FBI Director James B. Comey has asked the Justice Department to refute President Donald Trump's claims that his phones were ordered wiretapped by then-President Barack Obama, The New York Times reported, citing senior American officials.
The Times said the FBI declined to comment, as did Sarah Isgur Flores, spokeswoman for the Justice Department.
Over the weekend, Trump leveled the explosive and unsubstantiated allegations via series of tweets that the Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders of Obama a month before the election. Then, on Sunday, the White House released a statement that called for a congressional inquiry and said no further comment would be made until that process was completed.
The tweets came two days after Comey's supervisor at the Justice Department, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, recused himself from the investigation of suspected Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign in order to swing the election to Trump. Sessions removed himself from the probe after he gave misleading testimony at his Senate confirmation hearing by denying he had been in contact with Russia's ambassador during the campaign. It was later confirmed that he had met with Ambassador Sergey Kislyack.