Trump Accusing Obama of Tapping Phones at Trump Tower

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The tweets stem from an article Trump read on Breitbart.

The president seems to be admitting that he was the personal target of a government investigation into whether he was colluding with a hostile power;

There's no illegality by the Obama administration, since any wiretaps were approved by FISA courts, or conversations were picked up by signal intelligence collection.

Again, I want to raise the same issues as my earlier post:

1) The Breitbart article sourced the FISA warrant allegations to Louise Mensch. As far as I know, nobody other than Mensch has reported that FISA warrants were issued;

2) Therefore, if Trump is relying on Breitbart/Mensch, he may be incorrect about wire taps.

It is interesting that both people on the left and people on the right are embracing Mensch's theories, though for separate reasons. The left wants to highlight FISA warrants as evidence of Trump campaign wrong-doing whereas the right wants to use them to illustrate government (i.e. Obama) overreach. But, neither group is putting much effort into confirming Mensch's reporting which I for one don't have much faith in.

I find Mensch's writing hard to follow, so I'm not putting much into it.

What's more interesting to me is Trump's reaction to reports that he's involved with the Russians. If there's nothing there, he'd be more forthcoming with his financial dealings and doing everything he could to distance himself from people and actions that would compromise his administration. Instead, he's entrenched and digging in deeper, calling it fake news and a witch hunt.

Sessions' banana-peel slip was also an indication there's something going on. So easy to say he'd met with the ambassador in his role as senator, but he had reason to pretend he hadn't.

[Anonymous]

Sessions' banana-peel slip was also an indication there's something going on. So easy to say he'd met with the ambassador in his role as senator, but he had reason to pretend he hadn't.

Nope. Go listen to full exchange with Franken starting with CNN report.
Sessions is an honest man. You don't have to like him, but he is honest.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:At this point Jeff, wouldn't Trump know from IC that his phones were tapped? And as such, he would be confirming it?

If in fact, he is basing this back to Mensch's theories, then is crazy for giving them any credence, even if they are true.

One would expect a President to have confirmed this information with the relevant sources within his Administration. Unfortunately, one would not expect this of this President. Trump clearly doesn't pay much attention to the intelligence community, preferring to rely on sources such as Infowars and Breitbart.

[Anonymous]

I haven't seen anything that indicates Trump saw actual government reports that it happened (e.g. a FISA warrant), just repeating the claims of the right-wing press that it happened. So I'm not sure why everyone is speculating about "what Obama knew and when he knew it".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure but can we all agree not to pretend like he's magically "presidential" next time he manages to read a speech from a TelePrompTer with minimal outbursts?

Seriously, though, I bet he "found out" from infowars or something. Good luck with this one, Spicey!

Bitter, bitter, bitter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Sessions' banana-peel slip was also an indication there's something going on. So easy to say he'd met with the ambassador in his role as senator, but he had reason to pretend he hadn't.

Nope. Go listen to full exchange with Franken starting with CNN report.
Sessions is an honest man. You don't have to like him, but he is honest.

I agree. Why would he try to “hide” something that is so very easily discovered?
It wasn’t like he had a clandestine liaison with this guy.
Based on the exchange during his hearing, he didn’t lie or try to pretend anything.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:I haven't seen anything that indicates Trump saw actual government reports that it happened (e.g. a FISA warrant), just repeating the claims of the right-wing press that it happened. So I'm not sure why everyone is speculating about "what Obama knew and when he knew it".

Exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Sessions' banana-peel slip was also an indication there's something going on. So easy to say he'd met with the ambassador in his role as senator, but he had reason to pretend he hadn't.

Nope. Go listen to full exchange with Franken starting with CNN report.
Sessions is an honest man. You don't have to like him, but he is honest.

I agree. Why would he try to “hide” something that is so very easily discovered?
It wasn’t like he had a clandestine liaison with this guy.
Based on the exchange during his hearing, he didn’t lie or try to pretend anything.

Wow, the things you guys are willing to ignore for the sake of partisanship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/10407282/Barack-Obama-approved-tapping-Angela-Merkels-phone-3-years-ago.html



By Philip Sherwell, New York and Louise Barnett in Berlin
6:18PM GMT 27 Oct 2013
President Barack Obama was told about monitoring of German Chancellor in 2010 and allowed it to continue, says German newspaper

President Barack Obama was dragged into the trans-Atlantic spying row after it was claimed he personally authorised the monitoring of Angela Merkel’s phone three years ago.

The president allegedly allowed US intelligence to listen to calls from the German Chancellor’s mobile phone after he was briefed on the operation by Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency (NSA), in 2010.

British paper citing German newspaper citing German magazine.

[Anonymous]

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.

A key question is whether Trump's phones were tapped, or if the calls of Russian officials were intercepted and Trump happened to be who they were calling. I don't take Trump at his word that the wiretap was applied to his phone rather than the communications of foreign officials. Intercepting foreign government communications is basic modern intelligence gathering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Sessions' banana-peel slip was also an indication there's something going on. So easy to say he'd met with the ambassador in his role as senator, but he had reason to pretend he hadn't.

Nope. Go listen to full exchange with Franken starting with CNN report.
Sessions is an honest man. You don't have to like him, but he is honest.

I agree. Why would he try to “hide” something that is so very easily discovered?
It wasn’t like he had a clandestine liaison with this guy.
Based on the exchange during his hearing, he didn’t lie or try to pretend anything.

I disagree. The written question from Senator Leahy was very direct and plain, and he lied on that too. It is clear from his other written responses that he exaggerated his role in some of the cases he claimed to prosecute to his advantage. So you can claim he is truthful and honorable, but the facts suggest otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Sessions' banana-peel slip was also an indication there's something going on. So easy to say he'd met with the ambassador in his role as senator, but he had reason to pretend he hadn't.

Nope. Go listen to full exchange with Franken starting with CNN report.
Sessions is an honest man. You don't have to like him, but he is honest.

I agree. Why would he try to “hide” something that is so very easily discovered?
It wasn’t like he had a clandestine liaison with this guy.
Based on the exchange during his hearing, he didn’t lie or try to pretend anything.

Why did the Russian Ambassador have to sneak in through the garage of Trump Tower? But setting this issue aside there is still no cogent explanation as to why why all these meetings and communications were necessary. Setting aside the issue of hacking the election, what was the nature of the quid pro quo that made Putin back off his threats of diplomatic retaliation and the nexus to the Wikileaks release of DNC emails? If this is all innocent then conduct a hearing at which Manafort, Flynn, Kushner, Sessions, Gordon, et al. lay it all out or, more likely, assert their Fifth Amendment rights.

[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.

A key question is whether Trump's phones were tapped, or if the calls of Russian officials were intercepted and Trump happened to be who they were calling. I don't take Trump at his word that the wiretap was applied to his phone rather than the communications of foreign officials. Intercepting foreign government communications is basic modern intelligence gathering.

The Trump phones could not have been tapped without a (sealed) warrant and there's no way that this could have remaining a secret this long by virtue of the leaks coming out of the NY field office of the FBI. They had Giuliani on speed dial.

[Anonymous]

The news he is probably reacting to is Sen. Coons suggesting FBI transcripts: http://www.msnbc.com/andrea-mitchell-reports/watch/sen-coons-attorney-general-sessions-lied-to-the-senate-889587267708

Coons believes the FBI may have transcripts between Russians and either Trump himself or his surrogates that would show collusion with the Russians. If the transcripts exist and are damning these tweets would make more sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Sessions' banana-peel slip was also an indication there's something going on. So easy to say he'd met with the ambassador in his role as senator, but he had reason to pretend he hadn't.

Nope. Go listen to full exchange with Franken starting with CNN report.
Sessions is an honest man. You don't have to like him, but he is honest.

I agree. Why would he try to “hide” something that is so very easily discovered?
It wasn’t like he had a clandestine liaison with this guy.
Based on the exchange during his hearing, he didn’t lie or try to pretend anything.

I disagree. The written question from Senator Leahy was very direct and plain, and he lied on that too. It is clear from his other written responses that he exaggerated his role in some of the cases he claimed to prosecute to his advantage. So you can claim he is truthful and honorable, but the facts suggest otherwise.

Let's look at Leahy's question.....

SEN. PATRICK J. LEAHY: Several of the President-elect's nominees or senior advisers have Russian ties. Have you been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election, either before or after election day?" the Vermont Democrat asked in a questionnaire.
SESSIONS: No.

He didn't ask if Sessions had been in contact with anyone with the Russian government for any reason. He asked specifically if he had been in contact with anyone from the Russian government about the 2016 election.
And, Sessions answered honestly.