Posted on 03/06/2017 8:57:31 PM PST by Behind the Blue Wall
There's obviously a lot of fog surrounding this Trump wiretap thing, but I think I might have an understanding of things that could shed some light. Trump set this off by saying that Trump Tower was wiretapped. It's classic Trumpian imprecision, right on the edge of what's known and not known, but phrased in such a way that the process of proving him "wrong" makes his point far stronger than he ever could.
In this case, his Tweet is immediately met with denials from all the usual suspects -- former Obama Administration officials, mainstream media. You all can peruse the various statements, but they all basically boil down to, "Trump was not the subject of a wiretap."
But if you consider the law as it relates to the federal surveillance of U.S. citizens and foreigners, you begin to understand the nature of this evasive denial. To sum it up, it's exceedingly difficult to conduct surveillance on a U.S. citizen, and exceedingly easy to conduct surveillance on foreigners. As well it should be.
So the obvious conclusion is that the Obama Administration was conducting surveillance directed at Russians who might be seeking to collude with the Trump campaign to influence the election. Everyone knows this, but the key question is how would you do that? Option A: intercept the communications of every Russian citizen hoping to find the ones who might be trying to interfere with the U.S. election, or Option B: intercept all communications coming into and out of Trump Tower hoping to find the ones evidencing collusion with the Russians. You tell me which one is more likely to be fruitful?
But here's where it gets interesting. Given the bright line between surveillance of U.S. citizens versus surveillance of foreigners, what happens when surveillance of foreigners inadvertently surfaces U.S. citizens in those communications? Here, FISA is also crystal clear for a very good reason: any data pertaining to U.S. citizens that inadvertently shows up in the surveillance of foreigners must be immediately segregated, deleted, forgotten, etc, etc.
If there's anything that is absolutely certain in this entire affair, it's that however the data about the Trump campaign's alleged contacts with Russia was obtained, it definitely was not segregated, deleted, forgotten. In fact, Obama affirmatively acted to spread those communications as far and wide as possible, and then they were predictably and illegally leaked to the media, who then trumpeted them all over the planet.
So I suspect that Trump that magnificent bastard has trapped his opponents once again: the more they argue that he wasn't the subject of a wiretap (and let's assume that he wasn't), the harder it will be explain why the data that was apparently inadvertently obtained via legitimate wiretapping of foreigners was spread as far and wide as it has been. Multiple felonies all around, and it's hard to see how it doesn't end up all the way at the top.
Even if you aren’t a fan of Snowden, go watch some interviews with him. EVERYONE in the U.S. is being spied on by our government. Your emails, phone calls, and whatever you thought was private is not private. It’s all collected by the NSA. Before Obama left office he signed an Executive Order allowing the sharing of this information with all of the 16 intelligence agencies.
Best summary of the day!
My thinking is somewhat along the lines in your last paragraph.
Trump is smart, he’s a game player and makes his own rules. And yes, I see him trapping these jerks.
Time will tell, but I am very upbeat over all of this.
This guy will DRAIN THE SWAMP!!!!
“but phrased in such a way that the process of proving him “wrong” makes his point far stronger than he ever could.” very smartly stated
Yes, I would guess that’s how it went down.
Obama admin was turned down by the FISA court, reportedly, when they tried for a warrant naming Trump people.
The warrant granted before a different judge probably related to a computer server they claimed was pinged by a Russian bank and therefore supposedly part of a communication system used by a foreign person.
But it’s not like they sneak onto to the premises and plant a bug in the computer. Instead, undoubtedly they suck up the entire fiber going into Trump Tower.
After that, it’s basically the ‘honor system’ that they are supposed to only look at what they have a warrant for, even though they have in their hands every tel call and internet transmission passing through that fiber.
Binney the NSA whistleblower says they suck up that info anyway, all across the country, even without a warrant. If they need to use the info legally they launder it by going and getting a warrant.
U r a genius!
Interseting that WH Admin pointed in general to Louise Mensch. She a UK conservative nevertrumper blogged a story on Heatstreet dated 7 November, the night before the elections
https://heatst.com/world/exclusive-fbi-granted-fisa-warrant-covering-trump-camps-ties-to-russia/
She was totally trolled and set up perfectly. She is all over saying she never used the word wiretap and is pantingly breathing that Steve Bannon through Brietbart is the leaker regarding the use of the word wiretap.
Silly people. All they had to do was look at the NY Times headlines on 19 January, (same article Mark Levin used) to see the word wiretap. That was the beauty of the President's tweet. He got more than twofer in this tweet. It was a wipeout.
OPTION C:
Have Obama set up a meeting between members of Trump's campaign staff and the Russian Ambassador, prior to the inauguration. Have the Ambassador wear a wire. Have the Ambassador ask questions about the future of certain negotiations. Remember, this Ambassador was seen sitting with the Democrat contingent at the SOTU speech.
See, the truth is that certain corrupt Russian government officials, and NGO heads did try to influence the Election. They did it for Obama and they were doing it for Hillary. These same corrupt foreigners gave tons of money to Obama and Hillary. They gave Bill Clinton half a million for reading a speech about nothing to people who weren't even listening.
15 October: According to Karla Adams, Washington Post reporter, in a tweet claims the second FISA warrant was issued 15 October. I do need a better source, however consider. .
31 October: The Set Up . . . Franklin Foer article sets it all up at Slate.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/10/was_a_server_registered_to_the_trump_organization_communicating_with_russia.html#return
31 October: The Tell . . . Hillary own tweet. This tweet might get her indicted because she incorporates information NOT included in the Slate article. How could she have known???
https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/793234169576947712
7 November: Louise Mensch report on Heatstreet comes out
8 November Election
8 November: Cheez Whiz at 11 am eastern repeats Louise Mensch report on DailyKos. I guess to get out the vote for any in the base being lazy
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/11/7/1593084/-FBI-Granted-FISA-Warrant-Covering-Trump-Camp-s-Ties-To-Russia
How would I do that if I were Obama?
Since I’d been turned down once by the FISA court and since I was running out of time as the election approached, I’d call in a favor from one of my friends at another national intelligence agency, namely Britian’s GHCQ. They’d conduct the surveillance and share the information. Maybe they owe me, or if now maybe I will be in a position to shift some nice thank-yous their way.]
This explains why everyone is right. Trump is correct in that he was tapped and that Obama ordered it. Obama is correct in that he never used US intelligence assets against a US citizen. Clapper is right in that there was no FISA order because he would have been informed.
The secret to doing dirty deeds is to get what you want and not get caught. No extra credit comes from playing by the rules.
Every county and county-type jurisdiction in the nation conducts the election in their own way pursuant to the laws of each state (and DC). There are over 3000 counties in the U.S. Some use paper ballots. Some use touch screens. Some use ink punched on cards. None are connected to the internet. All jurisdictions have absentee voting by mail. Many have early voting by various methods. It's a total hodge podge that cannot be hacked.
If the allegation is that the Russians meddled by hacking the DNC and/or Podesta's and/or HRC's emails/servers, I suppose that's possible. But (1) Assange has stated categorically that his source was not Russian, and (2) if the Russians targeted the Dems, to what purpose since everyone expected HRC to win right up until the returns started coming in. And no one forced Hillary Clinton to break the law by putting a poorly secured server in her home.
There is not one single shred of evidence ever published that proves the Russians meddled in our elections in 2016. Yet everyone seems to accept the premise as true. Why?
I used “alleged”. We don’t know what the Russians did or did not do with respect to our elections, but we do know that the Obama Administration was using the allegation of them doing it for political purposes.
What it all means is, for one, don’t ever think that something said or “tweeted,” as it were, by this guy that sounds STOOPID is stupid. This country bumpkin is from Brooklyn.
Brilliant post.
That was to facilitate future eruptions from the Deep State, the members of which are distributed among the 16 agencies. The more they can review, the more they can leak.
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