Directly from the New York Times below. To see the full original article click here.
WASHINGTON
— The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, asked the Justice Department
this weekend to publicly reject President Trump’s assertion that
President Barack Obama
ordered the tapping of Mr. Trump’s phones, senior American officials
said on Sunday. Mr. Comey has argued that the highly charged claim is
false and must be corrected, they said, but the department has not
released any such statement.
Mr. Comey, who made the request on Saturday after Mr. 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 F.B.I. broke the
law, the officials said.
A
spokesman for the F.B.I. declined to comment. Sarah Isgur Flores, the
spokeswoman for the Justice Department, also declined to comment.
Mr.
Comey’s request is a remarkable rebuke of a sitting president, putting
the nation’s top law enforcement official in the position of questioning
Mr. Trump’s truthfulness. The confrontation between the two is the most
serious consequence of Mr. Trump’s weekend Twitter outburst, and it
underscores the dangers of what the president and his aides have
unleashed by accusing the former president of a conspiracy to undermine
Mr. Trump’s young administration.
