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Once again, President Trump took to Twitter to release his rant, which is now directed at former President Obama, whom he accused of ordering the tapping of his phone. While it seems that this allegation is once again based on hearsay and other unconfirmed sources, James B, Comey, the director of the FBI, requested the Justice Department this weekend to reject the U.S. President’s allegation publicly.

Mr. Comey said that the Twitter post falsely implies that the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the premier federal law enforcement agency in the United States, broke the law. Other FBI officials and their spokesperson declined to comment on the director’s request.

A rebuke

The FBI director’s action was remarkable. This is labeled as a rebuke of a sitting president.  The action questions the truthfulness of President Trump, leading to the top official of the country’s top law enforcement agency to act on the President’s allegation. It’s a serious crisis caused by Trump’s weekend post.

The said Twitter post asked (make that demanded) for a congressional inquiry. He said that they should determine if Obama abused his power by directing the FBI to monitor Trump’s phone during the 2016 presidential race. A Trump spokesman said in a statement that the President finds the wiretapping reports very troubling. The President also asked Congress to look into the issue as part of their investigation into Russia’s supposed meddling in last year’s presidential elections.

Mr. Comey said that President Trump’s demand undermines the credibility of the bureau and many senior officials of the FBI are worried that the public will expect the agency to have significant proof that Trump’s campaign crew conspired with Russia to disrupt the 2016 elections.

Unfounded allegations

Media analysts are looking into the issue. For some, the demand of President Trump seemed based partly on the unproven claims by conservative hosts of radio talk shows and Breitbart News that there were secret instructions authorizing that phones of Mr. Trump and his aides at the Trump Tower in New York be tapped.

A deputy White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in an interview that it is a direct attack on U.S. democracy and called it the “greatest abuse of power.” At the most, the U.S. President believes in the conspiracy theories that are floating around, most of them unproven and from anonymous sources.

In a television interview, a former director of national intelligence during the Obama administration, James R. Clapper Jr., said that to his knowledge, there was no such secret intelligence warrants.

Josh Earnest, the past press secretary at the White House, said Trump’s claim that Obama ordered a wiretap is the former’s major attempt to distract the media and the American people from the increasing scandal about the President and his administration and their Russian connection. He added that there is one page in the crisis management playbook of President Trump. This page simply states that if there is a scandal, the way to distract from it is to post a tweet and make it very outrageous if the scandal is a big one.

A former spokesman for Mr. Obama and his aides labeled Mr. Trump’s accusation as false. It’s ironic that Mr. Trump and his administration used to criticize articles from anonymous sources and now they are relying on these anonymous sources to attack the opposition.