FBI, Wiretaps, Trump

[Phil1111 901]

Only the FBI acting under a COURT ORDER can obtain a wire tap warrant.

"U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday accused former President Barack Obama of wiretapping him in October during the late stages of the presidential election campaign, but offered no evidence to support the allegation.

"How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!," Trump said in a series of Tweets on his Twitter account early on Saturday.

Obama's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters. The White House also did not respond to a request to elaborate on Trump's accusations.

In one of the Tweets, Trump said the alleged wiretapping took place in his Trump Tower building in New York, but there was "nothing found."

Trump's administration has come under pressure from Federal Bureau of Investigation and congressional investigations into contacts between some members of his campaign team and Russian officials during his campaign. "
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-obama-idUSKBN16B0CC

"From the three reports, from the Guardian, Heat Street, and the New York Times, it appears the FBI had concerns about a private server in Trump Tower that was connected to one or two Russian banks. Heat Street describes these concerns as centering on “possible financial and banking offenses.” I italicize the word “offenses” because it denotes crimes. Ordinarily, when crimes are suspected, there is a criminal investigation, not a national-security investigation. According to the New York Times (based on FBI sources), the FBI initially determined that the Trump Tower server did not have “any nefarious purpose.” But then, Heat Street says, “the FBI’s counter-intelligence arm, sources say, re-drew an earlier FISA court request around possible financial and banking offenses related to the server.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/443768/obama-fisa-trump-wiretap

"In a string of tweets posted early Saturday morning, President Trump let loose a barrage of accusations at his predecessor. He alleged that former President Obama had his "wires tapped" in Trump Tower before Election Day last year, accusing Obama of "McCarthyism" and being a "bad (or sick) guy."

Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!
5:35 AM - 4 Mar 2017

Is it legal for a sitting President to be "wire tapping" a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!
5:49 AM - 4 Mar 2017

I'd bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!
5:52 AM - 4 Mar 2017

How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!
6:02 AM - 4 Mar 2017

""I would say at this point we know less than a fraction of what the FBI knows," Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told reporters Thursday after a briefing with Comey at the Capitol."

"I appreciate we had a long briefing and testimony from the director today, but in order for us to do our investigation in a thorough and credible way, we're going to need the FBI to fully cooperate, to be willing to tell us the length and breadth of any counterintelligence investigations they are conducting," Schiff said. "At this point, the director was not willing to do that."

Schiff said during the briefing, which lasted more than three hours, there were areas of the investigation Comey "walled off" from discussions with lawmakers."
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2017-03-02/house-committee-accuses-fbi-of-withholding-information-about-russia-probe

There is only one reason why the FBI is withholding information from the Senate Committee. Its because they are protecting an ongoing investigation.

[quade 3]

Parsing Trump is difficult since he frequently uses terms incorrectly.

Within the last week or so he said ICE was a military operation, which is clearly untrue, but it sounds good. Later a spokeshole clarified the statement to what he meant to say was it had military like precision, which is still undefined, but at least gets away from the Posse Comitatus aspects.

I'm not fan of Trump, BY A LONG SHOT, but I can see where it's entirely possible his lack of knowledge is at play in this series of tweets.

President Obama would never need to put a "tapp" on Trump's phone line for the FBI to know what was being said between him and ANYONE outside the US borders.

This information would come to us courtesy of the NSA, via the Bush 43 administration as detailed via the Snowden documents.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[gowlerk 1,901]

Trump has probably just found out that his secret communications with Russian agents aren't going to be secret forever. He is trying to preemptively spin this as an Obama administration crime.

There is going to be a steady drip, drip, dripping of revelations that will severely damage him.

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[ryoder 1,380]

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/trump-orders-all-white-house-phones-covered-in-tin-foil

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[jakee 1,254]

Trump says it's not fair for the FBI to have been investigating him while he was a candidate in the presidential campaign?

Seriously?

This has to be a new record. For what exactly I couldn't even say, but whatever it is, it's the most


Also, who the fuck talks like this? "How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process." Very sacred? The US elections, when sacred isn't sacred enough! It's grade school level writing. Reminds me of the line from The Nice Guys;
"Dad, there are whores here and stuff!"
"Don't say 'and stuff' sweetie. Just say 'Dad, there are whores here.'"

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[gowlerk 1,901]

jakee

Trump says it's not fair for the FBI to have been investigating him while he was a candidate in the presidential campaign?

Seriously?

This has to be a new record. For what exactly I couldn't even say, but whatever it is, it's the most

That's not what was happening. The security services of the USA were not investigating the Trump campaign. They were investigating Russian spies. The fact that Russian spies had a relationship with the Trump campaign was incidental.

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[Phil1111 901]

ryoder

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/trump-orders-all-white-house-phones-covered-in-tin-foil

Given the frequency of his morning tweets today that is seriously funny. I could just see his face getting redder and redder underneath the orange paint.

Imagine the courts trying to fight or put limits on the donald. The donald!!!!

[gowlerk 1,901]

Trump fought the law and the....law won.

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[david3 0]

Phil1111

***http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/trump-orders-all-white-house-phones-covered-in-tin-foil

Given the frequency of his morning tweets today that is seriously funny. I could just see his face getting redder and redder underneath the orange paint.

Imagine the courts trying to fight or put limits on the donald. The donald!!!!
Wouldn't he have to be in the Whitehouse for this to be true. Satire only works if it has at least some touch of reality.

[Phil1111 901]

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/donald-trumps-early-morning-tweets

What to Make of Donald Trump’s Early-Morning Wiretap Tweets

Between six and six-thirty this morning, the President of the United States, who had returned to his Mar-a-Lago estate, in Florida, unleashed a series of tweets accusing his predecessor of tapping his phones just before Election Day: “A NEW LOW!” “This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!” Two hours later, he tweeted again, this time about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s decision to leave “The New Celebrity Apprentice”: “Sad end to great show.”

Donald Trump’s early-morning Twitter binge unleashed, as he likely expected it would, a flurry of comments on the same medium, with his partisans echoing his rage at Barack Obama while many others questioned Trump’s motives, his integrity, and his mental stability.

Others pointed to articles posted on Breitbart as a possible inspiration; it would not be the first time that Trump has been moved to action by something published on Breitbart, the former home of his close adviser Steve Bannon. One of the articles is based on Senator Orrin Hatch’s remark about the wiretaps that led to the downfall of Michael Flynn as the national-security adviser. Another is based on Mark Levin, a conservative radio host, who recently accused Obama of “police state” tactics to carry out a “silent coup” against Trump.

One of President Trump’s most consistent rhetorical maneuvers is a fairly basic but often highly effective one—the diversionary reverse accusation. When he is accused of benefitting from “fake news,” he flips the neologism on its head; suddenly CNN, the Times, and the rest are “fake news.” When Democratic politicians such as Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi call for investigations of his campaign’s contacts with Russian officials, Trump posts pictures of those critics meeting publicly with Vladimir Putin and calls for an investigation. This happened on Saturday. He fogs the language and clouds the issue.

The stories on Breitbart appear to be related to the efforts of American intelligence and law-enforcement officials to investigate potential links between Trump aides and Russian officials. It would seem that Trump, in the same spirit of diversion, has conflated the work of the courts, law enforcement, and intelligence agencies with “Obama.”

As Benjamin Rhodes, the former deputy national-security adviser under Obama, put it in a tweet on Saturday, the President is not authorized to order a wiretap.

Ironically, the Obama Administration, after being informed that the Russian government was likely behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee and that the effort was intended to undermine Hillary Clinton, did not act more forcefully for fear of appearing to favor its own political party.

And there is other news as well. Trump, who for years has paid compliments to Putin’s strength and tactics, is expected to appoint as his main adviser on Russia Fiona Hill, a think-tank analyst who has described the Russian President as a gangster. Many members of the foreign-policy community in Washington are stunned. They wonder how Hill could take such a post when the Trump Administration is under scrutiny for its relations with Russian officials.

A dual citizen of the United States and the United Kingdom, Hill is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, in Washington, and between 2006 and 2009 served as a Russia analyst on the National Intelligence Council, a kind of intelligence think-tank independent of the C.I.A. Hill is the co-author, with Clifford G. Gaddy, of a political and psychological portrait of the Russian President titled “Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin.” The book describes Putin’s system as a “protection racket” in which he views himself as the “CEO of Russia, Inc.” and is served by “crony oligarchs.” “In reality,” Hill and Gaddy write, “his leadership style is more like that of a mafia family Don.”

Hill and Gaddy describe in detail Putin’s background as an intelligence officer and the methods used in the Russian secret services to discredit opponents. “Core individuals collect and amass detailed compromising material (kompromat in Russian) that can be used as leverage on every key figure inside and outside of government,” they write.

A few weeks ago, we spoke with Hill, on the record, for an article about Russia and the Trump Administration. She in no way gave the impression that she was an admirer of Trump or shared his views on Russia. While Trump himself has derided the intelligence agencies and their conclusion that Putin directed an operation aimed at undermining the 2016 election and Clinton’s candidacy, Hill expressed no such doubt. She added, “They couldn’t have anticipated, whoever is doing this”—Russian military intelligence, Russian foreign intelligence—“whoever, they couldn’t have imagined how lucky they would be and come across the motherlode of information.”

“Are they trying to turn him into the Manchurian Candidate?” Hill went on. “The Russians didn’t invent him, but now they seem to create that impression. It was all intended to discredit Clinton and the electoral and party system. They wanted to amplify someone like Trump because what he says is music to their ears.”

When asked why Trump seemed so admiring of Putin, particularly his “strength,” Hill said, “I don’t want to suggest that Trump is emulating Putin. Trump is his own creation. But Putin, coming from the K.G.B., a lot of his skill set comes out of the K.G.B. playbook. His public messaging is right out of Lenin, with slogans like ‘Land for the Peasants,’ and calling the Bolsheviks a majority when they were not. This is a skill set that Putin acquired. Trump knows how to play the media all on his own. He creates his own Twitter feed and uses it. He knows how to get the media’s attention without the benefit of a state-controlled media. He does it all on his own. Trump understands how a free media works.”

Many Russian and American analysts now refer to the current state of U.S.-Russia relations as a kind of new Cold War; Hill gave the current state of affairs an even more alarming tag. “I think we are in a hot war with Russia, not a cold war,” she said. “But we have to be careful about the analogy. It’s a more complex world. There is no set-piece confrontation. This is no holds barred. The Cold War was a more disciplined competition, aside from the near blowups in Berlin and Cuba, where we walked back from the brink. The Kremlin now is willing to jump over the abyss. They want to play for the asymmetry. They see themselves in a period of hot kinetic war. Also, this is not just two-way superpower. There is China, the rising powers. I almost see it as like the great power competition from the time before the Second World War.”

Hill also said that the Russians, partly because they “have” Edward Snowden, in Moscow, possess “a good idea of what the U.S. is capable of knowing. They got all of his information. You can be damn well sure that [Snowden’s] information is theirs.”

In the think-tank and analytical world of Russian specialists in Washington, Hill has a solid reputation. Celeste Wallander, who was Obama’s leading adviser on Russia, said, “Fiona is a respected analyst in the Washington Russia community, and she has been very tough and really hardheaded about who and what Putin is and about U.S.-Russian policy.”

And yet the general feeling in that same community is that Trump is not an ordinary Republican President—his comments about Putin are extraordinary, and so is the tumult in his Administration, particularly when it comes to its relations with Russia. Michael Flynn lost his job as the national-security adviser in less than a month because of his contacts with the Russian Ambassador, and others in the Trump circle—from Paul Manafort, Trump’s onetime campaign manager, to the Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, to Carter Page, a policy adviser during the race—are also being scrutinized. Some officials and analysts wonder if Hill is deluded in thinking, somehow, that she can play a positive and decisive role in a White House clouded by the prospect of congressional investigations and influenced so markedly by ideologues like Steve Bannon.

In late July, Hill wrote a column for Vox on why Putin might have wanted to interfere in the election. Her analysis was completely in line with consensus thinking. She concluded that Putin believed that the Obama Administration, and particularly Clinton, as Obama’s Secretary of State, had somehow been responsible for the anti-Kremlin demonstrations in 2011 and 2012 and that he wanted either to prevent Clinton from becoming President or, more likely, to do his best to weaken her. “A US president who is elected amid controversy and recrimination, reviled by a large segment of the electorate, and mired in domestic crises,” Hill wrote, “will be hard-pressed to forge a coherent foreign policy and challenge Russia.”

[quade 3]

Reasonable article.

Hill would be a good choice for advisor IF Trump would actually listen to her.

Her comments about how Putin runs Russian seem right on the mark. Her comments about how Russia saw the elections seem spot on too. I do question her comments about Snowden, but that's quibbling in how one decides to interpret what she meant by them.

It seems Putin didn't so much want Trump as President, but saw it as more of an opportunity to defeat Hillary (his real goal). Now, a couple of months into this BS, the tone of Russian media has drastically changed WRT Trump, a sure sign Putin himself is displeased with how things are going.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[gowlerk 1,901]

Quote

Now, a couple of months into this BS, the tone of Russian media has drastically changed WRT Trump, a sure sign Putin himself is displeased with how things are going.

Or Russia now is seeing that being obvious in favouring the new US regime is hurting Trump. So they are toning it down. Royreader has been missing for a couple weeks now.

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[Phil1111 901]

gowlerk

Quote

Now, a couple of months into this BS, the tone of Russian media has drastically changed WRT Trump, a sure sign Putin himself is displeased with how things are going.

Or Russia now is seeing that being obvious in favouring the new US regime is hurting Trump. So they are toning it down. Royreader has been missing for a couple weeks now.

You don't think... that Putin was displeased.... with his performance...that he ordered... not the plutonium tea!!!

Nah, I still think Roy's an intelligent Russian media cloud bot.

[rushmc 18]

Since when do you care about evidence? It appears from your posts about Trump and Russia that all you care is about the accusation. Now an accusation is made the other way and now evidence becomes important. You are so confusing...

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[tonyhays 86]

Quote

Since when do you care about evidence

The CIA, FBI, and DNI all have stated that Russia meddled, in one form or another. Or is that not evidence enough for you?

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”

[gowlerk 1,901]

Not to worry Marc. The evidence will come out at the trial. No one is going to show it to you first. You'll just have to sit there and squirm in frustration as the details slowly emerge.

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[billvon 2,379]

Quote

Since when do you care about evidence? It appears from your posts about Trump and Russia that all you care is about the accusation. Now an accusation is made the other way and now evidence becomes important.

It always was. Now that Trump has admitted that there was a court order to wiretap his lines, we will get to see more of the evidence against him.

[AlanS 1]

jakee

Trump says it's not fair for the FBI to have been investigating him while he was a candidate in the presidential campaign?

Seriously?

It's totally fair to look into allegations of Russia influencing the election. He shouldn't be upset or even surprised by this.

Trump's tweets are what you would call "narcissistic rage". If anything threatens a narcissist's self images they lash out others without considering if it is just or even true. All that matters in that moment is preserving their own ego.

I've dealt with people like this in my personal life. You cannot change them, or even be patient with them. All you can really do is get them out of our life to preserver yourself.

Unfortunately we as a nation with a deeply narcissistic president cannot so easily walk away from this. After the speech a few days ago, I was hoping Trump was pivoting to a more sane stance. But with these tweets, I've completely lost hope. It is going to be a rough 4 years.

[jclalor 12]

rushmc

Since when do you care about evidence? It appears from your posts about Trump and Russia that all you care is about the accusation. Now an accusation is made the other way and now evidence becomes important. You are so confusing...

Shhhh... The adults are talking.

[AlanS 1]

This is what I fully expect to play out for the next 4 years, with an obviously NPD person as president.

https://qz.com/852187/coping-with-chaos-in-the-white-house/

Summarized points from article below.

Quote

1) It’s not curable and it’s barely treatable. He is who he is. There is no getting better, or learning, or adapting. He’s not going to “rise to the occasion” for more than maybe a couple hours. So just put that out of your mind.

2) He will say whatever feels most comfortable or good to him at any given time. He will lie a lot, and say totally different things to different people. Stop being surprised by this. ... So if you’re trying to reconcile or analyze his words, don’t. It’s 100% not worth your time. Only pay attention to and address his actions.

3) You can influence him by making him feel good. There are already people like Steve Bannon who appear ready to use him for their own ends. ...

4) Entitlement is a key aspect of the disorder. As we are already seeing, he will likely not observe traditional boundaries of the office. He has already stated that rules don’t apply to him. This particular attribute has huge implications for the presidency ....

5) We should expect that he only cares about himself and those he views as extensions of himself, like his children. ... He desires accumulation of wealth and power because it fills a hole. ...

6) It’s very, very confusing for non-disordered people to experience a disordered person with NPD. While often intelligent, charismatic, and charming, they do not reliably observe social conventions or demonstrate basic human empathy. It’s very common for non-disordered people to lower their own expectations and try to normalize the behavior. Do not do this and do not allow others, especially the media, to do this. If you start to feel foggy or unclear about why, step away until you recalibrate.

7) People with NPD often recruit helpers. These are referred to as “enablers” in the literature when they allow or cover for bad behavior, and “flying monkeys” when they perpetrate bad behavior on behalf of the narcissist. .... It will be important to support the good people around him if and when they attempt to stay clear or break away.

8) People with NPD often foster competition in people they control. Expect lots of chaos, firings, and recriminations. ...

9) Gaslighting—where someone tries to convince you that the reality you’ve experienced isn’t true—is real and torturous. He will gaslight, his followers will gaslight. Many of our politicians and media figures already gaslight, so it will be hard to distinguish his amplified version from what has already been normalized. Learn the signs and find ways to stay focused on what you know to be true. Note: it is typically not helpful to argue with people who are attempting to gaslight. You will only confuse yourself. Just walk away.

10) Whenever possible, do not focus on the narcissist or give him attention. Unfortunately we can’t and shouldn’t ignore the president, but don’t circulate his tweets or laugh at him—you are enabling him and getting his word out. ... Focus on what you can change and how you can resist, where you are. We are all called to be leaders now, in the absence of leadership.

[jakee 1,254]

rushmc

Now an accusation is made the other way and now evidence becomes important.

What accusation?

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[Phil1111 901]

Agree

"Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on Sunday denied any suggestion that Trump Tower communications were wiretapped before the election.

For the part of the national security apparatus that he oversaw, "there was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president, the president-elect at the time, or as a candidate, or against his campaign," Clapper told Chuck Todd in an exclusive interview on Sunday's "Meet The Press." ...

Additionally, when asked if Clapper has any evidence that the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russian government while the Kremlin was working to influence the election, Clapper said, "not to my knowledge," based on the information he had before his time in the position ended.

"We did not include anything in our report… that had any reflect of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. There was no evidence of that included in our report," he said. "We had no evidence of such collusion."
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/former-dni-james-clapper-i-can-deny-wiretap-trump-tower-n729261

So IMO what remains is the fact that the FBI was withholding information from the Senate Intelligence committee that suggests an ongoing investigation.

[billvon 2,379]

jakee

***Now an accusation is made the other way and now evidence becomes important.

What accusation?
Does it really matter? If there's no accusation, he'll make one up.

[kallend 1,618]

1. He called Hillary Clinton a crook.
You bought it.
Then he paid $25 million to settle a fraud lawsuit.

2. He said he’d release his tax returns, eventually.
You bought it.
He hasn’t, and says he never will.

3. He said he’d divest himself from his financial empire, to avoid any conflicts of interest.
You bought it.
He is still heavily involved in his businesses, manipulates the stock market on a daily basis, and has more conflicts of interest than can even be counted.

4. He said Clinton was in the pockets of Goldman Sachs, and would do whatever they said.
You bought it.
He then proceeded to put half a dozen Goldman Sachs executives in positions of power in his administration.

5. He said he’d surround himself with all the best and smartest people.
You bought it.
He nominated theocratic loon Mike Pence for Vice President. A white supremacist named Steve Bannon is his most trusted confidant. Dr. Ben Carson, the world’s greatest idiot savant brain surgeon, is in charge of HUD. Russian quisling Rex Tillerson is Secretary of State.

6. He said he’d be his own man, beholden to no one.
You bought it.
He then appointed Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, whose only “qualifications” were the massive amounts of cash she donated to his campaign.

7. He said he would “drain the swamp” of Washington insiders.
You bought it.
He then admitted that was just a corny slogan he said to fire up the rubes during the rallies, and that he didn’t mean it.

8. He said he knew more about strategy and terrorism than the Generals did.
You bought it.
He promptly gave the green light to a disastrous raid in Yemen- even though all his Generals said it would be a terrible idea. This raid resulted in the deaths of a Navy SEAL, an 8-year old American girl, and numerous civilians. The actual target of the raid escaped, and no useful intel was gained.

9. He said Hillary Clinton couldn’t be counted on in times of crisis.
You bought it.
He didn’t even bother overseeing that raid in Yemen; and instead spent the time hate-tweeting the New York Times, and sleeping.

10. He called CNN, the Washington Post and the New York Times “fake news” and said they were his enemy.
You bought it.
He now gets all his information from Breitbart, Gateway Pundit, and InfoWars.

11. He called Barack Obama “the vacationer-in-Chief” and accused him of playing more rounds of golf than Tiger Woods. He promised to never be the kind of president who took cushy vacations on the taxpayer’s dime, not when there was so much important work to be done.
You bought it.
He took his first vacation after 11 days in office.
And went golfing. Four in six weeks. On the taxpayer’s dime.

Paraphrased from Robert Reich.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[kallend 1,618]

FBI Director Comey Asks Justice Dept. to Reject Trump’s Wiretapping Claim

Comey is, of course, a lifelong Republican.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.