Trump Accusing Obama of Tapping Phones at Trump Tower

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand why republicans aren't responding to this. (Except for sen. sasse and Lindsay Graham who happened to be at a town hall.) I mean, either there is a watergate-level scandal or POTUS is crazy or is in cahoots with Putin. And yet not a peep? Truly-wtf, GOP?

You are forgetting the third and most likely option: there was no wire tap and Trump was irresponsibility spreading an unfounded conspiracy theory.

Jeff, honest question, do you really believe that the truth about this will matter much in the long run? The current POTUS has been deliberately cultivating a diverse cornucopia of enemies since taking office, much of it with no evidence whatsoever. Look at this forum itself for evidence of his success in "other-izing" brown-skinned immigrants of all legal status.

I have no idea if civil war is his end goal, but I no longer feel comfortable joking about disagreements in American politics leading to civil war...because it feels increasingly possible.

Yes, I believe that the truth will matter in the long run. I grew up in Illinois -- the land of Lincoln -- where you will find statues of an monuments to Lincoln throughout the State. One that I frequently stopped at during car trips in my youth was engraved with a famous Lincoln quote: "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." Trump is able to fool his cadre of supporters all of the time. He is able to fool all of us some time (though we may not know which times), but he can't fool all of us all the time. When he says that Obama bugged Trump Tower, that is something that either happened or didn't happen. There is not a big gray area. If it didn't happen, Trump looks pretty crazy tweeting about it. If it did happen, there is a question of whether it was legal or not. Legal wire tapping would also be a problem for Trump. I suspect that even Trump doesn't believe there was illegal wiretapping, though that would be the best case for him. But, if the truth is that there was either no wiretapping, or legal wiretapping, Trump is not going to be able to fool all of us about it. Either of those scenarios will be a big problem for him.

So the IC has wide latitude of what is considered legal for communication interception for things that originating sea. This can be done to any foreign national/someone working for a foreign government without a warrant. Also any communication originated from overseas from a personal interest can be followed for a few degrees of separation in the US(think it is 10 degree of separation which is huge). If anything interesting in found(it this case it could be 2 degrees of separation from a presidential candidate- i.e. son in law talks to person of interest and then talks to Trumps electronically), they hack the phones and/or other devices of anyone associated turning on the audio and cameras. This would in reality be a bug of trump towers. They would not need a warrant for this and it would be very hard to prove. So it's not as simple as it seems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Word is, Trump went on a major rampage and yelling fit in the White House today, was going to take Priebus and Bannon to Florida this weekend but took off for Florida and left them behind.

Trump is seriously melting down over this.

Where's this "word" from? Twitter? Are you in the know?

Link to article:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-flashes-anger-sessions-recusal-russia-stories-tense/story?id=45908106

From the article:

ABC News wrote:Before heading off to his so-called "winter White House" in Palm Beach, Florida, on Friday, President Donald Trump summoned some of his senior staff to the Oval Office and went "ballistic," senior White House sources told ABC News.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:
Yes, I believe that the truth will matter in the long run. I grew up in Illinois -- the land of Lincoln -- where you will find statues of an monuments to Lincoln throughout the State. One that I frequently stopped at during car trips in my youth was engraved with a famous Lincoln quote: "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." Trump is able to fool his cadre of supporters all of the time. He is able to fool all of us some time (though we may not know which times), but he can't fool all of us all the time. When he says that Obama bugged Trump Tower, that is something that either happened or didn't happen. There is not a big gray area. If it didn't happen, Trump looks pretty crazy tweeting about it. If it did happen, there is a question of whether it was legal or not. Legal wire tapping would also be a problem for Trump. I suspect that even Trump doesn't believe there was illegal wiretapping, though that would be the best case for him. But, if the truth is that there was either no wiretapping, or legal wiretapping, Trump is not going to be able to fool all of us about it. Either of those scenarios will be a big problem for him.

I guess my question is more about whether the various factions of "fooled" vs. "not fooled" can continue to co-exist. The poll that showed that 70% of registered Republicans either were unsure if Obama was born in the US or were sure he wasn't blew my mind last fall. That's a huge fraction of Americans who believe, or are unsure, that the former POTUS was committing, for eight years, one of the most serious crimes in all of American history! And that Congress did absolutely nothing about it. How can a democracy continue to exist when people are so unsure about the person in the highest elected office? We're seeing the opposite situation now, with a large number of Americans convinced POTUS is a Russian mole...and an increasingly large number of Americans convinced that the former POTUS is planting any evidence that suggests that while quietly planning a coup with a former senior aide in a NW DC mansion.

I just don't feel like this is a stable long term situation for a democracy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone with legal ease explain this to me and whether if it is true was it legal for Obama to do so?

I don't think you need legalese to understand that a FISA warrant is only granted, by a judge, if there's sufficient evidence that a US citizen is working against US interests.

OK. Let's say that the Obama administration had some such evidence. They got the warrant. They tapped the phones. They collected the conversations and such.

Whatever they gathered still exists, unless it was destroyed by the previous administration.
-What did they collect and where is it?
-If it was destroyed, why?

And, if the Obama administration did this, they must not have found anything actionable or incriminating because we would certainly know about it. This is not something they would keep under wraps.

So, we can assume they found nothing actionable. Which begs the question - what was this "sufficient evidence" they had to begin with?

This all smells pretty fishy to me.

That's not how any of this works.

That IS how all of this works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The truth will come out. I don't think this is fake news.

True, but Trump's followers will believe that this is an Obama plot to retake the White House and not acknowledge that actually misdeeds that Trump himself and his campaign and administration endeavored in. He will take us to civil war if he has to.

I thought he didn't want to start WWIII over Ukraine, so why would he take us into civil war? I thought he was going to stand for ALL Americans, so why divide us?

He stands for all Americans who agree with him, aka real Americans. The rest of us are the enemy, like the press.

[Anonymous]

Apparently during the 1968 election LBJ bugged Nixon's campaign plane. Nixon found out about it later. During the heat of Watergate, Nixon called up LBJ and threatened to reveal that this had happened if LBJ tell the Democrats to call off the dogs on their investigation.

LBJ's response was something along the lines of, "I would then have no choice but to reveal what we heard you talking about." That was the end of that conversation.

I think we're close to a similar moment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Trying to jump over from a question I put in a duplicate thread: does anyone else think there's quite a high chance IC and we will determine that DJT laundered money for various Russians? What else can make these series of events make sense?

I think that's only part of it, honestly. That alone doesn't explain his bizarre and consistent support for Russia.

It half makes sense and half doesn't.

The half that doesn't make sense: why he would expose himself to scrutiny knowing he had that skeleton in his closet. It's just a crazy risk for someone who had a pretty good life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Trying to jump over from a question I put in a duplicate thread: does anyone else think there's quite a high chance IC and we will determine that DJT laundered money for various Russians? What else can make these series of events make sense?

I think that's only part of it, honestly. That alone doesn't explain his bizarre and consistent support for Russia.

It half makes sense and half doesn't.

The half that doesn't make sense: why he would expose himself to scrutiny knowing he had that skeleton in his closet. It's just a crazy risk for someone who had a pretty good life.

DP here, and I honestly don't have an opinion on whether POTUS laundered money for Russia or not. But for a narcissist who didn't even think he would win the election, I don't think it's such a crazy risk. I think his decision to run kind of just happened, probably partially in response to Obama cracking jokes about him. And then he fed off the attention so he stayed in the race (something I didn't necessarily expect), and then he won (something he didn't necessarily expect).

He also seems to have only a tenuous grasp on right and wrong, which would make someone much more likely to take a risk like this.

[Anonymous]

I think Trump is still struggling to figure out what FISA means. Despite his staff delicately trying to explain it to him only to be exploded at repeatedly.

But now Bannon is down in Florida with him filling his head with bullshit conspiracy theories again so the denial and delusion will just continue to drag on...

[Anonymous]

Justice Department has debunked this claim by the President.

Fake News, once again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Justice Department has debunked this claim by the President.

Fake News, once again.

No surprise. Trump lie number 2,000.

[Anonymous]

Can we just call it "lies"? So tired of fake news.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Justice Department has debunked this claim by the President.

Fake News, once again.

No surprise. Trump lie number 2,000.

more like 4k

[Anonymous]

Trump is clearly insane. Come on, Republicans, even you have to see how weird and stupid his claim was!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The truth will come out. I don't think this is fake news.

True, but Trump's followers will believe that this is an Obama plot to retake the White House and not acknowledge that actually misdeeds that Trump himself and his campaign and administration endeavored in. He will take us to civil war if he has to.

I thought he didn't want to start WWIII over Ukraine, so why would he take us into civil war? I thought he was going to stand for ALL Americans, so why divide us?

He stands for all Americans who agree with him, aka real Americans. The rest of us are the enemy, like the press.

The rest of us greatly outnumber the Trump supporters.