Oops! The White House press secretary Sean Spicer appears to be making a habit out of saying and doing all of the wrong things. On Wednesday, Spicer claimed there was a reporter from Fox News who had had their phones wire tapped during Barack Obama’s presidency.
James Rosen
During Spicer’s daily press briefing, they claimed a reporter named James Rosen had his phone – and multiple other phones – wire tapped during Obama’s presidency. This was a comment the White House Press Secretary made while he was addressing information reading the documents WikiLeaks recently released claiming the CIA had been hacking into data for years through security holes without telling anyone.
The claim propagated
For days after the claim was originally made by Sean Spicer, it began to propagate on a number of different media outlets. As with most fake news, all sorts of conspiracy theories started to form. The claim Sean Spicer made, however, was eventually dismissed as untrue. And, who was it that confirmed there was no truth in what Spicer had said? Well, it was none other than the Fox Reporter James Rosen himself.
On Sunday, Rosen revealed to "Fox & Friends" that neither him nor his parents (or anyone in relationship to him) was wire tapped as Spicer claimed. James also went on to explain exactly what wire tapping was and just to reaffirm that it hadn’t happened to him.
What actually happened
In order to help people understand that Sean Spicer didn’t just pull this information out of the air (though it sure seemed that way). Rosen explained that the former Attorney General Eric Holder had – in secrecy) named James as a criminal co-conspirator. This was because the reporter had been given classified information via the former State Department contractor.
This, in turn, gave the government permission to issue a subpoena for the Fox reporter’s phone records and emails. This included the records of his parents. So, while what Spicer claims to have happened did kind of happen – it didn’t happen the way Spicer was leading people to believe during the press conference.
Media outlets have attempted to reach out to James Rosen for more information or a comment about what had happened.
While Rosen declined being available for an interview or additional statements, he did take to Twitter to confirm the story one more time. On Twitter, he confirmed that what Sean Spicer said was not true. His records had not been tapped, but obtained via the Justice Department.
