Donald Trump accuses UK of spying on his 2016 campaign, reigniting row with GCHQ
Donald Trump has reignited a row over unfounded claims that Britain spied on his 2016 election campaign just a day after his UK state visit was announced.
The US president tweeted that a former CIA analyst had accused UK intelligence agencies of “helping [the] Obama Administration spy on the 2016 Trump presidential campaign”.
Mr Trump added: “WOW! It is now just a question of time before the truth comes out, and when it does, it will be a beauty!”
The comment echoes a previous row in 2017 when Sean Spicer, Mr Trump’s press secretary at the time, made a similar accusation against GCHQ, Britain’s secret listening post, which was rebutted.
Asked about the Trump tweet, a GCHQ spokesman referred back to their 2017 response: “The allegations that GCHQ was asked to conduct ‘wire tapping’ against the then President Elect are nonsense. They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored.”
Mr Trump’s tweet comes just hours after both Downing Street and the White House talked up the closeness of the UK-US relationship when announcing the president’s state visit in June.
Both Theresa May, the Prime Minister, and the White House press release which confirmed the trip talked about the “steadfast and special relationship” between both countries.
The decision by Mr Trump to again point the finger at Britain’s intelligence services comes as he attempts to shine a light on the origins of the Russia inquiry in the wake of the Mueller report.
The president and his allies have accused US intelligence services of acting in a biased manner when they opened an investigation into his campaign’s links with the Kremlin before the 2016 election.
Since the publication of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report last week, which found no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Kremlin, the president has been on the attack.
He has vowed that the “tables are finally turning” on those who begun the inquiry into his campaign and even claimed some US figures may have committed “treason”.
There are a number of British links to the early work of the Russian election meddling investigation which have fueled suspicion from the president’s allies.
Christopher Steele, the man who wrote the infamous series of memos on Mr Trump’s links to Russia, including lurid accusations about a night he spent in Moscow, is a former MI6 agent.
Key meetings that saw George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, hear that Russia had Hillary Clinton emails and then mention it to an Australian diplomat – in turn triggering the start of the probe – occurred in the UK capital.
US media has also reported that Stefan Halper, a Cambridge University academic and former Republican adviser, acted on behalf of the FBI to approach certain advisers before the 2016 election. Mr Halper has not commented on the claim.
Wednesday’s row had echoes of a similar spat that broke out in March 2017, just two months after Mr Trump first took office.
Discussing Mr Trump’s claim to have been wiretapped by Barack Obama’s administration, Mr Spicer said in a briefing: “He used GCHQ, what is that? It’s the initials for the British Intelligence Spying Agency.”
Mr Spicer referenced Andrew Napolitano, a Fox News commentator, over the claim. GCHQ then issued a rare on-record comment rebutting the “utterly ridiculous” suggestion.
Larry Johnson, the former CIA analyst and blogger, later said he was one of the sources for Mr Napolitano’s claim. He was the same analyst Mr Trump referenced on Wednesday.