March 17, 2017 10:39 AM UTC

White House Apologizes to Brits for "Wiretapping" Claims

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: Or not…

JUST IN: WH suggests Spicer/McMaster did NOT apologize to UK. They “explained that Mr. Spicer was simply pointing to public reports.”

— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) March 17, 2017

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We wrote yesterday about the completely absurd press briefing at the White House, in which Press Secretary Sean Spicer ignored all facts to the contrary in order to defend President Trump’s ridiculous claims that he was “wiretapped” by President Obama. Over at “The Fix,” they’re calling this a “new low” for the Trump administration, and we’re certainly not going to argue now that the White House has succeeded in pissing off our closest ally.

As CNN reports:

The White House has apologized to the British government after alleging that a UK intelligence agency spied on President Donald Trump at the behest of former President Barack Obama.

National security adviser H.R. McMaster spoke with his British counterpart on Thursday about press secretary Sean Spicer’s comment from the White House podium about a Fox News report that said British intelligence helped wiretap Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign, a White House official said Friday…

…Earlier Friday, a spokesman for May said senior UK officials had protested to the Trump administration after the claims were repeated by Spicer.

“We’ve made clear to the US administration that these claims are ridiculous and should be ignored. We’ve received assurances that these allegations won’t be repeated,” May’s spokesman said. [Pols emphasis]

We wish we could enthusiastically endorse the idea that “these allegations won’t be repeated,” but we are still talking about the Trump administration here.