Washington – FBI Director James B. Comey asked the Justice Department this weekend to publicly reject President Donald Trump’s assertion that President Barack Obama ordered the tapping of Trump’s phones, according to the New York Times.
The newspaper said that according to senior American officials, Comey argued that the highly charged claim is false and must be corrected, but the department has not released any such statement.
Comey, who made the request on Saturday after Trump leveled his allegation on Twitter, has been working to get the Justice Department to knock down the claim because it falsely insinuates that the FBI broke the law, the officials said.
Comey’s extraordinary measure questioning the president’s truthfulness provides an indication of the implications of Trump’s incendiary claim about his predecessor, according to AFP.
In social media statements made over the weekend, Trump accused former President Obama of wiretapping in October during the late stages of the presidential election campaign, but he offered no evidence to support the allegation.
“How low has President Obama gone to tapp (sic) my phones during the very sacred election process? This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!,” Trump said in a series of tweets.
In one of the tweets, Trump said the alleged wiretapping took place in his Trump Tower skyscraper in New York, but there was “nothing found.”
“A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice,” said Kevin Lewis speaking on behalf of the former president.
On the other hand, Republican Chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Devin Nunes said his panel would look into Trump’s claims.
“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,” he said in a statement.
Asharq Al-Awsat
Asharq Al-Awsat is the world’s premier pan-Arab daily newspaper, printed simultaneously each day on four continents in 14 cities. Launched in London in 1978, Asharq Al-Awsat has established itself as the decisive publication on pan-Arab and international affairs, offering its readers in-depth analysis and exclusive editorials, as well as the most comprehensive coverage of the entire Arab world.
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