Early Saturday, he surprised his staff by firing off four tweets accusing Obama of a “Nixon/Watergate” plot to tap his Trump Tower phones in the run-up to last fall’s election. Trump is accusing former President Barack Obama of having Trump's telephones ``wire tapped’’ during last year's election, but Trump isn’t offering any evidence or saying what... (Associated Press) 
 
 WASHINGTON (AP) — Key members of Congress say they will honor President Donald Trump's request to investigate his unsubstantiated claim that Barack Obama overstepped his authority as president and had Trump's telephones tapped during the election campaign. Some Trump advisers and allies were especially disappointed in Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), who two days earlier had hitched a ride down to Florida with Trump on Air Force One. “I'd imagine the president and the White House in the days to come will outline further what was behind that accusation,” the Florida Republican said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “The president put that out there, and now the White House will have to answer as to exactly what he was referring to.” 
 
 Rubio’s comments came a day after Nebraska GOP Sen. Ben Sasse, a longtime Trump critic, said Trump owed it to the public to share more details about his allegation. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., said in a statement that the panel "will follow the evidence where it leads, and we will continue to be guided by the intelligence and facts as we compile our findings." Trump suggested Saturday that “a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!” In a separate tweet, he wrote “Just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory. It’s leak after leak after leak from the bureaucrats in the [intelligence community] and former Obama administration officials — and it’s very real,” said Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. "The Committee will make inquiries into whether the government was conducting surveillance activities on any political party’s campaign officials or surrogates, and we will continue to investigate this issue if the evidence warrants it,” he said in a statement. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Trump’s charge, if proved false, is proof he “doesn’t know how to conduct himself.” And if it’s true, “it’s even worse,” because it means federal authorities saw a legal basis to authorize a wiretap, which requires a judge’s signoff. Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence panel, said Sunday that he’ll be visiting with intelligence officials this week for an “unprecedented” look at the intelligence behind allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and potential connections to Trump associates. Warner’s comments followed a similar assertion by former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who said “I can deny” that there was any request by the FBI for a warrant to tap phones in Trump Tower. Trump aides were caught Sunday defending the president’s accusation about Obama without any evidence to back them up. Let them investigate,” said deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.” 
 
 Sanders presented no evidence of any improper actions by the Obama administration, and she refused to repeat Trump’s explosive Saturday tweets accusing Obama of spying on him and his team. “I think he is going off of information that he’s seeing that has led him to believe this is a very real potential,” she said, adding, “He’s talking about: ‘Could this have happened?’” 
 
 Trump on Saturday said that Obama had tapped Trump Tower phones, despite no evidence of his predecessor’s involvement. On Sunday, the press secretary stated: "President Donald J. 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." Obama White House spokesman Josh Earnest insisted Sunday that any wiretaps authorized against Trump or his associates arose only from legal law enforcement authority. “The president of the United States does not have the authority to unilaterally order the wiretapping of an American citizen,” he said, noting that such taps are approved by judges based only on evidence in a criminal or counterintelligence investigation. Earnest said the White House kept FBI investigations at arm’s length and didn’t attempt to “influence or dictate” how those probes were conducted. [Trump gives his hard-line campaign promises a more moderate tone in address to Congress] 
 
 The merriment came to a sudden end on Wednesday night, when The Washington Post first reported that Attorney General Jeff Sessions met with the Russian ambassador despite having said under oath at his Senate confirmation hearing that he had no contact with the Russians. “I’m not the person that went out there and said it.” 
 
 Damian Paletta contributed to this report.
– FBI Director James Comey has waded into the controversy surrounding President Trump's claim that he was wiretapped by former President Obama last fall, the New York Times reports. Officials say Comey has asked the Justice Department to publicly reject Trump's explosive claim, both because he believes it's false and because he believes it suggests the FBI was engaged in illegal behavior. The Times' sources say senior FBI officials are also worried that if the public believes there was a court-approved Trump wiretap, they might expect them to find solid evidence of Russian interference in last year's election. In other coverage: The White House has demanded a congressional investigation of its claims, though lawmakers from both parties say they want more evidence to back up Trump's allegations, NBC News reports. "I've never heard that allegation made before by anybody," GOP Sen. Marco Rubio said Sunday. Key members of Congress say they will obey Trump's request, though the AP notes that any such investigation could be risky for Trump, since Democrats will have access to evidence, including any findings that could be damaging to the president. We "will follow the evidence where it leads, and we will continue to be guided by the intelligence and facts as we compile our findings," Sen. Richard Burr, the Republican chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Sunday. Politico has more on the "baffled" reaction of lawmakers to Trump's claims, with even some of the president's closest allies wary about discussing the allegations. The Washington Post says it interviewed 17 White House officials and others for a report on Trump's "fury" at leaks and other setbacks in the days surrounding his Obama accusation. The New York Times looks at how the accusation took around 36 hours to go from an "unfounded conspiratorial rant" on conservative talk radio to Trump's Twitter feed. Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey says he believes there may have been surveillance of Trump Tower, but he doesn't think Obama ordered it, the Hill reports. Mukasey, who served in the George W. Bush administration, told ABC's This Week that the Justice Department could have ordered a wiretap in the belief "that somebody in Trump Tower may have been acting as an agent of the Russians for whatever purpose."