President Donald Trump claims that his phones were wiretapped, but offered no proof.

WASHINGTON — If Donald Trump wants to know whether he was the subject of surveillance by the U.S. government, he may be uniquely positioned to get an answer.

In a series of tweets, the president accused his predecessor, Barack Obama, of ordering wiretaps on his phones but offered no proof to back the claim. The White House then called on Congress to investigate the allegations.

But former government lawyers say Trump hardly needs Congress to answer this question.

“The intelligence community works for the president, so if a president wanted to know whether surveillance had been conducted on a particular target, all he’d have to do is ask,” said Todd Hinnen, head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division during the Obama administration and a National Security Council staff member under George W. Bush.

The latest storm began Saturday when Trump tweeted: “Is it legal for a sitting President to be ‘wire tapping’ a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!” He followed up with: “How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”

The Justice Department, not the president, would have the authority to conduct such surveillance, and officials have not confirmed any such action. Through a spokesman, Obama said neither he nor any White House official had ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Obama’s top intelligence official, James Clapper, also said Trump’s claims were false, and a U.S. official said the FBI asked the Justice Department to rebut Trump’s assertions.

Why turn to Congress, Trump spokesman Sean Spicer was asked Monday.

“My understanding is that the president directing the Department of Justice to do something with respect to an investigation that may or may not occur with evidence may be seen as trying to interfere,” Spicer said. “And I think that we’re trying to do this in the proper way.”

He indicated that Trump was responding to media reports rather than any word from the intelligence community.

Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said Monday that Trump needs to give more information to the American people and Congress about his wiretapping accusations. “The dimensions of this are huge,” McCain said. “It’s accusing a former president of the United States of violating the law. That’s never happened before.”

For Congress, getting to the bottom of this should not be difficult, said Dan Jones, a former Senate investigator and currently president of the Penn Quarter Research and Investigations Group.

“It’s a knowable, ‘yes or no,’” Jones said. If the answer is there was no such warrant, he said, the next step would be to ask the president why he made the claim. “That information would then be investigated to find out if it’s right or wrong.”