Shortly after 3:30 a.m. on Saturday morning, President Trump fired off a series of tweets alleging that former president Obama wiretapped Trump Tower prior to the 2016 presidential election. Yet, before millions of Americans even had a chance to crawl out of bed, CNN reporters had already made up their minds that the charges were untrue, breaking the story under a headline declaring: "Trump falsely accuses Obama of wiretapping him."
CNN's report based on unnamed source
Considering that there hasn't been enough time between Trump's early morning tweets and CNN's patently biased reporting to launch an official investigation into the "Towergate" claim-- much less arrive at a conclusion-- it seems quite clear that CNN has jumped the gun in its reporting by proclaiming Trump's accusations to be false before all, or any, of the facts are in.
CNN reported Saturday that a former senior official with "direct knowledge" of Obama's Justice Department investigations denied that Trump's phones were tapped. "This did not happen. It is false. Wrong," the anonymous source told CNN.
And that explanation, from a single unnamed anonymous source, apparently was good enough for CNN.
The network's reporting of Towergate pointed out that Trump "did not offer evidence" to back his claim, and that neither the White House nor former president Obama had provided any comments regarding the wiretapping allegations.
CNN's convenient omission of facts
CNN's ridiculously one-sided Towergate report failed to mention a November 7, 2016, report by journalist Louise Mensch, who confirmed that a FISA court did indeed grant a warrant in October authorizing the FBI to monitor activities inside Trump Tower.
Further reporting by The Guardian also confirmed the story.
On January 19, The New York Times reported that some of these wiretapped communications had been turned over to the Obama White House, although the Obama team concluded that there was no evidence of wrongdoing between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.
While President Trump's claim that his phones were wiretapped by Obama may ultimately prove to be false, it now seems abundantly clear that Trump's claim that CNN is an egregious purveyor of "fake news" is not without merit.