Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey said President Donald Trump is likely 'right' about Trump Tower being surveilled, but the order would have had to come from the Justice Department as part of the FBI's intelligence gathering activities.

'This is the difference between being correct and being right, I think the president was not correct certainly in staying that President Obama ordered a tap on a server in Trump Tower,' Mukasey, who worked under President George W. Bush, said on ABC's This Week.

'However, I think he's right in that there was surveillance and that it was conducted at the behest of the attorney general – of the Justice Department through the FISA court,' Mukasey explained. The Justice Department oversees the FBI.

The former attorney general was being asked about claims Trump made starting Saturday, in which the president suggested Trump Tower was bugged by President Obama preceding the presidential election.

Team Trump has provided no solid evidence that this occurred, except referring to vague 'reports,' while Obama's spokesman has denied such an effort.

Obama's Director of National Intelligence James Clapper explained to NBC's Chuck Todd that he would have been aware of a FISA, or Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, court order and said 'I can deny it' when asked by the Meet the Press host if it exists.

'I can't speak officially anymore,' said Clapper, who resigned after Trump's election. 'But I will say that, for the part of the national security apparatus that I oversaw as DNI, there was no such wiretap activity mounted against – the president-elect at the time, or as a candidate, or against his campaign.'

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Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey speculated that the Justice Department got a FISA court order to surveil Trump Tower as part of an FBI intelligence gathering operation

James Clapper, President Obama's Director of National Intelligence, said he 'can deny' that there was a FISA order to snoop on President Trump's campaign headquarters and home

Mukasey thought there might be a FISA order based on news reports.

'I also base it on [the] kind of inadvertent blurting out by Adam Schiff that his committee wants to talk to the counterintelligence agents at the FBI who were involved in this,' Mukasey explained.

Schiff, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, along with his Republican counterpart, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., huddled with FBI Director James Comey on Thursday.

Afterward, Schiff accused the FBI of walling off portions of the Russia probe from Congress, including details about 'any counterintelligence investigations they are conducting.'

Mukasey explained that the FBI has two functions – they investigate crimes and they gather intelligence.

Mukasey said that if any surveillance of Trump Tower was green-lit, Schiff's comments indicated it was part of an intelligence gathering investigation, not a criminal one.

If Trump Tower was being surveilled it would be because there was 'basis to believe that somebody in Trump Tower may have been acting as an agent of the Russians,' Mukasey said

'It means there were some basis to believe that somebody in Trump Tower may have been acting as an agent of the Russians, for whatever purpose, not necessarily the election, but for some purpose,' Mukasey explained.

'And the FBI keeps track of people who act as agents of foreign governments. They keep track of people who act as agents of the Chinese, the Russians, the Israelis, everybody,' he added.

Mukasey also said the only way to verify electronic surveillance would be to disclose the warrants and what was found.

'And that should not be done even in a political storm as hot as this one,' the ex-attorney general said.

But Clapper pretty confidently denied any sort of wire-tapping activity was going on at Trump Tower, where the president resides in New York and also where his campaign and business headquarters are based.

When Todd asked Clapper if he could confirm or deny that there was a FISA order, Clapper said 'I can deny it.'

'There is no FISA order?' Todd asked again.

'Not – not to my knowledge,' Clapper responded.

Todd asked again, specifying at Trump Tower.

'No,' the former DNI head said.

Additionally, former White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest appeared with Martha Raddatz on ABC's This Week and said the Obama White House was not involved.

James Clapper (left) told Chuck Todd (right) that there was no FISA order to surveil Trump Tower before the presidential election, as the president has claimed

'What I can categorically deny, Martha, is that the White House was at all involved in directing or interfering or influencing the FBI investigation of any sort,' Earnest said.

Clapper said Americans should be given the facts.

'Again, I'd think it would be very healthy to completely clear the air on this subject. And I think it would be in everyone's interest to have that done,' Clapper told Todd.

Clapper expressed confidence in the Senate Intelligence Committee's 'truly bipartisan effort' and said that needs to play out, along with the House's investigation, before a special prosecutor is tapped.

And the White House called on Congress today too, though to include Trump's wire-tapping allegations into any investigations into the Russia matter.

'President Donald J. 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,' Press Secretary Sean Spicer said today in a statement.

'Neither the White House nor the President will comment further until such oversight is conducted,' Spicer wrote.