Watchdog group to sue for Trump Tower wiretap records

by Rebecca Savransky - 04/19/17 9:06 AM ET

An ethics watchdog group says it plans to sue the Department of Justice for records regarding wiretaps of Trump Tower and the investigation into connections between members of President Trump’s campaign and Russia.

American Oversight plans to file two lawsuits Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

“Nearly 100 days into President Trump’s term, there are more questions than answers about the president and his associates’ contacts with Russia. It’s time for the administration to come clean with the American people,” the group’s executive director, Austin Evers, said in a news release.

“As congressional inquiries seem to be getting us nowhere, American Oversight is suing the government for information.”

The first lawsuit the group is filing is for warrant applications and court orders related to surveillance of Trump Tower.

{mosads}”It’s ludicrous for the Justice Department to claim it can’t confirm or deny the existence of records given that the president has declared they exist and the FBI director has denied it,” Evers said.

“Well, which is it? The American people have a right to the truth.”

The second suit is to obtain information about White House chief of staff Reince Priebus’s “attempt to persuade the bureau to rebut media reports about the investigation into the Trump campaign,” the group said.

It is also seeking information related to the vetting form on which the group says Attorney General Jeff Sessions “should have disclosed any contacts with foreign government officials.”

President Trump earlier this year claimed, without offering proof, that former President Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower. He clarified in a later interview that wiretapping covered “lots of different things.”

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) announced last month the U.S. intelligence community incidentally collected information on members of Trump’s transition team and the information was “widely disseminated” in intelligence reports.

Tags Jeff Sessions