FBI Director James Comey sensationally asked the Justice Department to publicly deny President Trump's claims Barack Obama tapped his phones before the election, senior officials have claimed.

Comey essentially wanted to challenge the truthfulness of the sitting president, causing an unprecedented schism between the Oval Office and the nation's top law enforcement official, according to the New York Times.

He said the incendiary charges the president made on Twitter are completely false and must be challenged, but so far the DOJ has ignored him by not issuing any form of statement.

Comey feels the president has insinuated the FBI broke the law with an illegal wire tap, however Trump made no specific reference to the FBI in his Twitter tirade on Saturday morning.

Obama's director of national intelligence James Clapper said on Sunday nothing matching Trump's claims had taken place, saying 'absolutely, I can deny it'.

A U.S. official confirmed the FBI's request but said they weren't authorized to discuss the situation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

This latest overt political intervention by Comey essentially pits him against Trump and reveals the real political danger the president has let loose by accusing the Obama of trying to undermine his administration and providing no evidence.

Donald Trump returned to Washington on Sunday amid the growing controversy surrounding his tweets accusing Barack Obama of tapping his phones prior to the election

FBI Director James Comey sensationally asked the Justice Department to publicly deny President Trump's claims Barack Obama tapped his phones before the election

Trump fired off a series of tweets on Saturday accusing the former president - without any evidence - of spying on him before the election and calling Obama a 'bad (or sick) guy'.

'Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!' he wrote on Twitter.

A spokesman for Obama denied the allegation as 'simply false'.

But the White House has shown no signs of backing down from Trump's claims and instead called on Congress to investigate the matter alongside the lawmakers' probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said on Sunday that the reports 'concerning potentially politically motivated investigations' before the election were 'very troubling.'

'President 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,' he said.

Spicer said there would be no further comment until the investigations are completed.

Trump arrived back at the White House on Sunday after the FBI director raised concerns the president's claims created the impression that the FBI acted improperly

Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump step off Air Force One with their children after returning from Florida on Sunday

Trump accused Obama of tapping his phones at Trump Tower in a flurry of tweets Saturday morning

Another official echoed that of others saying Obama could not have ordered a wire-tap, adding that it would have been taken to a judge by investigators, but investigators never did that

Obama visited the National Gallery of Art in Washington on Sunday with his wife Michelle. A spokesman for the former president denied Trump's allegation as 'simply false'

Trump's Twitter tirade began shortly after 6.30am ET on Saturday when he said he had 'just found out' about being wiretapped, though it was unclear whether he was referring to having found out through a briefing, a conversation or a media report.

The president in the past has tweeted about unsubstantiated and provocative reports he reads on blogs or conservative websites.

DID OBAMA ORDER THE WIRETAPPING ON TRUMP TOWER? President Trump claimed in a series of tweets that Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower back in October, early Saturday morning. The Obama administration quickly denied Trump's allegations that the former president had ordered a wiretap on the New York building on Saturday. A statement put forth by his team said: '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. 'As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen.' However, most glaringly, the statement did not deny allegations that there was a wiretap. It simply said Obama never ordered one on Trump. This means that another federal agency may have sought authorization to listen in on Trump Tower and received it. Advertisement

The tweets stood out, given the gravity of the charge and the strikingly personal attack on the former president.

Trump spoke as recently as last month about how much he likes Obama and how much they get along, despite their differences.

'How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!' he tweeted, misspelling 'tap.'

In another tweet Trump posed the question: 'Is it legal for a sitting President to be 'wire tapping' a race for president prior to an election?'

Obama's spokesman Kevin Lewis released a statement Saturday afternoon refuting Trump's wire-tapping claims.

'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,' Lewis wrote.

'As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false.'

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders refused to say where the current president got his information or why he blamed the former president when she called for a congressional investigation of allegations.

Without being specific, Sanders said on ABC's This Week: '(Trump is going off information that he's seen that have led him to believe that... And if it is, this is the greatest overreach and the greatest abuse of power that I think we've ever seen and a huge attack on democracy itself.'

Sanders would not elaborate on what the president meant, saying his tweets speak for themselves. She also would not say exactly where the president got his information.

On Sunday White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Trump has requested an investigation into the 'troubling reports' that Obama potentially wiretapped the president's phones

Trump accused Barack Obama of wire-tapping his phones at Trump Tower in New York before the election last year

The Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee says his panel will probe Trump's allegations that Trump Tower was wire-tapped by President Obama's administration.

REACTION TO TRUMP'S BUGGING ALLEGATIONS Ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, called Trump's wire-tapping charge 'incendiary' and 'baseless,' and suggested the president got it from ' Breitbart or other conspiracy-based news'. 'For a president who similarly claimed that millions of undocumented immigrants voted illegally costing him the popular vote, and that his predecessor wasn't born in the United States, these new allegations follow a familiar if deeply disturbing pattern of distraction, distortion and downright fabrication,' Schiff charged. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi called the allegations 'ridiculous' and said 'it's the tool of an authoritarian to have them always be talking about what you want to be talking about'. She said: 'Rather than Russia, we're talking about President Obama... When he's been not in favor of Congress investigating anything, including what the Russians have on Donald Trump politically, financially or personally. That's the truth we want to know.' South Carolina Sen Lindsey Graham said: 'I am very worried that our president is suggesting that the former president has done something illegally.' Sen Marco Rubio said: 'I have no insight into what exactly he's referring to. And I'd imagine the president and the White House in the days to come will outline further what was behind that accusation.' Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said: 'It's beneath the dignity of the presidency. It is something that really hurts people's view of government. And either way, the President's in trouble. If he falsely spread this kind of misinformation, that is so wrong.' Advertisement

Rep. Devin Nunes, Rep for California, said his committee 'will make inquiries into whether the government was conducting surveillance activities on any political party's campaign officials or surrogates', the chair said in a statement Sunday afternoon.

Earlier Sunday, Senate Intelligence Committee member, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., suggested his committee would look into the matter as well.

'We've already begun an inquiry on the intelligence committee into Russia's efforts to undermine confidence in our political system,' Cotton said on Fox News Sunday.

'That inquiry is going to be thorough, and we're going to follow the facts wherever they lead us. And I'm sure that this matter will be a part of that inquiry.'

It came after James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence in the Obama administration, 'absolutely' denied there was a secret court order for surveillance at Trump Tower.

Clapper told NBC's Meet the Press that in the national intelligence activity he oversaw, 'there was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president, the president-elect at the time, as a candidate or against his campaign.'

He said as intelligence director he would have known about a 'FISA court order on something like this. Absolutely, I can deny it.'

He left the White House on January 20 when Trump took office.

Trump's controversial tweets prompted a slew of responses from Democratic leaders and pundits knocking down the claims.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi likened it to autocratic behavior.

'It's called a wrap-up smear. You make up something. Then you have the press write about it. And then you say, everybody is writing about this charge. It's a tool of an authoritarian,' Pelosi said.

Ben Rhodes, the former policy advisor for Obama, blasted Trump's accusations on Twitter: 'No President can order a wiretap. Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you.'

Rhodes shot back at another Trump tweet saying: 'Dear Pundits who lauded his speech. Is it still 'presidential' to call your dignified predecessor 'Bad (or sick) guy!'

Josh Earnest, who was Obama's press secretary, said presidents do not have authority to unilaterally order the wiretapping of American citizens, as Trump has alleged was done to him. FBI investigators and Justice Department officials must seek a federal judge's approval for such a step.

Earnest accused Trump of leveling the allegations to distract from the attention being given to campaign-season contacts by Trump aides with a Russian official, including campaign adviser Jeff Sessions before he resigned from the Senate to become attorney general. The FBI is investigating those contacts, as is Congress.

Trump was pictured entering the Oval Office on Sunday night following calls for Congress to investigate his claims that Obama wire-tapped his phones



