Conservative journalist Bill Kristol said Friday that debunked reports about former President Barack Obama enlisting British spy agencies to wiretap President Donald Trump during last year's election was "so ridiculous, one doesn't take it seriously."
"Think about what is being alleged," The Weekly Standard editor at large told Jake Tapper on CNN in an interview.
"The preceding president of the United States, President [Barack] Obama, went around normal channels — the CIA, the Justice Department, the FBI — somehow got British intelligence to tap, to bug, the Republican presidential candidate in the U.S.
"Think how many levels of illegality and conspiracy we're talking about here, if this were true," Kristol said. "It would dwarf Watergate even, going around all these procedures that are in place."
A British government spokesman told Newsmax that "no part of this story is true" in response to a report Tuesday by Fox News contributor Andrew Napolitano that Obama had enlisted its spy agency to tap Trump's telephones.
A spokesman for British Prime Minister Theresa May said Friday that the "ridiculous" claim should be ignored.
"We have made clear to the administration that these claims are ridiculous and that they should be ignored and we have received assurances that these allegations won't be repeated," the spokesman, James Slack, said Friday.
Trump said that the White House was only referencing the Fox report in its claim — and spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters Friday: "I don't think we regret anything."
"That's why the British are so appalled," Kristol told Tapper. "Look at their statements. They're very unusual.
"They just can't believe the president has let the White House spokesman say this from the podium.
"It is really appalling," he added. "It has really implications for our foreign policy.
"We have a very close intelligence relationship with Britain. What are they going to think now?"
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