It’s not the tapping, it’s the leaking — 10 Comments
God bless you, Neo. May your heels be smooth and your digestive tract free of batteries. Specifically, thanks for posting this link re the Nunes press brief and the largely clueless reaction of the reporters. I watched portions of it on Fox and remember being disturbed and how flat and unsearching the reaction was. “Could it be,” I thought to myself, “that these guys don”t get it?” Mollie pins it all down. They didn’t get it and they didn’t particularly want to get it. I would have missed this piece if it had not been for my favorite watch dog — the one with the callous-free paws.
It is the tapping, too, the leaks only led to someone asking the question in the first place.
What you would likely learn if it is ever made public is that this “inadvertent” surveillance was deliberate and started soon after Trump secured the nomination. I think during the campaign the information gleaned was quietly shared with members of the Clinton Campaign, but after Trump won, they started leaking it to the press because they figured there was nothing better they could actually do with it at that point. Leaking it before the election had the obvious risk of backfiring and hurting Hillary!s chances of winning rather than helping.
I think as the Obama Administration was winding down, someone in the administration realized the leakers might have a problem with being caught and prosecuted after January 20th, thus Obama was asked to make the change on sharing intelligence information the week before he left office so that the pool of potential miscreants was as large as possible.
If I had to guess, someone in the NSA let Nunes know the details of what had happened. Nunes, knowing that he is on the hook because the he is the chairman of the oversight committee chose to start getting out in front of this rather than look like, at best, a hapless fool.
This is disturbing on several levels.
The first is that government surveillance could happen to anyone. Unless the people using the electronic surveillance are extremely honest and ethical, it is a tool for evil doing against anyone. At the worst, none of us are safe or have any privacy and our government becomes totalitarian.
The second is that I can understand how tempting it must be for partisan ideologues who want to win at all costs to use this technology against their political opponents. If fomenting violence in the streets to gain political advantage is acceptable, then using electronic surveillance would not be a step too far. What is especially interesting is that the perps (And we don’t know how closely Obama is connected to this – IMO, he undoubtedly has plausible deniability.) didn’t take much care to cover their tracks. To widely disseminate such classified information is just an example of arrogance – the belief that they are doing God’s work, thus such illegal actions are warranted and unpunishable. Well, the IRS pretty much got away with targeting conservatives, didn’t they? Why not members of the intel community?
The third is that it will take a lot of time and effort to root out whoever has unmasked these names and, even then, the real, leading perp may well go scot free.
The fourth is that, with blue states and cities openly ignoring Federal immigration laws, this illegal electronic surveillance by the Obama administration is another breach in the dam of our continuing to be the UNITED States of America.
Beyond those concerns, I’m hoping there are conservative journalists like Molly Hemingway, James Rosen, Sharyl Attkisoon, or others dig into this and find answers. There should be a Pulitzer prize (well maybe not since it is against the Libs) in this story.
So, you can figure out how the narrative has subtly changed over the course of the last three days. Before Nunes’ presser, the media were in full-blown cover mode denying they had ever written that the investigation into the Russian links were supported by “wiretapping”, so Trump’s tweets 3 weeks ago were scurrilous lies.
However, the new narrative is that the surveillance was inadvertent and perfectly legal because Trump was a bad guy that needed investigating, and by the way, Obama didn’t know anything about any of it, so Trump’s tweets 3 weeks ago were scurrilous lies.
The narrative a week from now is likely to further change, and my prediction is that the final form will be that Trump is blowing up the perfectly legal investigation of the FBI into his Russian links by revealing all the good tactics used by Obama’s DoJ since last Summer in carrying out electronic surveillance of Trump and all his associates. However, since Obama had a hands off policy, he didn’t know anything about all of this, so Trump’s tweets 3 weeks ago were scurrilous lies.
Of course it’s not the tapping and is the leaking. Which is exactly why the MSM propaganda is all about Trump’s ‘false’ claim of Obama personally ordering wiretaping.
Of course Obama didn’t directly order it, he had people to do it for him knowing that after 8 years, they’d know what Obama was comfortable with provided that he had plausible deniability.
“Guilty as hell, free as a bird”
Both literal and euphemistic quotes below.
Reporter: “Did you wipe your server?”
Hillary: “You mean, with a cloth??”
Trump: “I was wiretapped”
Reporter: “We now know that no one under orders from Pres. Obama attached electrical clips to the phone wires inside Trump Tower.”
Lindsey Graham on OReilly: “We’ll get to the bottom of this and find out if anyone got a FISA warrant to surveille Donald Trump.”
________
Good grief! Shall we discuss what the meaning of the word IS is?
Under the NSA regime created by George W. Bush’s people, all one needs to do is to have a lackey make a phone call from the right place in Syria or Peshawar into the Trump Tower, and then all of the emails, text messages, and most phone calls from the last 5 years can be dumped. I suspect that you don’t need FISA warrants of any sort, in that case.
Does anyone think that a Valerie Jarret could resist that kind of power?
And while the failure to blank the names of citizens “incidentally” captured is a crime, what are Republicans gonna do? Do you suppose that Lindsey Graham will help file national security felony charges against Hillary or Barack?
Trump needs to tell Comey he does not trust him and wants his resignation within 24 hours. I have had no faith in Comey since the dog and pony show when he listed all the malfeasance involving hrc’s secret server and then says no prosecutor would indict her. Trump needs a FBI director who will get to td the bottom of this issue. Giuliani comes to mind as an able replacement.
J.J. Says:
March 24th, 2017 at 2:51 pm
This is disturbing on several levels.
* *
Excellent analysis on all the levels.
“The press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.”
Geoffrey Britain Says:
March 24th, 2017 at 2:57 pm..
… they’d know what Obama was comfortable with provided that he had plausible deniability.
“Guilty as hell, free as a bird”
* * *
Obama learned from The Master.
That the Democrats not only never repudiated the scum from the Sixties, but promoted them to Iconic Legends, tells you all you need to know about their ethics.
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God bless you, Neo. May your heels be smooth and your digestive tract free of batteries. Specifically, thanks for posting this link re the Nunes press brief and the largely clueless reaction of the reporters. I watched portions of it on Fox and remember being disturbed and how flat and unsearching the reaction was. “Could it be,” I thought to myself, “that these guys don”t get it?” Mollie pins it all down. They didn’t get it and they didn’t particularly want to get it. I would have missed this piece if it had not been for my favorite watch dog — the one with the callous-free paws.
It is the tapping, too, the leaks only led to someone asking the question in the first place.
What you would likely learn if it is ever made public is that this “inadvertent” surveillance was deliberate and started soon after Trump secured the nomination. I think during the campaign the information gleaned was quietly shared with members of the Clinton Campaign, but after Trump won, they started leaking it to the press because they figured there was nothing better they could actually do with it at that point. Leaking it before the election had the obvious risk of backfiring and hurting Hillary!s chances of winning rather than helping.
I think as the Obama Administration was winding down, someone in the administration realized the leakers might have a problem with being caught and prosecuted after January 20th, thus Obama was asked to make the change on sharing intelligence information the week before he left office so that the pool of potential miscreants was as large as possible.
If I had to guess, someone in the NSA let Nunes know the details of what had happened. Nunes, knowing that he is on the hook because the he is the chairman of the oversight committee chose to start getting out in front of this rather than look like, at best, a hapless fool.
This is disturbing on several levels.
The first is that government surveillance could happen to anyone. Unless the people using the electronic surveillance are extremely honest and ethical, it is a tool for evil doing against anyone. At the worst, none of us are safe or have any privacy and our government becomes totalitarian.
The second is that I can understand how tempting it must be for partisan ideologues who want to win at all costs to use this technology against their political opponents. If fomenting violence in the streets to gain political advantage is acceptable, then using electronic surveillance would not be a step too far. What is especially interesting is that the perps (And we don’t know how closely Obama is connected to this – IMO, he undoubtedly has plausible deniability.) didn’t take much care to cover their tracks. To widely disseminate such classified information is just an example of arrogance – the belief that they are doing God’s work, thus such illegal actions are warranted and unpunishable. Well, the IRS pretty much got away with targeting conservatives, didn’t they? Why not members of the intel community?
The third is that it will take a lot of time and effort to root out whoever has unmasked these names and, even then, the real, leading perp may well go scot free.
The fourth is that, with blue states and cities openly ignoring Federal immigration laws, this illegal electronic surveillance by the Obama administration is another breach in the dam of our continuing to be the UNITED States of America.
Beyond those concerns, I’m hoping there are conservative journalists like Molly Hemingway, James Rosen, Sharyl Attkisoon, or others dig into this and find answers. There should be a Pulitzer prize (well maybe not since it is against the Libs) in this story.
So, you can figure out how the narrative has subtly changed over the course of the last three days. Before Nunes’ presser, the media were in full-blown cover mode denying they had ever written that the investigation into the Russian links were supported by “wiretapping”, so Trump’s tweets 3 weeks ago were scurrilous lies.
However, the new narrative is that the surveillance was inadvertent and perfectly legal because Trump was a bad guy that needed investigating, and by the way, Obama didn’t know anything about any of it, so Trump’s tweets 3 weeks ago were scurrilous lies.
The narrative a week from now is likely to further change, and my prediction is that the final form will be that Trump is blowing up the perfectly legal investigation of the FBI into his Russian links by revealing all the good tactics used by Obama’s DoJ since last Summer in carrying out electronic surveillance of Trump and all his associates. However, since Obama had a hands off policy, he didn’t know anything about all of this, so Trump’s tweets 3 weeks ago were scurrilous lies.
Of course it’s not the tapping and is the leaking. Which is exactly why the MSM propaganda is all about Trump’s ‘false’ claim of Obama personally ordering wiretaping.
Of course Obama didn’t directly order it, he had people to do it for him knowing that after 8 years, they’d know what Obama was comfortable with provided that he had plausible deniability.
“Guilty as hell, free as a bird”
Both literal and euphemistic quotes below.
Reporter: “Did you wipe your server?”
Hillary: “You mean, with a cloth??”
Trump: “I was wiretapped”
Reporter: “We now know that no one under orders from Pres. Obama attached electrical clips to the phone wires inside Trump Tower.”
Lindsey Graham on OReilly: “We’ll get to the bottom of this and find out if anyone got a FISA warrant to surveille Donald Trump.”
________
Good grief! Shall we discuss what the meaning of the word IS is?
Under the NSA regime created by George W. Bush’s people, all one needs to do is to have a lackey make a phone call from the right place in Syria or Peshawar into the Trump Tower, and then all of the emails, text messages, and most phone calls from the last 5 years can be dumped. I suspect that you don’t need FISA warrants of any sort, in that case.
Does anyone think that a Valerie Jarret could resist that kind of power?
And while the failure to blank the names of citizens “incidentally” captured is a crime, what are Republicans gonna do? Do you suppose that Lindsey Graham will help file national security felony charges against Hillary or Barack?
Trump needs to tell Comey he does not trust him and wants his resignation within 24 hours. I have had no faith in Comey since the dog and pony show when he listed all the malfeasance involving hrc’s secret server and then says no prosecutor would indict her. Trump needs a FBI director who will get to td the bottom of this issue. Giuliani comes to mind as an able replacement.
J.J. Says:
March 24th, 2017 at 2:51 pm
This is disturbing on several levels.
* *
Excellent analysis on all the levels.
And see this for more.
http://libertyunyielding.com/2017/03/22/surveillance-trump-house-now-first-big-answer-right-question/
http://libertyunyielding.com/2017/03/23/smoking-gun-come-surveillance-trump/
TommyJay Says:
March 24th, 2017 at 3:54 pm
Both literal and euphemistic quotes below.
* * *
Salena Zito’s formulation comes to mind.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/trump-makes-his-case-in-pittsburgh/501335/
“The press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.”
Geoffrey Britain Says:
March 24th, 2017 at 2:57 pm..
… they’d know what Obama was comfortable with provided that he had plausible deniability.
“Guilty as hell, free as a bird”
* * *
Obama learned from The Master.
That the Democrats not only never repudiated the scum from the Sixties, but promoted them to Iconic Legends, tells you all you need to know about their ethics.