White House adviser Kellyanne Conway on Monday walked back suggestions that the government used a wide range of tools to spy on President Donald Trump in the run up to November's election, including "microwaves that turn into cameras."
Conway first implied such tools were used on Sunday when Mike Kelly, a columnist for The Record in Bergen County, New Jersey, asked whether she knew if Trump Tower was wiretapped.
"What I can say is there are many ways to surveil each other," Conway told the newspaper. "You can surveil someone through their phones, certainly through their television sets — any number of ways. … We know this is a fact of modern life."
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She included "microwaves that turn into cameras" among her list of potential monitoring devices.
"We know this is a fact of modern life," she told The Record.
She walked back the comments in an appearance Monday on CNN's "New Day."
"I'm not Inspector Gadget," Conway told host Chris Cuomo. "I don't believe people are using the microwave to spy on the Trump campaign. However, I'm not in the job of having evidence; that's what investigations are for."
Conway said her comment was meant to refer to spying in general and not Trump's situation specifically.
Trump accused former President Barack Obama of tapping the phones of his campaign headquarters in Trump Tower in a tweet earlier this month. He has not provided evidence of the claim and has demanded the Congress investigate.
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Lawmakers set Monday as the deadline for the Justice Department to provide evidence to support Trump's claim. It was not clear whether any proof would be provided.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer on Monday said that Trump "doesn't really think that President Obama went up and tapped his phone personally," and meant to refer to general surveillance and not wiretapping specifically.
Obama has denied the accusation.
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