Former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden made an extraordinary appearance on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" late Tuesday to emphatically deny President Donald Trump's claim that President Barack Obama bugged the phones at Trump Tower during the 2016 presidential race.
"In the 1970s, 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, a retired U.S. Air Force four-star general, explained to Colbert, whose guests are usually entertainers.
"So the only part of the U.S. government which has the authority, the only part of the U.S. government that can grant the authority to do that, is a federal judge."
Hayden said he didn't believe Trump should be tweeting such accusations as he did early Saturday:
"I wondered what happened on Saturday morning. He seemed to have forgotten he was the president of the United States," Hayden told Colbert.
"What the president could have done is kind of hit the switch there on the phone and said 'get me [FBI director James] Comey, get me the acting director of national intelligence, have them down here for lunch I've got a question.'
"And then he could simply ask them and get a response. He didn't choose to do that… he decided to go ahead and tweet out the accusation as if it were fact."
Trump has not backed down on his claim or offered any proof of its accuracy and has called on Congress to investigate it. Some believe the commander in chief's charge was triggered by unsubstantiated claims made by conservative radio show host Mark Levin.