Trump’s Beltway: Obama tapped my phones, President claims

BELOW:

• Bugging claim
• Trump defends Sessions
• Pipeline exempt from "Buy American" order
• Mexican co. offers to supply cement for wall

Abandoning the more presidential style adopted for his State of the Union address, Donald Trump has taken to social media with an extraordinary scattergun attack on Barak Obama.

The President made the bombshell accusation that his predecessor ordered the interception his phone calls during the 2016 election campaign.

Mr Trump made the claim over a series of tweets that culminated with:

How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017

Mr Trump said the phone tapping took place in October at Trump Tower. He had just learned about it.

He did not immediately offer any source for his claim or any evidence. Aides did not respond to US media requests for further information.

Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis denied the claim, issuing the statement that, "Neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any US citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false.”

Senator Ben Sasse, a Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a written statement Saturday that Mr Trump should “explain what sort of wiretap it was and how he knows this.” Two other Republican senators joined Democrats in calling on the present to offer more details.

Shortly after his tapping claim, Mr Trump shifted the focus of his tweets to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s performance in The Apprentice.

The sequence of events led one Twitter wag to offer, “Imagine if you honestly uncovered a Watergate-level scandal about your own presidency but then 30 minutes later got bored and started tweeting about TV.”

Tweets in support of Sessions
Mr Trump’s latest Twitterstorm also included an implicit defence of his under-fire Attorney-General, Jeff Sessions.

The president suggested an investigation into why Democrat congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Charles Schumer had met  Russian government officials and added: "Just out: The same Russian ambassador that met Jeff Sessions visited the Obama White House 22 times, and 4 times last year alone."

Mr Schumer and other Democrats say the issue is not about whether Mr Sessions met with Russia’s ambassador during the election cycle but the allegation he misled senators about the meetings during his confirmation hearing.

On Friday NZT, Mr Sessions recused himself from any investigation into alleged Russian interference with the election.

Keystone XL Pipeline except from ‘Buy American’ policy
The 1897km Keystone XL Pipeline will not be subject to President Donald Trump's executive order requiring infrastructure projects to be built with American steel, a White House spokeswoman said, Politico reports.

Mr Trump signed the order calling for the Commerce Department to develop a plan for US steel to be used in “all new pipelines, as well as retrofitted, repaired or expanded pipelines” inside the US projects “to the maximum extent possible.”

By the White House’s judgment, that description would not include Keystone XL, which developer TransCanada first proposed in 2008.

“The Keystone XL Pipeline is in the process of being constructed, so it does not count as a new, retrofitted, repaired or expanded pipeline,” a White House spokeswoman said.

Construction of the US leg of the pipeline was due to start in 2010 but was stalled by the Obama White House. It is now expected to begin within two months.

Mexican company offers cement for Trump’s wall
If the buy-American policy can also be relaxed for the proposed wall along the US-Mexican border, Mexican cement giant Cemex says it’s willing to help out.

The company, which one of the world’s largest suppliers of building materials, says it will supply cement for the project if one of its clients asks.

Earlier, Mr Trump promised to lower the cost of the wall, which has been estimated at up to $US25 billion.

A leaked Homeland Security report noted the project also faces challenges given a US-Mexico treaty that forbids construction along stretches of wetlands along the Rio Grande river, and the substantial amount of land along the border in private ownership.