“US government wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman” – that is the shocking headline from CNN today. Yes, the very network that demonized, belittled, and made fun of allegations that Trump senior campaign official Paul Manafort was bugged by the Obama administration, now confirms just that.
Obama’s FBI Wiretapped Top Trump Campaign Official
We now know Obama’s FBI secured a secret warrant from the FISA Court (United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court) to monitor Manafort. Business Insider has the details:
“[T]he FBI can request and be granted a warrant to monitor a US person from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ‘if they can show probable cause that the target is an “agent of a foreign power” who is “knowingly engag[ing]…in clandestine intelligence activities.”’
Manafort was previously surveilled under a separate FISA authorization that began in 2014, due to scrutiny over his lobbying work on behalf of the pro-Russia Party of Regions in Ukraine and his business dealings with Russian entities. That surveillance ended due to a lack of evidence, according to CNN, but was later restarted under the new warrant that extended into 2017.”
FISA Courts Don’t Say No To The FBI
The FISA court is a federal court charged with safeguarding the liberty of Americans – the very citizens upon whom the Executive branch wishes to spy. According to statistics published by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the Court received 1379 applications for warrants in 2014 and granted 1379. We have no word yet on how widely transcripts or reports of these calls were disseminated throughout the Obama administration and political operation.
Trump Shows Up CNN Again
President Trump expressed outrage at Obama administration wiretapping in a March 4 tweet:
Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017
Trump’s criticism of the Obama administration wiretaps was – well, here’s a collection of headlines that about covers it, tweeted by stalwart celebrity trump supporter James Woods:
What do we make of this? Breitbart headlines its coverage “Trump Vindicated: Report Says Obama Government Wiretapped Trump Campaign.” Well, the allegations of wiretapping are true, but are the investigations justified? So far, again and again since this President took office, we see much in the way of allegations, rumors, and innuendo, but a complete and total dearth of hard evidence of anything in the way of criminal, or even serious non-criminal wrongdoing. Such a shame that Barack Hussein Obama politicized every gear, spoke, and lever of government, with the aid of a compliant media, so that people now have little idea where the truth lies.
