Justice Department asked to reject Trump's wiretapping claim

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has asked the Justice Department to publicly reject President Donald Trumps claims that his predecessor Barack Obama wiretapped the billionaire's phones last year, senior officials said.

FBI director, James B. Comey has argued that the highly charged claim is false and must be corrected, the officials told the New York Times on Sunday.

Comey, who made the request on Saturday after Trump levelled 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.

However, The White House showed no indication that it would back down from Trump's claims, the New York Times said.

On Sunday, Trump demanded a congressional inquiry into whether Obama had abused the power of federal law enforcement agencies before the 2016 presidential election.

In his demand for a congressional inquiry, the President, through his press secretary, Sean Spicer, issued a statement on Sunday that said: "President Donald Trump is requesting that as part of their investigation into Russian activity, the congressional intelligence committees exercise their oversight authority to determine whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016."

Spicer, added that "neither the White House nor the President will comment further until such oversight is conducted."

A spokesman for Obama and his former aides have called the accusation by Trump completely false, saying that Obama never ordered any wiretapping of a US citizen.

"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," Kevin Lewis, Obama's spokesman, said in a statement on Saturday.

On Sunday, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the deputy White House press secretary, told ABC News that the President was determined to find out what had really happened, calling it potentially the "greatest abuse of power" that the country had seen.

--IANS

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