'Find the leakers,' Trump tells media as wiretapping issue refuses to die down

President Donald Trump on Sunday called on the "fake news media" to turn its attention to questions of illegal government surveillance and ferreting out the leakers within his administration.

"The real story turns out to be SURVEILLANCE and LEAKING!" the president wrote Sunday morning on Twitter. "Find the leakers."

Last month, Trump accused former president Barack Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign, a baseless claim that Trump and his team have continued to trumpet despite providing no corroborating evidence.

Trump aides' attempts to buttress his wiretapping allegations have been unsuccessful. Meanwhile, a House Intelligence Committee investigation into both Russia's apparent meddling in the 2016 election and Trump's surveillance claims has become deeply politicized, with the committee's chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., coming under scrutiny for his handling of the investigation.

Most recently, news emerged that at least three senior White House officials were involved in the handling of intelligence information that was ultimately shared with Nunes and that he argued showed that Trump campaign officials were caught up and, in some cases, unmasked in a broader surveillance of foreign nationals.

On Sunday, Trump also took to Twitter to argue that the White House and congressional Republicans were still working to repeal and replace Obama's health-care law, despite a humiliating defeat last month - when House Republicans were forced to pull the replacement bill from the floor.

"Anybody (especially Fake News media) who thinks that Repeal & Replace of ObamaCare is dead does not know the love and strength in R Party!" Trump wrote.

In a second tweet, minutes later, Trump wrote, "Talks on Repealing and Replacing ObamaCare are, and have been, going on, and will continue until such time as a deal is hopefully struck."

After the Republican health-care plan failed last month, the president initially seemed eager to turn his attention to issues such as tax reform and infrastructure spending. White House aides, however, including Office of Management and Budget chief Mick Mulvaney, have quietly continued discussions about taking another shot at a replacement health-care bill - though the dynamic that tanked their first attempt has not changed significantly.