Sean Spicer couldn’t answer NBC’s Hallie Jackson when she asked why President Trump would ask Congress to investigate looking for information he already claims to have about President Obama personally ordering a wiretap on him (which didn’t happen, so of course Trump doesn’t have the evidence).
Spicer also couldn’t answer why they would waste Congressional resources looking for something Trump claims to have.
Awkward.
Watch here via NBC:
“You’ve said the president stands by his tweets from Saturday morning that President Obama ordered this wiretap. You’ve also said the administration wants Congress — and let’s be clear, you said he also found out this information — you’ve also said the president wants Congress to investigate. Some members of Congress, by the way, have asked the White House and asked the president to come forward with that information. So, bottom line: Why would the president want Congress to investigate for information he already has?” Jackson pressed.
Spicer took his first dodge, “I think there’s a separation-of-powers aspect here, as I mentioned to Jonathan -”
Jackson wasn’t having it, “But you talk about resources and time. Why waste that?”
Oh, well okay. Spicer pivoted to, “It’s a question of appropriateness.”
Huh? Jackson still not having it, “But if the president has this information, if he’s sitting on information that he found out, he’s now directing or asking or recommending that the intelligence committees look into this. And you talked about — they have resources and staff, which they do. But why expend those resources and staff if the president found out this information and has it?”
Spicer doing a two-step now, “I think there’s a difference between directing the Department of Justice, which may be involved in an ongoing investigation, and asking Congress, as a separate body, to look into something and add credibility to the look… adds an element that wouldn’t necessarily be there if we were directing the Department of Justice, for example.”
Say what? Suddenly the Trump administration cares about credibility? LOL.
Basically Spicer tried to explain this away by saying that due to the separation of powers, Trump could only give it to the Justice Department, which operates under the executive branch purview.
However, this answer is a Trumpian misunderstanding of the separation of powers.
While perhaps the Trump administration operates with as little actual information as possible, there is nothing stopping them from sharing information with Congress.
They know this.
The problem is, Donald Trump has no actual information to share with Congress, because… you know. He made it up based on something on Breitbart that came from a right wing radio host.
Perhaps a piece of branded Trump tinfoil would suffice.
Sean Spicer, MSNBC screengrab
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