Fox News' anchors and commentators are allegedly feuding after the channel's Trump wiretapping claims, in a scenario that is being described as a 'disaster' and a 'nightmare,' according to one report.

The division between the two teams emerged after pundit Judge Andrew Napolitano claimed that Barack Obama used British secret services to wiretap Donald Trump, an insider said.

Last week Napolitano said on the channel that 'three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command' and got the UK's communications heads to listen in on Trump.

That remark, which was subsequently parroted by the White House, infuriated the station's news anchors, insiders told Vanity Fair.

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Controversy: Last week Andrew Napolitano said insiders told him Obama used UK spies to tap Donald Trump; he also referred to himself as 'Fox News' despite being a pundit, not a reporter

Anchors: An insider said that the fallout represented a division between news anchors like (l-r) Bret Baier, Shepard Smith and Chris Wallace and Fox News's commentators

Commentators: Internally, the insider said, there's an understanding that pundits shouldn't attempt to make actual news. Pictured (l-r): Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Tucker Carlson

The judge's March 14 claims led to on-air denials from anchors Shepard Smith and Bret Baier.

'We love the judge, we love him here at Fox, but the Fox News division was never able to back up those claims and was never reported on this show,' Baier said on his March 17 Special Report.

He went on to read a statement from British intelligence that said the claims were 'ridiculous' and 'should be ignored'.

That same night Smith said: 'Fox News cannot confirm Judge Napolitano's commentary.

'Fox News knows of no evidence of any kind that the now-president of the United States was surveilled at any time, any way. Full stop.'

'You have to read into the way Shep said what he said,' an insider told Vanity Fair. 'And why Bret dealt with it the way he did.'

They continued: 'The key thing Judge Napolitano did was to say "Fox News is reporting that..." and he can't say that... He is not a reporter and knows he's not a reporter.'

'Disaster': The White House's later parroting of Napolitano's claim, which was addressed by Trump shortly afterward, was seen as a 'disaster' and a 'nightmare' internally, the source said

That reveals a long-standing division between the news anchors - such as Baier, Shepard and Chris Wallace and the commentators such as Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, the insider said.

As a result of his remarks Napolitano was pulled from the channel, the LA Times claimed on Monday.

There were further complications, the insider said, when Sean Spicer repeated Napolitano's comments in a press briefing on March 16, two days after Napolitano made the claims.

When pressed on that during a press conference with Angela Merkel on March 17, Trump said: '[The White House] said nothing.'

Who? The fallout from Napolitano's slip-up has reportedly distracted from Megyn Kelly's departure to NBC. 'No-one is missing her any more,' the source said

He continued: 'All we did was quote a certain very talented legal mind who was the one responsible for saying that on television.

'I didn't make an opinion on it. That was a statement made by a very talented lawyer on Fox.

'And so you shouldn't be talking to me. You should be talking to Fox.'

That didn't go down well behind the scenes at Fox News, the insider claimed.

'It's a disaster,' they said.

'It's a nightmare.'

There are some positives for the channel, however.

The loss of Megyn Kelly - who defected to NBC despite a massive $25m-a-year offer from Rupert Murdoch's sons, James and Lachlan - has long been forgotten in the commotion.

'No-one is missing her any more' the source said.

Fox News has been contacted for comment.