REPORT: Trump Made His Wiretapping Claim After An Aide Slipped Breitbart’s Story Into His Reading Pile

The Associated Press reports:

Last Thursday, as questions swirled around contacts between Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Russian ambassador, a Reddit user posted a picture of Russian President Vladimir Putin and New York Sen. Charles Schumer from a 2003 photo op. Two hours later, the blog The Gateway Pundit reprinted the photo with the headline “Where’s the Outrage?”

The image careened across the internet from an Infowars editor’s post to the Drudge Report to Trump’s own Twitter account as he delivered that outrage, demanding an investigation into Schumer’s alleged ties to Putin.

That wasn’t the only time last week when Trump put the White House stamp on a theory that originated on the edges of the conservative movement. Radio host Mark Levin voiced without evidence the idea that Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower. That accusation was picked up the next day by Breitbart News, the site formerly run by Trump’s current chief strategist Steve Bannon.

An aide placed that piece in Trump’s daily reading pile, said a White House official, who like other aides would not be named discussing the president’s private routine. Fueled by that report on Saturday, Trump unleashed a series of jaw-dropping tweets that accused his predecessor of spying on him.