A spokesperson for former President Barack Obama says President Trump’s assertion that Obama unlawfully wiretapped Trump Tower during the 2016 presidential campaign is “simply false.”

“A cardinal rule of the Obama Administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice,” said Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis in a statement Saturday afternoon. “As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false.”