U.S. President Donald Trump has defended claims he made in his stint as a political leader in an interview given to the Time magazine published on Thursday.
"I'm a very instinctual person, but my instinct turns out to be right. Hey, look, in the meantime, I guess I can't be doing so badly, because I'm President, and you're not," Trump was quoted as saying to Time's Washington bureau chief, Michael Scherer, as reported by CNN.
The cover story, titled 'Is Truth Dead?', which widely discussed Trump and his claims, covered subjects ranging from Trump's wiretap accusations to the 2016 campaign trail conspiracy theory in the National Enquirer falsely connecting Sen. Ted Cruz's father and the JFK assassination.
Quite unrepentant about his charge that former President Barack Obama "wiretapped" his phones at Trump Tower during the 2016 election, Trump defended the claim by shifting its focus.
"When I said wiretapping, it was in quotes. Because a wiretapping is, you know, today it is different than wire tapping. It is just a good description. But wiretapping was in quotes. What I'm talking about is surveillance," Trump told Time.
Trump's allegation was, earlier this week, soundly refuted by FBI Director James Comey in testimony before the House Intelligence Committee.
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In the interview, Trump also pointed to a news conference from Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, in which the congressman revealed that communications of Trump and associates might have been picked up after the elections by intelligence agencies conducting surveillance of foreign targets.
"House intelligence chairman Devin Nunes told reporters, wow. Nunes said, so that means I'm right, Nunes said the surveillance appears to have been ... incidental collection, that does not appear to have been related to concerns over Russia," he said.
Earlier, House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes suspected that Trump's personal communications and those of associates may have been picked up by intelligence agencies conducting surveillance after the elections, hurrying to the White House to brief the President and angering Democrats who say they've been left in the dark.
Nunes said at a news conference he discovered the accounts of Trump conversations when he was reviewing intelligence reports and said the information was not related to Russia, which is accused of interfering in the U.S. election.
Following this, Trump, in a brief media meeting, said he felt "somewhat" vindicated about Nune's claims.
However, Nunes said he alerted House Speaker Paul Ryan about the information before he headed to the White House.