Former U.S. president, Barack Obama, has rejected claims he ordered a wire tap of President Donald Trump before November’s election.
On Saturday morning Mr Trump tweeted: “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!”
The president added: “Is it legal for a sitting president to be ‘wire tapping’ a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!”
“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!”
And in an additional message, he said: “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, however, did not offer any evidence to support his claims.
But Kevin Lewis, a spokesman for Obama, rejected the allegation, saying: “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.”
He added: “As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any US citizen.
“Any suggestion otherwise is simply false.”
McCarthyism is defined as making allegations of subversion or treason with insufficient regard for evidence.
It is said to have begun with an executive order issued by President Harry Truman in March 1947, requiring all federal employees within the American civil service to be screened for “loyalty”.
Senator Joseph McCarthy claimed in 1950 that known communists were working in the US State Department.
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