“On Saturday morning, at 6:35 in the morning the president tweeted that Barack Obama wiretapped him in Trump Tower. Is that possible?” CBS Late Show host Stephen Colbert asked Michael Hayden, the retired United States Air Force four-star general who is former Director of the National Security Agency, and former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
“No,” Hayden answered bluntly.
“How is that not possible?” Colbert asked, noting the United States government has the power to wiretap, and there are all these Russian rumors about the Trump campaign.
“Why wouldn’t the president do this?” Colbert wondered.
“Because in the 1970’s we took the authority to direct that action out of the hands of the president, and we put it in the hands of the federal court system,” Hayden said.
Only a federal judge can grant that authority, Hayden said.
And yet, Trump said he’s found out it happened, and that Obama is a bad or a sick guy. And he’s called for an investigation, Colbert said, adding, “Can the president just find out for himself that this happened?”
“That’s what I wondered, what happened?” Hayden agreed. “On Saturday morning, he seemed to have forgotten that he was the President of the United States,” Hayden began, but was interrupted by wild applause.
“Every morning I hope that it’s just some terrible dream,” Colbert confided.
Trump could simply have contact former Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper, and FBI director Jim Comey, had them over for lunch, and asked if Obama had tapped Trump Tower.
“He did not choose to do that. He decided to go ahead and tweet out the accusation, as if it were fact,” Hayden panned.
“Should, in your opinion, the president be tweeting this?” Colbert asked, in case anyone had not already figured that out.
“No,” Hayden answered.
“If it were true, that the previous president, Obama, had used, through some governmental mechanism, a plumber squad even, something just criminal –
“Which is why we took the power away from the president in the 1970’s,” Hayden interrupted.
“…because Nixon did this,” Colbert finished the sentence.
