Sean Spicer says Trump ‘stands by’ his wiretapping claims despite bipartisan pushback

White House press secretary Sean Spicer continued to defend President Donald Trump’s claims that he was put under surveillance by his predecessor Barack Obama during the 2016 election, even as fellow Republicans said there is no evidence.

Speaking at the daily press briefing Thursday, Spicer maintained that Trump would be “vindicated” after new evidence came to light, echoing claims made by Trump in an interview with Fox News on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, Trump said “some very interesting items” were coming in the coming weeks that would prove his claim, which has been widely decried by his critics as baseless.

On Thursday morning, however, the chair and ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee issued a statement saying they had seen no evidence indicating “Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government either before or after Election Day 2016.”

Spicer disputed this bipartisan statement, however, saying the committee has not been briefed by the Department of Justice, which is investigating the claims.

However, Speaker Paul Ryan also said Thursday that he believed the claims were false, telling CNN in a news conference that the intelligence committees in the House and Senate “got to the bottom — at least so far with respect to our intelligence community — that no such wiretap existed.”

The chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Republican Devin Nunes, has also said he has seen no evidence of wiretapping, but did not rule out the possibility of “incidental” surveillance, per CNN.

Other influential Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. Chuck Grassley, have also publicly raised doubts about the legitimacy of Trump’s claims.

This story was originally published March 16, 2017 at 5:01 PM with the headline "Sean Spicer says Trump ‘stands by’ his wiretapping claims despite bipartisan pushback."