Donald Trump asks Congress to investigate Obama administration over 'wire tap' claims
Video report by ITV News Washington Correspondent Robert Moore
Donald Trump has asked the US Congress to examine whether the Obama administration abused its executive "investigative authority", during the 2016 presidential election campaign, his press secretary has announced.
That request relates to Mr Trump's highly unexpected claims yesterday that his predecessor had ordered his phones tapped - allegations which have been emphatically denied by Mr Obama's team.
White House press Secretary Sean Spicer said Mr Trump had asked for the investigation to be part of an ongoing probe into Russia's alleged interference in the election.
It comes after President Trump claimed that Obama had ordered a wiretap of phone lines in Trump Tower shortly before his election victory.
Posting on Twitter, Mr Trump said it marked a “new low” that could be the biggest political scandal since Watergate.
The claims - for which Mr Trump offered no evidence - have caused a political uproar in the US.
A spokesman for President Obama said the allegations were “simply false”.
"A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice," his spokesman Kevin Lewis said.
"As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any US citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false."
Under US law, presidents cannot order the surveillance of private citizens.
The former director of national intelligence in the Obama administration also today said he was confident that there was no secret court order allowing surveillance at Trump tower during Mr Obama's time in office.
James Clapper said he would "absolutely" have know if such an order had been granted.
Meanwhile Republican Marco Rubio, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, has said the White House "will have to answer as to what exactly" Mr Trump was referring to in his wiretap tweets.