Revealed: One in four Donald Trump tweets contain 'questionable claims'

Nearly a quarter of Donald Trump's tweets have contained unproven or disputed claims since he became president, according to a new study.

Researchers looked at whether statements made in tweets from the president's @realDonaldTrump account could either be backed up by publicly-available evidence, or had been disputed by other news outlets.

The Press Association study found that 108 of 447 tweets sent since he took office contained claims that were questionable - a total of 24.2 per cent.

They appeared to peak around the middle of February, a month in which a series of damaging reports emerged relating to Mr Trump’s team's alleged communications with Russia during the election campaign.

In that month, the president tweeted 37 disputable claims - including 12 in the week of security adviser Michael Flynn's resignation over suggestions he covered up talks with Kremlin officials.

Of those, six appeared to directly defend his team's conduct in the Russia scandal, while five specifically contained the phrase "fake news".

"This Russian connection non-sense is merely an attempt to cover-up the many mistakes made in Hillary Clinton's losing campaign," he tweeted on February 15, just hours after Mr Flynn's departure.

He added two days later: "The Democrats had to come up with a story as to why they lost the election, and so badly (306), so they made up a story - RUSSIA. Fake news!"

At the start of April, amid further pressure over the Russia allegations, there were 13 questionable claims in Mr Trump's tweets - the highest week of his presidency.

All but two of these related either to Russia or to unproven allegations of surveillance against the president and his team.

Another peak came as President Trump tweeted unfounded claims that he had his "wires tapped" by predecessor Barack Obama in the run-up to the election.

In a string of four tweets sent in the early hours of March 4, Mr Trump made the claims which he later disowned - telling a press conference two weeks later that he was merely quoting a "very talented" Fox News reporter, Andrew Napolitano.

Mr Napolitano had cited three unnamed sources claiming that the surveillance had been carried about by British intelligence agency GCHQ, at the request of President Obama.

Fox later said it had "no evidence of any kind" that President Trump had been subject to such surveillance.

The only week during which the analysis found no questionable claims was between April 8 and 14 - the seven days following his decision to launch air strikes on a Syrian air base in retaliation for a chemical gas attack that had been launched there by the country's government.