The US government has formally apologized to Britain after White House press secretary Sean Spicer accused UK intel agency GCHQ of wiretapping Donald Trump on behalf of President Obama.
The accusations will not be repeated, a White House official also told the British government, The Telegraph reports.
A spokesman for British Prime Minister Theresa May said, “We’ve made clear to the US administration that these claims are ridiculous and should be ignored. We’ve received assurances that these allegations won’t be repeated.”
He added, “This shows the administration doesn’t give the allegations any credence. We have a close, special relationship with the White House and that allows us to raise concerns as and when they arise, as was true in this case.”
The diplomatic kerfuffle erupted after Spicer said at Thursday’s press briefing: “[O]n Fox News on March 14th, Judge Andrew Napolitano made the following statement. ‘Three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command. He didn’t use the NSA, he didn’t use the CIA, he didn’t use the FBI, and he didn’t use the Department of Justice. He used GCHQ, what is that? It’s the initials for the British Intelligence Spying Agency. So simply, by having two people saying to them, “The President needs transcripts of conversations involved in candidate Trump’s conversations involving President-elect Trump,” he was able to get it and there’s no American fingerprints on this.’”
The comment drew immediate rebuke from the GCHQ.
“Recent allegations made by media commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano about GCHQ being asked to conduct ‘wiretapping’ against the then president-elect are nonsense. They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored,” said a spokesman for the intel agency.