WASHINGTON – If you ever wondered how much difference there was between Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump, here's yet another clue.
Bush's chief ethics lawyer tweets out that Barack Obama would have a good chance of winning a libel suit against Trump for saying the 44th president "wiretapped" him.
Richard Painter wrote: "44 v. 45 now looks like a very good libel case even under the high standard for libel against public figures."
U.S. courts require public plaintiffs to prove accusations are false, known to be false by the defendant and were expressed with actual malice and reckless disregard for the truth.
Furthermore, in a 1972 libel case against President Richard Nixon, the courts found the sitting president should be afforded "absolute immunity."
Painter, by the way, is currently suing Trump for violating the Constitution. It's one of more than 50 lawsuits filed against Trump in his first two months in office. Painter's beef was that Trump refused to sell off some of his assets and place them in a blind trust as some previous presidents did.