Congress to probe Trump wiretap claim, Federal Bureau of Investigation disputes it

President Trump is accusing his predecessor of orchestrating a Nixon-style wiretapping at Trump Tower in the final days of the election, prompting a rare statement from the former commander in chief, who strongly denied that he or the White House played any part in the alleged scheme.

With no proof, Trump promoted for five years the “birther” issue, the false claim that Obama wasn’t born in the United States.

Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain said Monday that President Donald Trump needs to show evidence he was wiretapped at the behest of former President Barack Obama.

Instead, news reports suggest Trump relied on conspiracy theories floated on conservative talk radio and by Breitbart News.

The lawmakers addressed their letter to FBI Director James Comey and Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente.

A senior US official told NBC News that FBI Director James Comey asked the Justice Department over the weekend to publicly reject Trump’s claims because they were untrue. Furthermore, no one from the White House has even provided any information to explain exactly what Trump was talking about or where this sudden accusation stemmed from.

Mr Trump’s allegations are the latest twist in a controversy over whether his campaign had been in contact with Russian Federation during the election.

The FBI has opened an investigation into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election to boost Trump’s campaign.

“Why is the president saying it (the phone tapping) did happen?” host Martha Raddatz asked. Ruddy reports in his column that he spoke to the president twice over the weekend.

President Donald Trump has not spoken to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about his claim that his predecessor wiretapped his phones. “Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!” The president said a “Nixon/Watergate” process was under way, and called Obama a “bad (or sick) guy”.

The White House has asked the Republican-controlled Congress to examine, as part of an ongoing congressional probe into Russia’s influence on the election, whether the Obama administration abused its investigative authority. “To my knowledge” there was no such order of anything at Trump Tower, he said.

Realising their error in inviting more scrutiny, Sean Spicer tried to walk back the allegations on Sunday morning (US time).

“Yes. I think he is”, Pelosi said. Neither the White House nor Obama’s office has responded immediately to NPR’s requests for comment. The more Trump lashes out without any facts, the more hard it will be for him to build support at home or overseas in a real crisis that affects the national security he talks so much about protecting.

The newspaper said Trump asked some aides whether an investigator “outside the government” could back up his claims. Zipursky added. “I don’t know what a court would decide on that, but there is some evidence of recklessness”. It’s an answer that provides them some cover once the answer is identified.

“This president has been under siege since Day One from both the press and Obama loyalists and he’s reacting to it”, Mr.

The anti-Trump press was apoplectic, calling the claim “unsupported”. And then you say, everybody is writing about this charge. “It’s a tool of an authoritarian”. His administration is facing FBI and congressional investigations into contacts between members of his campaign team and Russian officials. “Absolutely, I can deny it”, Clapper said. “It makes us vulnerable to our enemies, ” Panetta said on CBS.

The ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee accepted the president’s request for an investigation Tuesday.

“Well, I think, they don’t have the best track record”, she said.