MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough questioned the Obama administration’s “highly legalistic” denials against President Donald Trump’s accusations of wiretapping during a segment Monday morning.

Trump made waves over the weekend when he accused his predecessor in a series of tweets of having “my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory.” In response to the president’s allegations, Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis said in a statement Saturday that “neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen,” and former White House press secretary Josh Earnest admitted that he could not deny whether Obama’s Justice Department sought a FISA court-ordered wiretap.

“There were some legal writers over this weekend that were actually digging into this and kept commenting on … how highly legalistic the Obama administration’s denials were, especially Josh Earnest’s.”

Neither Lewis nor Earnest denied that wiretapping had occurred at the request of the Department of Justice.

“There were some legal writers over this weekend that were actually digging into this and kept commenting on … how highly legalistic the Obama administration’s denials were, especially Josh Earnest’s,” Scarborough said to MSNBC senior political analyst Mark Halperin.

“Have you heard the suggestions that perhaps there were some conversations intercepted when the FBI, the FISA court agreed to let them conduct surveillance on, let’s say, Russian agents that they believed were acting against the United States’ best interests?” Scarborough asked.

In response, Halperin noted that “there was speculation about that even before the weekend.”

“And then, as you pointed to, Josh Earnest’s legalistic responses on a Sunday show raised the suspicion people have that that’s what’s going on here,” Halperin said. “And you could imagine if somehow the president, President Trump, knew about that, that he was responsive to not what he said on Twitter, but just the notion that conversations were intercepted. And that is a complicated situation.”

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said in a statement that Trump “is requesting that as part of their investigation into Russian activity, the congressional intelligence committees exercise their oversight authority to determine whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016.”

This request, however, was widely mocked by the Democrats and media pundits and led to backlash from the Trump administration.

“Let’s get to the bottom of it! That is the president’s entire point,” White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said during an interview Monday on “Fox & Friends.” “I saw the different interviews over the weekend, and some people left open the possibility that maybe there were departments or agencies or individuals not under their direct purview where this could have taken place.”

Who do you think would win the Presidency?

By completing the poll, you agree to receive emails from LifeZette, occasional offers from our partners and that you've read and agree to our privacy policy and legal statement.

“But the president’s entire point is that the people deserve to know,” Conway added. “So why not include in the existing investigations into Russia this aspect, that whether or not this actually happened?”

Conway suggested Democrats were betraying partisan hypocrisy, demanding investigations for dubious Trump-Russian connections but scoffing at investigating possible election-time surveillance of the president.

[lz_related_box id=”357266″]

“You have Democrats every single day saying, ‘Investigate, investigate, special prosecutors, investigate.’ Well then what are they afraid of here?” Conway asked. “Let’s — let’s investigate this and see where it leads.”

“So let’s have the House and Senate Intelligence Committees do their work and think about whether to include this,” Conway added. “But the president has made clear that he would like there to be an investigation of any possible abuses and that hopefully that oversight activity will — will clarify for everyone.”