This week, Rosenstein is scheduled to talk to congressional investigators about the 2017 episode, which nearly cost him his job after it was revealed in news accounts last month.

This news is a big deal primarily because of what it takes to obtain such a wiretap order. The warrant reportedly was issued under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. A FISA warrant requires investigators to demonstrate to the FISA court that there is probable cause to believe the target may be acting as an unlawful foreign agent.

At the heart of the clash is an issue that has challenged multiple presidents during high-stakes Washington investigations: how to handle the demands of investigators without surrendering the institutional prerogatives of the office of the presidency.

"Both FBI and NSD confirm that they have no records related to wiretaps as described by the March 4, 2017 tweets," the government said

Clapper said on Sunday that he found the firing “very disturbing” and that the country’s systems of checks and balances was “under assault” by the White House.

Trump’s fascination with recording his conversations reaches back to the early years of his real estate career, when he installed in his 26th-story office in Trump Tower a “system for surreptitiously tape recording business meetings”

The point of secretly recording people is that it's supposed to be secret

“Because I have my own opinions. You can have your own opinions”

“I don't stand by anything. I just — you can take it the way you want. I think our side's been proven very strongly. And everybody's talking about it. And frankly, it should be discussed”

The FBI and the Justice Department obtained the warrant ... after convincing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, in this case Russia

Mr. Trump gave no evidence to support his claim, and current and former intelligence officials from both Republican and Democratic administrations have said they do not believe Ms. Rice’s actions were unusual or unlawful.

Schiff said ... Trump personally promised documents at the center of "unmasking" allegations would be made available to all members of the House intelligence committee, but that White House staff is fighting those documents' release.

After two false starts, the White House is trying out another claim this week: Susan Rice, President Barack Obama’s national-security adviser, did it.

There is precisely zero evidence that Rice used this information — assuming the reports are true — for anything other than her own official purposes

“there was electronic surveillance of Trump and the people close to Donald Trump, including some supporters for up to a year before inauguration.”

...current and former officials say that, once Nunes admitted he visited a secure room in the White House — as he did earlier this week — it became clear that White House officials played a role in providing him information.

The revelation on Thursday that White House officials disclosed the reports ... is likely to fuel criticism that the intelligence chairman has been too eager to do the bidding of the Trump administration

...a new statement from Nunes on Monday that revealed he obtained the evidence last Tuesday on “White House grounds” is putting Trump’s team in an even more awkward position.

"I felt I had a duty and obligation to tell him because as you know he’s been taking a lot of heat in the news media."

Russia revelations. Health bill woes. Wiretap wars. And that Supreme Court seat.

“At the end of the day, sometimes you make the right decision, sometimes you don’t”

Since even Nunes admits that this surveillance was routine, why this revelation would “vindicate” Trump’s accusation that Obama wiretapped him remains a mystery.

“The chairman will need to decide whether he is the chairman of an independent investigation into conduct which includes allegations of potential coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russians, or he is going to act as a surrogate of the White House, because he cannot do both”

Earlier on Wednesday, in what was apparently a surprise to his fellow committee members, Nunes held a news conference and then briefed President Donald Trump on what he said was evidence that members of Trump’s transition team, possibly including Trump himself, were under U.S. government surveillance following November’s presidential election.

...members of Donald Trump’s transition team, possibly including Trump himself, were under inadvertent surveillance following November’s presidential election.

The president’s tweets throughout the day were misleading, inaccurate or simply false.

Democrats were quick to jump on Comey's remarks to hike pressure on Trump over his allegations, arguing that the President's conduct had "severely damaged" his credibility.

But a defiant Mr. Trump refused to back down, making clear that the White House had nothing to retract or apologize for because his spokesman had simply repeated an assertion made by a Fox News commentator. Fox itself later disavowed the report.

“As far as wiretapping, I guess by this past administration, at least we have something in common, perhaps,” Trump said to Merkel

“I don’t think we regret anything,” press secretary Sean Spicer said Friday afternoon

"Recent allegations made ... about GCHQ being asked to conduct 'wiretapping' against the then president-elect are nonsense. They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored."

Yeah, you were just quoting Sean Hannity there.

Trump proceeded to explain how he read a New York Times story once, dated the day of his inauguration, and that what really cinched it for him was, wait for it, a segment on Fox News with Bret Baier the day before his tweet.

“wiretap covers a lot of different things”

The Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee ... made clear Wednesday that there is zero evidence to suggest Trump Tower was wiretapped.

“We’ll hold up the deputy attorney general’s nomination until Congress is provided with information to finally clear the air as to whether or not there was ever a warrant issued against the Trump campaign.”

“I think there is pretty sound evidence that the microwave is not a sound way of surveilling someone,” Spicer said.

“Chris, I’m not Inspector Gadget. I don’t believe people are using the microwave to spy on the Trump campaign. However, I’m not in the job of having evidence. That’s what investigations are for.”

“The president was very clear in his tweet that it was, you know, ‘wiretapping,’” Mr. Spicer said, using his fingers to make a gesture suggesting quotation marks.

Conway went on to say that the monitoring could be done with “microwaves that turn into cameras,” adding: “We know this is a fact of modern life.”

Rosen confirmed that his phones had not been tapped, but that his phone records and emails had been obtained by the Justice department.

"A lot of the things he says, you guys take literally"

Comey was concerned that the allegation would make the FBI look bad

Faced with an explosive political situation at his feet, he lobs a rhetorical grenade elsewhere, using the resulting blast and confusion to his advantage.

“I think he firmly believes that this is a storyline that has been reported pretty widely by quite a few outlets.”

Trump has a problem either way. If he was not wiretapped, he invented a spectacularly false charge. And if a court ordered some sort of surveillance of him, on what grounds did it do so?

This is a familiar dance from the White House. Trump sees a piece of information from a less-than-reputable news source ... He then states it as fact ... Then his spokesmen go out there and don't really vouch for him but say what he said should be investigated.

Mr. Comey ... has been working to get the Justice Department to knock down the claim because it falsely insinuates that the F.B.I. broke the law

Mr. Trump’s demand for a congressional investigation appears to be based, at least in part, on unproved claims by Breitbart News

Trump aides were caught Sunday defending the president’s accusation without any evidence to back them up.

There is no evidence – nor did the president provide any – suggesting the Obama administration “tapped” Trump’s phone lines at Trump Tower, or in general for that matter.

If the FBI wiretapped Trump Tower ... that means investigators thought they would uncover evidence of criminal activity, and a judge agreed.

It appears that the crux of the argument comes from reporting that U.S. officials secretly monitored a computer server in Trump Tower to determine if there were links to Russian banks.