AP FACT CHECK: Trump's truths can come from wisps of info

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sitting atop that vast apparatus of institutional knowledge, hard-won intelligence and data known as the U.S. government, President Donald Trump forms some of his most contentious opinions from other sources entirely.

It helps explain why a rare riot in Sweden, concerning a drug-crime suspect and resulting in no injuries, became a "massive riot, and death" linked to refugee extremism, in Trump's retelling.

Weeks later, columnist Andrew McCarthy of the conservative National Review accused the newspaper of going back and changing "wiretapped" to "intercepted" on the online story to play down the level of snooping by the Obama administration.

Trump now says that when he made his explosive charge about Obama wiretapping him, he did not literally mean wiretapping, but rather surveillance.

—"I'd bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!"

The president claimed vindication from Nunes' statement this week that U.S. surveillance of foreign entities might have picked up communications involving Trump aides or Trump himself through "incidental" collection.

In the Republican primary campaign, he attacked rival Ted Cruz by mentioning a National Enquirer story tying Cruz's father to John Kennedy's assassin.

[...] when Trump spokesman Sean Spicer cited a Fox New analyst's claim that British intelligence had helped Obama spy on Trump, the president said: "All we did was quote a certain very talented legal mind who was the one responsible for saying that on television."

[...] when it comes to Sweden, Trump is sticking with his impression, formed from watching TV, that immigration is spreading violence and extremism in that country.

[...] two days later, a riot broke out after police arrested a drug crime suspect.

EDITOR'S NOTE _ A look at the veracity of claims by political figures