President Donald Trump has leveled serious accusations against former President Barack Obama. Trump has been in office now for over a month and has used the Twitter platform to accuse Obama of ordering the Wiretapping of phones in the Trump Towers in the month of October when the election process was on and in full swing.
The allegations of Trump
The Twitter messages were posted on Saturday and, in these messages, Trump made statements regarding the involvement of Obama in the wiretapping affair. He went on to add that the incident could make for a great case in a court of law and questioned the legality of a sitting president to undertake an operation like wiretapping which was linked to the president election.
What prompted Donald Trump to resort to such an action is shrouded in mystery. If he had substantiated his allegations with proof, it would have been more convincing but he did not do so. There does not appear to be any evidence in support of his charges. A person of his stature should weigh all the pros and cons before making such serious allegations against a President who had served two terms because the allegations if proved wrong, could lead to a major embarrassment for Trump.
It is possible that his critics could interpret his sudden outburst as a strategy to divert attention from other issues that continue to make him uncomfortable, issues like the Russian connection to the election, the immigration ban, and the Mexico border wall.
Obama’s reaction
The reaction of Barack Obama was as expected. He has rejected the accusations outright and his spokesman has clarified that during his regime, no one in the White House had ever ordered any surveillance to be carried out on any US citizen. Hence, the allegations leveled by Donald Trump are totally baseless and false.
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi has demanded that an independent commission be set up to investigate the allegations of wiretapping and arrive at the truth.
Comparison to Watergate scandal
In this connection, the Watergate scandal of 1972 comes to mind in which the then President Richard Nixon was involved. It was about misuse of power on a large scale by the Nixon administration and ended with his resignation.
