The White House has scrambled to limit the damage to transatlantic relations caused when White House spokesman, Sean Spicer, repeated an unsubstantiated claim that British intelligence had spied on Donald Trump. “Ambassador Kim Darroch and Sir Mark Lyall expressed their concerns to Sean Spicer and Gen McMaster,” a White House spokesman said. He is due to appear before the House intelligence committee on Monday. Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former chair of parliament’s intelligence and security committee, demanded the White House withdraw the allegations and not merely say they would not be repeated. On Thursday, the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate intelligence committee joined their counterparts on the House intelligence committee in concluding they had seen no evidence to support the president’s accusation.

Source: The Guardian March 17, 2017 12:54 UTC