What a remarkable time for our nation when reasonable adults must wonder if the president has misplaced his tinfoil hat while tweeting, or whether he really knows what it is he is talking about.

President Donald Trump’s assertions that President Barack Obama engaged in Watergate-style spying on him — claims made without supporting evidence — are so irresponsible they would be laughable if not for the great harm such allegations do: if not to his already tenuous credibility, then to the reputation of the office.

Apparently, without discussing the matter with his staff, and angry that Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from federal investigations into Russian interference, Trump decided to base his broadside on a handful of reports, including those of the BBC, a talk-radio personality and a clip-job report from Breitbart News Network — the alt-right site led previously by Trump adviser Stephen Bannon.

No mainstream news organization had or has verified these suspicions, though the BBC says it has confirmed that in October, a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act judge allowed permission to look into electronic records between a Trump server and two Russian banks.

Further, FBI director James Comey quickly asked the Justice Department to publicly reject the mercurial president’s claims. The director of national intelligence at the helm until Trump’s lackluster inauguration, James Clapper, also contradicts the assertions.

An Obama spokesman called Trump’s accusations completely false, saying, “A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Justice Department.”

Against that backdrop, Trump’s tweets seem more the stuff of blame-shifting.

But never one to concede a factual error, Trump had his White House spokesman call for a congressional investigation into whether Obama tasked his spies with monitoring Trump’s communications in Trump Tower.

Just so we’re all on the same page, if it is found to be true that President Barack Obama ordered such surveillance, we would join the outrage. U.S. presidents can not legally order the wiretapping of their citizens. Federal judges must make such orders, and only after reviewing evidence from Justice Department investigators wishing to listen in.

If a judge had approved such sleuthing, with adequate due-process considerations, our assumption could only be that investigators were on to something. Such an investigation would suggest significant cause for concern about Trump’s activities on the campaign trail. Odd indeed that Trump would risk planting exactly these kinds of questions in the minds of the American people he now serves.

Meanwhile, as noted by Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy — the conservative champion leading the congressional review of the Benghazi attacks — if the eavesdropping process wasn’t handled legally, the system in place should require the kind of a paper trail that allows the truth to come out.

Any information “that the current Department of Justice has that suggests the previous Department of Justice acted inappropriately,” Gowdy said, “they are welcome to release it.”

Yes, it is always possible that political operatives are playing an improper role. But we would hope to see some factual basis presented when a president accuses a former president of this kind of subterfuge.

To drain the swamp, as Trump insists he wishes to do, he might find the task a bit easier if he stops releasing more sewage into the mix.

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