Justice dept given more time to investigate Obama ‘wiretap’ claim

The House intelligence committee said it would give the department until 20 March to provide the information it has requested.

The committee is due to start public hearings into Russian interference in the 2016 election on 20 March.

Mr Trump’s unverified wiretapping allegations against Mr Obama is also being looked at as part of the committee’s investigations.

A spokesman for the committee’s Republican chairman said that if the department fails to meet the deadline, the panel could use a subpoena to search for the information it requires.

Jack Langer, a spokesman for Representative Devin Nunes, said: “If the committee does not receive a response by then, the committee will ask for this information during the March 20 hearing and may resort to a compulsory process if our questions continue to go unanswered.”

The justice department said it needed more time to “review the request in compliance with the governing legal authorities and to determine what if any responsive documents may exist”.

So far, current and former administration officials have not been able to find any evidence of Mr Obama wiretapping Trump Tower.

White House press spokesman Sean Spicer on Monday attempted to clarify what his boss had meant when he tweeted “Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory”.

Mr Spicer said the President had not used the word wiretapping literally, pointing out that he had put the term in quotation marks.

He said: “The President used the word wiretap in quotes to mean broadly surveillance and other activities.”

He also suggested Mr Trump had not been intending to accuse the Mr Obama of any wrongdoing personally, but had been referring to the actions of his administration.

Mr Trump’s accusations came during a furore over his associates’ possible links to Russia.