GOP rep: Trump owes Obama apology for ‘reckless’ wiretap claim

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) on Friday called for President Trump to apologize to former President Obama for accusing him of “wiretapping” Trump Tower without evidence. 

“I see no indication that’s true. It’s not a charge that I would ever have ever made, and frankly unless he can produce some pretty compelling proof, then I think President Obama is owed an apology in that regard,” Cole said.

“If he didn’t do it, we shouldn’t be reckless in accusations that he did.” 

{mosads}Cole is the first GOP lawmaker to call for an apology, although other Republicans have questioned the appropriateness of Trump’s unfounded accusation.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Thursday defended Trump, saying: “The president has already been very clear that he didn’t mean specifically wiretapping. He had it in quotes. So I think to fall back on that is a false premise. That’s not what he said. He was very clear when he talked about it yesterday.”

Spicer said Trump stood by his claim, though the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier Thursday said it sees “no indication that Trump Tower was a subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government either before or after Election day 2016.”

Trump earlier this month wrote in a series of early-morning tweets that Obama had “my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower” during the campaign, calling his predecessor a “bad (or sick) guy!”