British Intelligence Agency to Sean Spicer: Cut the Bullshit Right Now

For anyone whose job and/or profound sense of self-loathing requires that they tune in to Sean Spicer's White House press briefings, the most entertaining moment of the spectacle comes when one of the assembled journalists raises his or her hand and politely asks Spicer if President Trump, a man for whom the formidable resources of the American intelligence apparatus are just a phone call away, has any evidence to support his unhinged early-morning tweetstorm alleging that President Obama "tapped his wires" during the election. If you've ever wondered what it's like to witness a man drown with no water in sight, try watching Sean Spicer yell about surveillance techniques for ten minutes.

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Yesterday's event proved even more entertaining than usual, as the White House for the first time had to grapple with the Senate Intelligence Committee's conclusion that, nope, there is no evidence to support President Trump's Kingsman: The Secret Service fantasies. When a visibly frustrated Spicer—at one point, he actually barked at a reporter to calm down, which, LOL—realized that his non-responsive word salad wasn't doing the trick, he began to cite media reports that referred to Trump's allegations as evidence of their veracity. (This, of course, is in no way responsive to the question, but whatever. It was Spicer's favorite holiday yesterday. Give him a break.) Here was one of his, um, "sources."

Last, on Fox News on March 14th, Judge Andrew Napolitano made the following statement. “Three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command. He didn’t use the NSA, he didn’t use the CIA, he didn’t use the FBI, and he didn’t use the Department of Justice. He used GCHQ, what is that? It’s the initials for the British intelligence spying agency. So simply, by having two people saying to them, ‘the President needs transcripts of conversations involved in candidate Trump’s conversations involving President-elect Trump,’ he was able to get it and there’s no American fingerprints on this.”

Read that incredible statement again: Spicer is alleging that President Obama personally directed the activities of another sovereign nation's intelligence agencies to spy on Donald Trump. Later, he added this.

REPORTER: To go back to your long list of sort of news reports you mentioned—one that you reached that perhaps the GCHQ was involved. Did the President ever raise this in his conversation with [U.K. Prime Minister] Theresa May? And if that were to pan out, would that imperil the special relationship between the two?

SPICER: Again, these are just—that happened, I think, two days ago. It was something that was reported on air. I think the point is, is that there’s been—no, no, it has not been raised. But I do think that, again, we’re not—all we’re doing is literally reading off what other stations and people have reported, and I think that casts into concern some of the activities that may have occurred during the 2016 election.

This admission—that the President of the United States is accusing his predecessor of political espionage because of things he heard people say on TV—is embarrassing as it is. But a significant strategic problem with making assertions about the activities of intelligence agencies you don't control is that there are no barriers that prevent them from telling you, publicly and in no uncertain terms, to cut the bullshit. Here's what the GCHQ had to say in what U.K. media called an "unprecedented" public statement:

Recent allegations made by media commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano about GCHQ being asked to conduct "wiretapping" against the then president elect are nonsense. They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored.

This was reportedly followed by a formal apology from a very sheepish Spicer and White House National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster.

Just as quickly, the White House denied that any mea culpa had taken place, because God forbid we allow anyone to believe that our political leaders are willing to behave like functional adults and apologize to America's closest ally for dragging them into a goat rodeo of our own creation.

Listen, if President Trump wants to fabricate idiotic, nonsensical conspiracy theories for political gain, fine. We know he's exceptionally good at that. But roping in British intelligence, whose spies I assume are renowned for their ability to deliver the most withering lectures of anyone in the global spy community, is an exceptionally bad way to double down. Maybe they could blame Russia inste—ah, crap, never mind.