Story highlights
- Spicer did not provide further details on the President's request of Congress
- The statement comes a day after Trump accused President Barack Obama of wiretapping his phones
(CNN)President Donald Trump is asking Congress to look into whether the Obama administration abused its investigative powers during the 2016 election, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said in a statement Sunday.
"Reports concerning potentially politically motivated investigations immediately ahead of the 2016 election are very troubling," Spicer said, posting the statement on Twitter. "President Donald J. Trump is requesting that as part of their investigation into Russian activity, the congressional intelligence committees exercise their oversight authority to determine whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016."
Spicer did not provide further details on the President's request of Congress, adding, "Neither the White House nor the President will comment further until such oversight is conducted."
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday that none of the intelligence agencies he oversaw, including the FBI, asked for a wiretap of Donald Trump as a candidate or as President-elect. Clapper added that he could not speak for other government entities, which could have asked for a criminal warrant.
Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday that he's "not sure what it is (Trump) is talking about," but added it's possible that "perhaps the President has information that is not yet available to us or to the public."
Rubio pointed out that the Senate Intelligence Committee is in the process of reviewing Russia's meddling in the US elections last year and will eventually issue a public report.
"But what I think we should do is, everybody needs to take a deep breath and calm down here," the Florida Republican told CNN's Jake Tapper. "And let's go through this as what we are doing. In the Senate Intelligence Committee, we are working in a bipartisan way to collect facts that involve reviewing classified and sometimes unclassified and open-source information."
Spicer's statement comes a day after Trump accused former President Barack Obama, without providing evidence, of wiretapping his phones in Trump Tower in the weeks before the November election.