Nevertheless, he persists

President* Trump's information staff are struggling to alternately defend and downplay the damaging content of his now infamous early morning tweet, where he clearly presented the following accusation as undisputed fact:

President Obama ordered wire tapping of presidential candidate Donald Trump's telephones at his campaign headquarter in Trump Tower, probably to interfere with the election process. Obama is either a bad or sick person. They found nothing, but a good lawyer could probably make a criminal case out of this.

The accusation was made across four tweets and with different wording, but this is the gist of it. There were several parts to his explosive allegation, most of which are easily refutable, but President* Trump refuses to back down on any of it. This is, in eight numbered points, what he said:

1. President Obama gave the order to do this.
2. The action was "wire tapping", listening in on telephone conversations.
3. Donald Trump himself was being wire tapped.
4. The surveillance was done at Trump Tower in New York.
5. Its purpose was probably to interfere with the election process.
6. President Obama is either a bad or sick individual.
7. The investigation did not find anything wrong.
8. The wire tapping was probably illegal, but we should ask a lawyer.

Given the testimony by James Comey from Monday, March 20, what actually might have happened is more like this:

During President Obama's presidency, someone presented a court with enough circumstantial evidence of something damaging enough for the court (1) to approve some sort of surveillance (2) of one or more persons (3) in the Trump presidential campaign organization. The surveillance was done remotely. Donald Trump might have been recorded in "incidental collection" when one of these individuals contacted him, not necessarily at Trump Tower (4), or when he called them. The purpose of the surveillance was not to interfere (5) with the election process, but to keep a low profile and try to assess if the tampering and disinformation had any effect, and whether it could be traced back to Russian interests. President Obama is neither bad nor sick (6), and probably had no hand in this, if it happened. Until the investigation is published, we don't know if anything was found (7), and any actions taken by the FBI were perfectly legal (8).

Some people on team Trump are now trying to claim that what he meant to say was more along these lines. However, that is not what he said, and Trump himself refuses to back down on any of it.

Not a single one of the original eight points are true. In its entirety, Trump's accusation is simply false. And yet, he persists.