US makes formal apology to Britain after White House accuses GCHQ of wiretapping Trump Tower
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White House 'will not repeat' allegations that GCHQ spied on Trump
The White House has assured No 10 that allegations British intelligence spied on Donald Trump will not be repeated, Theresa May’s spokesman has said.The claim that GCHQ helped former president Barack Obama wiretap Trump during the 2016 election drew a rare denial by British intelligence officials after the White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, repeated it on Thursday.Spicer quoted a claim by the Fox News analyst Andrew Napolitano that three intelligence sources confirmed to him that the Obama administration used GCHQ to spy on Trump so there would be “no American fingerprints on this”.In its surprise public rebuttal, GCHQ described the allegation as “utterly ridiculous” and on Friday, the prime minister’s spokesman said the White House had told the British ambassador and the UK’s national security adviser that Spicer had been instructed not to repeat them.“I don’t want to get into private conversations, but we’ve made clear to the administration that these claims are ridiculous and should be ignored,” the spokesman said. “We’ve received assurances these allegations won’t be repeated.“We have a close relationship which allows us to raise concerns when they arise, as was true in this case. This shows the administration doesn’t give the allegations any credence.”Asked whether Spicer had been told not to repeat the claims, the spokesman said: “Indeed.” Spicer has not made a formal apology.Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former chair of parliament’s intelligence and security committee, demanded the White House withdraw the allegations and not merely say they would not be repeated. He said Spicer never had evidence for the allegations and made them only because he was desperate to justify Trump’s claim.He told BBC radio: “That’s just foolish and very dangerous stuff and President Trump better get a grip not only on his own press officer but on the kind of encouragement being given in the White House that makes a press officer make these stupid allegations in the first place.“You don’t just quote from a Fox News report if you are the president’s official spokesman unless you have taken the trouble to find out if that report is justified.”Tim Farron, leader of the Liberal Democrats – the junior partner in the last British coalition government – described Spicer’s repetition of the claims as “shameful” and said Trump was “compromising the vital UK-US security relationship to try to cover his own embarrassment”.Spicer had quoted Napolitano’s allegations in an effort to validate Trump’s unfounded claim that Obama tapped his phones last year. The US president accused his predecessor of tapping his phones in a series of tweets in early March, describing Obama as a “bad (or sick) guy”.“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!” Trump tweeted on 4 March.On Thursday, the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate intelligence committee joined their counterparts on the House intelligence committee in concluding that they had seen no evidence to support the president’s accusation.British and American intelligence agencies cooperate closely. Along with their counterparts from Australia, New Zealand and Canada, they are members of the Five Eyes, which work together on intelligence.The prime minister’s spokesman said: “I would add, just as a matter of fact, with the Five Eyes pact, we cannot use each other’s capabilities to circumvent laws. It’s a situation that simply wouldn’t arise.”
