Does Obama Have Grounds to Sue Trump for Libel?

Clapper was encouraged by FBI leaders over the weekend to speak out after Trump essentially accused the Bureau of wiretapping the Trump campaign on Obama’s orders, current and former officials said.

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But he was livid over the accusation that he bugged the Republican campaign offices, believing that Mr. Trump was questioning both the integrity of the office of the president and Mr. Obama himself, people familiar with his thinking said.

He insisted that the President is not the subject of a counterintelligence investigation concerning contacts with Russian Federation, but he admitted that the White House does not know whether Mr Trump is being investigated.

Presidents can’t order the installation of wiretaps on US citizens, and spokesmen for Obama have categorically denied that he ever tried to do so.

“Reports concerning potentially politically motivated investigations immediately ahead of the 2016 election are very troubling”, Spicer says.

Additional tweets followed that one, lambasting Obama and comparing him to former President Richard Nixon – despite Trump’s earlier claims in interviews since his election that he and the 44th president have grown to like each other. “I would be very anxious if in fact the Obama administration was able to obtain a warrant lawfully about Trump campaign activity with foreign governments”, Graham said. You have also probably heard tons of media outlets and even members of the GOP dispute the likelihood of Trump’s accusation.

During his daily press briefing, Spicer is asked about a New York Times report indicating the Justice Department had not assured the White House Trump was not under investigation.

Coming after Trump’s well-received speech to Congress on Tuesday, the tweets reflected his growing frustration with the swirl of allegations about his advisers’ ties to Russian Federation, and his team’s inability to overcome them.

Trump has given no evidence for his claim that Trump Tower was wiretapped.

January 11: The Guardian reported that a June application by USA intelligence to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court had been denied, and that the newspaper had not confirmed the Heat Street reporting about an October order. “As such, the Committee will make inquiries into whether the government was conducting surveillance activities on any political party’s campaign officials or surrogates, and we will continue to investigate this issue if the evidence warrants it”. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false”, spokesman Kevin Lewis said.

Trump tweeted just before 7 a.m. eastern. I’ve never seen anything about that anywhere before.

Guests across the Sunday morning spectrum were astonished by the wiretapping accusation, but Trump’s approach echoed how he handled another allegation against Obama. Ruddy said. “I don’t think there’s any doubt that Obama loyalists inside the administration and outside are giving Donald Trump a lot of grief and a lot of problems.”… “People don’t trust him and worry that he is not up to the job of being president”, West said. One Republican lawmaker speaking to BuzzFeed described Trump’s tweets as “a big deal that will be forgotten in two weeks if it’s not true”.

Trump’s call for Congress to investigate Obama has risks, though, particularly if damaging information about him or his associates is uncovered.

The senators said they would take very seriously “any abuse of wiretapping authorities for political reasons”.

“President Trump has official immunity from liability and damages”, Zipursky confirmed, but it is not clear that judges would view tweeting a defamatory conspiracy theory, without evidence, as a president carrying out his official duties.