the existence of an investigation.
The White House spokesman, Sean Spicer, told reporters on Wednesday that "there is no reason to believe there is any type of investigation with respect to the Department of Justice" or " that the president is the target of any investigation whatsoever."
But a Justice Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said that there was no indication that anyone at the Justice Department had given the White House that assurance.
Asked whether Trump was in fact the target of an investigation, the official offered a "no comment."
In normal circumstances, a "no comment" from the Justice Department on the status of any investigation would be standard practice. But the controversy generated by Trump's posts on Twitter last weekend about being wiretapped — which Obama and others have strongly denied — has generated intense scrutiny of every word on the matter.
James Comey, the FBI director, asked the Justice Department after Trump's posts to publicly refute the notion that Trump Tower or Trump had been wiretapped. But the Justice Department has declined to do so.
