'Livid' Obama 'rolled his eyes' at Trump's wiretapping accusation - and new president hasn't spoken to old one since Inauguration
- NBC News reporter says president 'rolled his eyes' at explosive claims he ordered wire tap at Trump Tower before election
- But source close to president says he 'didn't do it' - and therefore isn't worried
- Source says Obama is concerned about laundry list of other issues including healthcare and guns not what 'Trump tweets at the TV'
- Extensive briefing on ex-president's state of mind has all the hallmarks of planted PR campaign
Barack Obama 'rolled his eyes' at President Donald Trump's allegation that the former president ordered wiretaps of his Trump Tower offices, according to a new account of his reaction.
He is reportedly more worried about what the current Oval Office occupant will do to roll back his medical insurance overhaul law and gun-buying restrictions he put in place before he left office.
An NBC News reporter described Obama's reaction, attributing the anecdote to 'a source close to the president,' in a tweeted excerpt of a story that has not yet been published.
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Eye roll: The former president is said to have reacted to the allegation that he ordered wiretaps of Trump Tower with exasperation - but to have wider concerns about the Trump presidency
Attack: The explosive tweets which started the row over wiretapping at Trump Tower
The source told NBC that Obama thinks Trump's claims 'undermine the integrity of the office of the president.'
But since 'he didn't do it,' Obama isn't worried about his own integrity being impugned.
In a line that has all the hallmarks of being a planted PR effort, the NBC source said that Obama 'is much more concerned by President Trump kicking people off their health insurance, not staffing the government, not being prepared for a crisis, rolling back regulations so that corporations can pollute the air and water and letting mentally unstable people buy guns with no problems whatsoever.'
'He cares about all those things much more than what President Trump tweets at the TV each morning,' the NBC story continues.
CNN cited different sources familiar with Obama's reaction to the unsubstantiated wiretapping allegations, reporting that they said the former president was 'irked and exasperated' but 'stopped short of outright fury.'
Had appeared close: Both men had made a point of speaking positively about each other in the days of the transition - but friends of Obama are now openly speaking against Trump
'Stopped short of outright fury': The former president was 'livid' according to one account, but not openly furious, according to another
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that what was once a friendly rapport between Trump and Obama has all but disintegrated. The two men haven't spoken since Inauguration Day.
Trump created a turbulent series of news cycles Saturday with his tweeted claim that Obama 'tapp[ed] my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!'
The move had the effect of distracting the nation's attention from the chaos that erupted as Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that he would recuse himself from future investigations seeking to link the Trump presidential campaign with Russian actors.
The Journal reported that Obama was 'livid over the accusation' that he had authorized surveillance of the Republican presidential candidate.
Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis issued a cautiously worded statement arguing that '[a] cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice.'
'As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false,' he said.
Lewis's statement, however, leaves room for at least two attempts last year by the Justice Department to obtain Trump-targeted surveillance warrants from a secretive foreign intelligence court set up to arbitrate such requests.
Trump, in his typically imprecise fashion, may have been referring to those efforts.
The New York Times reported on January 19, Obama's last full day in office, that 'intercepted communications' related to a federal probe of three Trump associates had been analyzed by the FBI, the National Security Agency, the CIA and the Treasury Department’s financial crimes unit.
One official told the Times that intelligence reports based on some of the wiretapped communications had been provided to the Obama White House.
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