Will these allegations overshadow trumps first 100 days. Who is telling the truth . Complete coverage this morning as we break down the russian connection. From abc news, its a special edition of this week. Here now, coanchor martha raddatz. Good morning. Just five days ago, the president looked like he was turning it around. Fewer protests in the streets. The stock markets soaring. And that wellreceived speech to congress. And now, whatever goodwill he had seemingly blown away in a saturday morning tweet storm. Even by his own standards, the president leveled an extraordinary accusation against his predecessor. Accusing former president barack obama of wiretapping him last october during the critical final weeks of the election. President obama has denied any direct involvement through a spokesman saying, neither presen house official ever ordered surveillance on any u. S. Citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false. Either obama tapped trumps phone. Or he didnt. One of them has it wrong. This hour, the search for the truth. Two questions well seek to answer. Sit possible that there was a legally sanctioned wiretap at trump tower . Did a court approve su vary lance based on evidence the public does not yet know . And second, if mr. Trump is flat out wrong, what made him level this charge . Did the man who has access to the deepest levels of intelligence base his claims on something he read on the internet . Here to help us answer these questions, wee have spokes people for both president s trump and obama. Plus senator al franken, whose question to Jeff Sessions to russia. Chief washington correspondent Jonathan Karl joins us in a moment. We begin with chief correspondent brian ross. Reporter President Trumps twitter outbursts came just before sun rise at the private Palm Beach Club the president likes to call the winter white house. Terrible. Just found out that obama had my wires tapped in trump tower just before the victory. Nothing found. That was followed by four more president ial tweets taking on president obama and misspelling tap. How low has president obama gone to tap my phones during the very sacred election process . This is nixon watergate. Bad or sick guy. White house officials this morning say they do not know the basis for the president s allegations. A topsecret intelligence briefing . Or whether itam an article on the conservative breitbart website posted friday that detailed axizations from mark levin. How many trumps people were eves dropped on . Had their conversations recorded, transcribed . Because this, ladies and gentlemen, is the big scandal. Reporter a Spokes Person for president obama called the allegations false. Ben rhodes responded to the tweets. No president can order a wiretap. Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you. Even a senator from the president s own party, along with u. S. Intelligence officials, called trumps claims a troubling development. I am very worried. Im very worried that our president is suggesting that former president has done something illegal. Reporter the president s twitter raids this weekend did serve to keep the focus on russia, and contacts between the kislyak and five top trumped a sprirpsz that includes two meetings with attorney general Jeff Sessions. Leading him to recuse himself into investigations. I feel like i should not be involved in investigating a campaign i had no role in. Reporter last april, trump its time to shake the rust of americas foreign policy. Reporter video june covered by abc news, reveals the Russian Ambassador arriving right before trump, being shown to a front row seat. Until this week, the president denied when asked by cecilia vega that anyone from his campaign had met with the russians. Did you or anyone your campaign have contact reporter none, at all, he said. Now, that answer no longer stands. We need to know, is anyone compromised. Is there a risk to the country because someone is compromised . Reporter we do know the fbi is investigating if there was collusion between the russian spies tapped Trump Campaign. If there was a wiretap, actual evidence would have to be provided to obtain aprufl from a panel of special judges, not the white house. Anyone other than the president would break the law to reveal the wiretap. No u. S. Official would confirm the allegation that trump tower was bug bid the fbi. Martha . Thank you, brian. Jonathan karl joins me now. And jonathan, what are you hearing from your sources at the white house . Talking to the white house dreektly, well be, in just a few moments. What are you hearing why donald trump did that . These allegations made over twitter caught the west wing by surprise. They had no idea this was coming. Had no idea what the president was talking about. After the tweets went out, you had somethi martha, in the west wing, trying to figure out what wz he talking about . Is there evidence, a search to find out if the allegations, the explosive allegations the president just made were, in fact, true. As of now, i see no indication they found any evidence that trump towers phones were tapped, let alone the idea that president owe be a ma would have ordered it. As we just heard brian ross say, was it from this breitbart report . Uh, theres no indication its anything beyond the speculation that was in conservative media, including that breitbart report. There was an interview that aired on fox nows, the day before, an interview with paul ryan. Paul ryan said he just didnt know. Theres also speculation that he saw that interview, as well. President trump is down in florida this weekend. At maralago. You have reported there was a very tense meeting on friday. This was quite a in the oval office, the president summons his senior staff. Including Reince Priebus, chief of staff, Steven Bannon, don mcgann. Im told he went ballistic. Infuriated that the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, recused himself from this investigation. Trump, the president saw this as emboldening his democratic critics. He said, we never should have given ground. Theres no reason for him to recuse. Nobodys done anything wrong. He left that meeting, went to florida, didnt take his senior staff with him. Im told by two sources that Reince Priebus and Steven Bannon both said well stay behind and work on this. And then came the tweets. As jon just mentioned, the white house has not appeared before cameras to explain what lets bring in live white house Spokes PersonSarah Huckabee sanders. Thank you for joining us. Good morning. These are extremely serious charges the president is making. Where is he getting this information . Look, i think there have been quite a few reports. Jon than and others earlier in the program said its all conservative media preside. Thats not true. The New York Times and bsh bc talked about this. The bigger thing is, lets find out. If theyre going to investigation russia ties, lets include this as part of it. Thats what were asking. Was the principal source the breitbart story, which lynx to the New York Times. But the New York Times doesnt say anything definitive. Donald trump does. Theres nothing equivocating about what he says. I just found out that obama had my wired tapped. He says it happened. Look, i think the bigger thing is you guys are always telling us to take the media seriously. Well, we are today. Were taking the reports that places like the new york tirnlgs fox news, bbc, multiple outlets have reported this. Were saying, lets take a closer look. Lets look into this. If it happened, if this is accurate. This is the biggest overreach. The biggest scandal. The president of the United States is accusing the former president of wiretapping him. I think that this is again, something that if this happened, martha. If, if, if, if. I agree. Why is the president saying it did happen . I think hes going off of information that hes seen that has led him to believe that this is a very real potential. If it is, this is the greatest overreach in the greatest abuse of power that i think we have ever seen and a huge attack on democracy itself. And the American People have a right to know if this took the president said it did take place. Why does he believe these articles that you say you cite and im saying, they are not definitive. The breitbart brings them all together. Heat streaked. They have two sources with links to the counterIntelligence Community. Thats it. Anonymous sources. The president constantly says he doesnt like anonymous source. And he doesnt like leakers. I love how Anonymous Sources dont count when its something thats positive in this administration and against the former one. You guys use Anonymous Sources every single day. Is that the bar . Yes, yes, we do. Yes, we do. But the president believe this is but whats the bar there . What does the president believe . Look, i think hes made very clear what he believes. Hes asking that we get down to the bottom of this. Lets get the truth here. Lets find out. I think the bigger sto i think the American People have a right to know if this happened. Because if it did, again this is the largest abuse of power that i think we is have ever seen. Okay. Let me just say one more time. The president said, i bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that president obama was tapping my phones. In october. So the president believes it is true . I would say that his tweet speaks for itself there. The Washington Post says this morning that senior u. S. Officials with knowledge of wideranging federal investigation into russian interference into the election said there had been no wiretap. Theyve also said theres no evidence of any wrong doing by the trump administration, or the Trump Campaign in coordination. But that doesnt seem to matter to the media. That point gets continued to be ignored over and over again. We have been on this for six months. You guys continue to ignore that and continue to bring up the investigation. All were asking is that we have the same level of potential that the Obama Administration wiretapped trump tower. The obama president obama, through a spokesman, denied any direct involvement. Does President Trump not believe him . I think they dont have the best track record. They say they had a cardinal rule. Thats not true. The president himself got directly involved in the email scandal with Hillary Clinton. You dont believe him when he says that doesnt happen . The attorney general met privately and secretly with bill clinton. To pretend this is a clean and credible source, im not joust buying it. Do you believe there was a fisa order . Even if president obama didnt order it . I think there certainly could have been. It sounds like theres something we should look into and verify. Is the trump administrati administration thats above my pay grade. White House Counsel we owe to it the American People to look into it. If there was an order, there would have to be probable cause shown. Evidence of wrongdoing. Isnt the president saying, this, indeed, happened, confirming that the investigation had enough evidence to get a fisa order . Im not sure if they can create wrongdoing. Theyve been trying to make the case for it. The fbi says this is b. S. The house intelligence chair says theres no evidence of it. But i dont know that that would indicate that Intelligence Services wouldnt have attempted to see if there was something at that point in october. A fisa wiretap is highly classified information. Why is it acceptable for the president to tweet Something Like that out . I dont think hes tweeting out classified information. Hes saying could this have happened . Did this happen. Once again, he said it did happen. Everybody acts like president with the idea and threw it out there. There are multiple phews outlets that have reported this. All were asking is that we get the same level of look into the Obama Administration and the potential that they had for a complete abuse of power that theyve been claiming that we have done over the last six months and time and time again, its been said, theres no evidence there was wrong doing. The fbi says this is b. S. Yet you guys continue to hammer and hammer some false idea and false narrative that theres something there when frankly, there just isnt. I want to say donald trump started this on saturday morning. I hardly say he started this when there were multiple news reports. Many months ago, President Trump has consistently complained about leakers. If these stories are true, if heat street has two sources, they say are linked to counterintelligence, are you going to go after those leakers . Look, we take every leak seriously in t whether it is something that helps us or not. We cannot have people leaking classified information at any level and we is certainly take that very seriously. And would not ignore that. Have you ever heard these allegations from the president before . I have not had a conversation with him about these personally before. Had he consulted anyone before he tweeted that he was going put these explosive allegations out . I cant speak 100 whether he did or not. Im not sure. Couldnt the president declassify these things if he wanted to . You know, i dont think thats necessary. I think what is necessary is congress doing its job. Let them investigate this. Let them do exactly what theyve done on our end and see whether theres something there. I think there is a lot of reporting that indicates there certainly is. Do you think there should be a special prosecutor to look at this . I dont think were there yet. I think we need to let congress do their job. Thats where we need to start. Again, i think place to go. We see what happens if there. Can you tell us anything about the meeting that President Trump had last night with attorney general Jeff Sessions . Did they meet . I believe they had dinner, yes. They did. And the subject . Look, hes the attorney general of the United States. Um who recused himself. Hes one of the cabinet members for the president. We have a lot of activity ongoing. Potential for an e. O. Coming out at some point that would certainly involve the attorney general. I would imagine that came up during dinner. Does the president still believe toattorney general Jeff Sessions should not have recused himself . The president believes Jeff Sessions is a good man and that he didnt do anything wrong. I think he didnt feel it was necessary. But he also is very supportive of the attorney general. And did the white house ask attorney general sessions specifically not to recuse himself . Look, the white house was not know, what that decision process looked like. The attorney general met with the ethics counsel at the department of justice. He made that decision not by direction of the white house. I just want to go back again, to the president s tweet. One more time. And sean spicer tweeting today. Reports that potentially politically motivated investigations are troubling. Sounds like the white house is doubling down on what President Trump says happened. As we should, martha. If this happened, once again, this would be the greatest abuse of power and overreach that has ever occurred in the executive branch. What about the accusation. You keep saying, if, if, if. The president of the United States said it was a fact. He didnt say, i read a story in breitbart or the New York Times or wherever else. He obama had my wires tapped in trump tower. Thats not an if. Look, i i will let the president speak for himself. But in terms of where we are in the white house, our ask youre his Spokes Person. And im speaking about it right now. But youre backing off of it. Youre backing off of it. How am i backing off of it . Because youre saying if. I think the American People have the right to know. I think we should get definitive answers. We need to put out hard facts that show that this happened. Thats what President Trump was clearly doing in those tweets. Thank you very much for joining thus morning, sarah. Appreciate it. You bet. Now to president obamas former press secretary josh earnest. Who argued right up until the end that the russians meddled with the u. S. Election for one reason. You didnt need a security clearance to figure out who benefited from malicious russian cyberactivity. The president elect didnt call it into question. He called on russia to hack secretary clinton. So he certainly had a pretty good sense of whose side this activity was coming down on. And josh earnest joins us now. Thanks for joining us. I want your reaction to what sarah just said. Good morning, martha. I appreciate the opportunity to be on the show today. Let me remove the mystery here and explain to you and your viewers why it is safe to say president obama ordered a wiretap of trump tower. That may come as a surprise, but the president of the United States does not have the authority to unilaterally order the wiretapping of an american citizen. If the fbi decided to use their wiretapping authority, it would require fbi investigators, officials at the department of justi judge, making a case, demonstrating probable cause, to use the authority to conduct the investigation. Thats a fact. Heres the other thing we know. We