Former Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken slammed President Trump’s most recent allegations of wiretapping, calling the President “the leading consumer and purveyor of fake news or conspiracy theories.”
Speaking to CNN’s Kate Bolduan, Blinken said Trump’s allegations that former President Barack Obama ordered Trump be wiretapped are “virtually impossible to believe.”
He said Obama could not have ordered a wiretap. It would have had to come through a request from the Justice Department, and the department would have needed probable cause.
Blinken, who also served as deputy national security adviser to Obama, said he was puzzled why Trump would want to shine a spotlight on this, “because if there was a wiretap, it doesn’t reflect well on him or his associates. If there wasn’t, he’s made an outrageous allegation against President Obama.”
CNN reached out to the White House for comment on the issue but has not yet received a reply.
Blinken told Bolduan he found the sourcing of Trump’s information “really troubling,” noting Trump’s tweets were based on sources that were not credible, despite the President having access to the highest intelligence. “The President is supposed to be setting the standard in our country, not diminishing it.”
Blinken listed other unproven allegations Trump has made against Obama, saying, “We now have over the years the President accusing President Obama of not being born in the United States, and we know what he spent five years doing with that. Not so long ago he accused him of being the founder of the Islamic State,” adding that “undermines the credibility of the person for whom credibility is the most important currency.”
Blinken said Trump’s credibility was not just an issue for the American people but for “our partners, allies, and for that matter, adversaries around the world. This is really dangerous territory.”