Donald Trump is using a tweet to claim he never ordered wiretaps of John Brady McCain, the former Democratic senator from Arizona.
Trump tweeted Monday night: “I never ordered or authorized wiretaps on John McCain.
I did not.”
The tweet comes a day after the former senator told The New York Times that Trump told him in December that he wanted to see wiretaps done on him.
The tweet was one of the first from Trump to appear since a Friday afternoon tweet saying, “I will never be involved in any wiretapping on any US citizen, EVER.”
Trump was referring to a December 24 report by The Washington Post that detailed a conversation between Trump and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who was meeting with Trump in Moscow.
Trump later told The Times that he “never said” that he had ordered wiretap orders on McCain.
On Monday night, Trump also responded to a tweet from a reporter who asked if he would ever have ordered wiretapped McCain.
“The only person that ever said that to me was the man that gave me the order to do it,” Trump said.
“You know, it’s ridiculous.
They’re making stuff up.”
The president’s latest tweet was not the first time he’s tried to deny the claims.
In an interview with Fox News in January, Trump was asked if there had ever been wiretaps against McCain.
Trump replied, “Oh, yeah, the whole thing.
But the whole wiretap thing is a big hoax.”
Trump also tweeted a false claim Monday that the Justice Department had filed a lawsuit to stop the release of the documents that would show the scope of the wiretaps.
Trump has also repeatedly accused the news media of spreading false claims about him and his administration.
In late August, Trump called The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza, who wrote a book about his time as president, “a lightweight,” and said the book was a “total fraud.”
In a tweet Monday, Trump said he has had “more bad press than most presidents.”
“They’re trying to take away my ‘great’ news,” Trump wrote.
“I’m in great shape and ready to fight back.”