On the heels of those whispers, President Donald Trump Tweeted on Saturday:
- Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't voluntarily leaving the Apprentice, he was fired by his bad (pathetic) ratings, not by me. Sad end to great show
- How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!
- 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!
- 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!
- Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!
Immediately, the corporate media went into overdrive to insist that no such thing took place.
Washington reacts?
Know the assholes spoke.
In contrast, ACLU notes:
The Guardian reported
that, last summer, the FBI sought an order from the FISA Court for
permission to monitor four members of the Trump campaign team suspected
of “irregular contacts” with Russian officials. Reports suggest that the
initial application was denied — a detail President Trump appears to
have confirmed in his tweets. But, according to other news reports,
a judge on the FISA Court eventually granted a narrower surveillance
application in October 2016. While these accounts all indicate that the
FBI relied on FISA to conduct its spying, we don’t know exactly whom the
FBI sought to target or on what grounds. One story
suggests that the government ultimately obtained permission to target
individuals or entities in Russia who were believed to be communicating
with then-candidate Trump and at least three other members of the Trump
campaign. Because the identities of the “targets” named in the wiretap
order are still unknown, it’s unclear whom, exactly, the FISA Court
found to be a foreign agent when it authorized the surveillance.
Regardless of who the target was, however, it is critical to note that this FISA surveillance would have been individually approved by a court and could not simply have been conducted on President Obama’s order — a point made clearly in a statement released over the weekend by a spokesperson for the former president. Indeed, that was the very type of abuse that FISA was enacted to prevent.
There is no doubt we need more information to shed light on what did and did not happen.
Regardless of who the target was, however, it is critical to note that this FISA surveillance would have been individually approved by a court and could not simply have been conducted on President Obama’s order — a point made clearly in a statement released over the weekend by a spokesperson for the former president. Indeed, that was the very type of abuse that FISA was enacted to prevent.
There is no doubt we need more information to shed light on what did and did not happen.
A lot more honesty is offered by WIKILEAKS:
Obama has a history of tapping & hacking his friends and rivals https://wikileaks.org/nsa-201602/ #NSA #PRISM #Merkel #Sarkozy #BanKiMoon #WTO #Trump
