Tag: wiretapping

Rep. Steve King: ‘Watch for Obama’s fingerprints’ ALL OVER FISA abuse scandal

(National Sentinel) Deep Statist: Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said on Saturday that he believes evidence exists that former President Barack Obama had a heavy hand in abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that led to improper spying on President Donald J. Trump’s campaign.

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“Watch closely for Barack Obama’s fingerprints,” King told Breitbart News Radio yesterday. “[Democrats and their allies] will defend Barack Obama at all costs, and they’ll defend Hillary Clinton almost at all costs unless they have to sacrifice her to protect Barack Obama.”

King made his comments against the backdrop of Friday’s release of the scandalous FISA memo, a four-page document prepared by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee explaining that a surveillance warrant obtained from the FISA court by Obama’s FBI and Justice Department to spy on Trump campaign foreign advisor Carter Page was based on an unsubstantiated political report — the “Trump dossier” — not on actual intelligence.

Nothing in the dossier has been verified, which also troubled the Intelligence Committee. The panel’s chairman, Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said that ranking DOJ and FBI officials did not inform the FISA court the dossier was a political opposition report paid for in part by the Hillary Clinton campaign.

“Look at all of these investigations now,” King continued. “Look closely for Barack Obama’s fingerprints. I’ve just identified some that I think are fingerprints, and I think this trail leads to the Obama presidency, to Barack Obama himself, but it’s going to take some time if we get there, and I’m not certain that the evidence trail necessarily leads there.

“There’s an indication trail that says we need to take a look and find out. But if it’s not Barack Obama, then who is it? Well, it’s Loretta Lynch, for example, and James Comey, and McCabe, and that cast of characters from Sally Yates on down,” he continued.

“I don’t think we’ve ever seen such a long row of very high-level executive branch officials wrapped up in something here that is political partisanship, weaponizing the FBI and DOJ to do opposition research that was stimulated by the presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and [paid for with her] and the DNC’s checkbooks,” King noted.

On Saturday, The National Sentinel’s editor-in-chief, J. D. Heyes, laid out the possible path from the FISA warrant approval process in this scandal to the 44th president.

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The big REVEAL: House panel FINALLY gets Fusion GPS’s financial records

(National Sentinel) Trump Dossier: The opposition research firm that produced the infamous “dossier” on President Donald J. Trump during his campaign has been forced to turn over bank records to a House panel investigating alleged Russian interference in the  2016 election.

Fusion GPS, which commissioned the dossier, had been fighting in court to stop the House Intelligence Committee from getting ahold of the records. The House panel subpoenaed them months ago.

But on Friday a U.S. district judge ordered the documents delivered to the Intelligence Committee, ending a dramatic court battle that began after the panel began seeking them in October.

Judge Richard Leon on Thursday ruled against Fusion GPS, which had asked for a restraining order preventing its financial institution, TD Bank, from being forced to hand over dozens of documents.

Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, rejected the request and ordered the records turned over.

As reported by The Daily Caller:

At issue were records of 70 financial transactions between some of its clients, two media companies and several journalists and researchers it has paid over the past two years.

The court fight appeared to have ended in late October after Perkins Coie, the law firm that represented the Clinton campaign and DNC, outed itself as the client that hired Fusion GPS to produce the dossier.

Fusion hired former British spy Christopher Steele to author the dossier, which claimed that Russia was colluding with the Trump campaign against Democrat Hillary Clinton. It also made a number of salacious claims about Trump as well.

None of the dossier’s most important claims have been verified.

Republicans have also been attempting to find out if the dossier was used by the Obama-era FBI to launched a counterintelligence investigation against Trump and his campaign, which included electronic surveillance.

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Don’t look now, but former DNI James Clapper may be lying – again – over Team Trump wiretap order

(National Sentinel) Deep State: Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, a known liar who has given false testimony to Congress and should have been charged for that crime, may be, um, bending the truth once again regarding the well-established fact that the Obama administration was “wire tapping” Team Trump.

As reported by The Daily Caller, in an interview with CNN‘s Don Lemon last night, Clapper, now a network contributor to the Fake News Network, was asked whether he knew about the FISA warrant authorizing the FBI and who knows who else to spy on members of the Trump campaign.

“Did you know about a FISA warrant against Paul Manafort at the time?” Lemon asked.

“I did not,” Clapper replied.

Really, Jim? Because a couple of months back, you said something completely different.

As The Daily Caller reminds all of us:

In a March 5 interview on “Meet the Press,” Clapper said that he would have been aware of a FISA warrant on a member of the Trump campaign, even one granted to the FBI. And asked if such a warrant had been obtained, Clapper directly denied it.

“There was no such wire tap activity mounted against the President-elect at the time or as a candidate or against his campaign,” Clapper told “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd.

Asked by Todd if he would have been aware of a FISA order issued for someone affiliated with the Trump campaign, Clapper said “absolutely.”

Clapper unequivocally denied that a wiretap order was granted.

Which is it, Mr. Clapper? You knew and would know, or you didn’t and couldn’t know? After all, you were the director of national intelligence.

You don’t have to respond; we already know the answer.

Day by day, as Trump’s tenure in office grows, we are reminded just how deep, wide, and disgustingly nasty the Washington swamp we sent the president to drain really is.

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Why is Obama getting a pass from the media over Comey’s surveillance of Trump campaign?

(National Sentinel) Executive Branch Scandal: What did the president know, and when did he know it?

red-alert-FO-160x600That infamous question was asked by Sen. Howard Baker during the Watergate hearings more than 40 years ago. But in the wake of new information that indeed, Team Trump was “wire tapped” by James Comey’s FBI — who answered to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who answered to President Obama — the question is particularly relevant again today.

Because, as The Wall Street Journal notes, the so-called “mainstream media” media isn’t asking the question. In fact, members of the MSM seem far more interested in how President Donald J. Trump described the Obama administration surveillance than the surveillance itself.

The facts, we now know, are thus: Not only was the Obama administration actively surveilling members of an opposing presidential campaign for months — before and after Trump won the Nov. 8 election — but in order to even get such surveillance (of American citizens) authorized, the decision to proceed would have only come from the top tiers of the Executive Branch.

And who sits at the very top of that branch? The president.

Obama.

WSJ notes:

One would presumably only approve such an order if the request presented by the executive branch was highly compelling and likely to produce evidence that the subject of the wiretap was in fact working with Russia to disrupt U.S. elections. Roughly a year later, as the public still waits for such evidence, this column wonders how this judge is feeling now, especially now that CNN has reported that at least two of its three sources believe the resulting evidence is inconclusive.

One would also presume—or at least hope—that seeking to wiretap associates of the leader of the political opposition is not an everyday occurrence in any administration. At the very least, it seems highly unlikely that such a decision would be made by a mid-level official. CNN notes, “Such warrants require the approval of top Justice Department and FBI officials, and the FBI must provide the court with information showing suspicion that the subject of the warrant may be acting as an agent of a foreign power.”

It seems reasonable for the public to know exactly which officials made this decision and who else they consulted or informed of their surveillance plans. Was the President briefed on the details of this investigation?

And as for the information showing suspicion, where did the FBI come up with that?

Last fall, the WSJ’s Kim Strassel wrote that it seemed at least plausible that Comey’s FBI was behind the bogus Trump “dossier” — which has been widely denounced as fraudulent, proven to be bogus, but nevertheless used as justification, in large part, for the FBI’s Team Trump investigation and, to another degree, the authorization of Comey friend and former Obama FBI Director Robert Mueller [and let’s never forget that #nevertrumper Sen. John McCain made sure Comey’s FBI had a copy of that dossier — which has since been tied to Democrats].

Regarding the appointment of Mueller, as we wrote yesterday:

Regardless of how Mueller’s probe turns out, let us also never forget that it was Comey’s strategy all along to get a special prosecutor appointed to ‘investigate’ Team Trump — under the guise of “Russian collusion,” though Mueller’s probe has since extended way past that initial mandate. The swamp is deep and wide.

“Oddly,” the WSJ continued, “even though CNN is the source of this week’s news, the media outlet seems less interested in President Obama’s knowledge of the surveillance activities that occurred on his watch and against his political adversaries than in how President Trump has described them. CNN’s scoop doesn’t even mention Mr. Obama except in the context of Mr. Trump’s accusations of wiretapping against the former president that appeared on Twitter in March.”

Trump’s actual March tweet — that Obama had his “wires tapped” — has still not been proven, per se. But the context in which the president made the accusation certainly is accurate. And given all the players, the level of deceit, the known politicization of the intelligence community and Department of Justice by Obama, it is not a far stretch of the imagination to believe that Trump’s predecessor was in on this from the beginning.

It’s a shame that the legacy media of today isn’t as curious about what Obama knew and when he might have known it as a U.S. senator was four decades ago when another president was involved in scandal.

The question is just as relevant today as it was when Howard Baker asked it regarding Nixon in 1973.

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Trump VINDICATION: Report says Obama admin DID ‘wiretap’ campaign

(National Sentinel) Political Conspiracy: When President Donald J. Trump claimed in a tweet in March that the Obama administration “wiretapped” his campaign, he was widely mocked and ridiculed — which, even by then, had become standard operating procedure for most of Washington’s political and media establishment.

Turns out, though, that the president — once again — is being vindicated.

A report from CNN claims that onetime Trump campaign official Paul Manafort was “wiretapped” under a secret court order last year, allegedly as part of a probe into “Russian collusion.”

What’s even more alarming — and outrageous — is that the secret electronic surveillance continued into this year, and likely included occasions when Manafort was actually talking to the president.

CNN noted further:

Some of the intelligence collected includes communications that sparked concerns among investigators that Manafort had encouraged the Russians to help with the campaign, according to three sources familiar with the investigation. Two of these sources, however, cautioned that the evidence is not conclusive.

[…]

The surveillance was discontinued at some point last year for lack of evidence, according to one of the sources.

The FBI then restarted the surveillance after obtaining a new FISA warrant that extended at least into early this year.

red-alert-FO-160x600Sources say the second warrant was part of the FBI’s efforts to investigate ties between Trump campaign associates and suspected Russian operatives. Such warrants require the approval of top Justice Department and FBI officials, and the FBI must provide the court with information showing suspicion that the subject of the warrant may be acting as an agent of a foreign power.

It is unclear when the new warrant started.

So it’s clear now that not only was Trump correct, after he became president he found out that his Justice Department (which, you may recall, at the time still included FBI Director James Comey) was still spying on members of his campaign, despite the fact that, for years, no evidence of any wrongdoing had been found.

And still hasn’t been found, if we’re to believe two of the sources who leaked this information to CNN.

There is also this: Comey, under oath, disputed Trump’s “wiretapping” claims in sworn testimony to Congress, which could now open him to charges of perjury. Then again, lying to Congress is against the law even if you’re not under oath.

It is worth noting that Breitbart News editor Joel Pollak had reported the day before Trump’s tweet that the Obama administration “sought, and eventually obtained, authorization to eavesdrop on the Trump campaign: continued monitoring the Trump team even when no evidence of wrongdoing was found.”

At the time both the president and the news site were mocked as conspiracy theorists.

As for Manafort, The New York Times reports that he’s under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team for possible violations of tax laws, money-laundering prohibitions and requirements to disclose foreign lobbying. Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn is also under investigation.

Regardless of how Mueller’s probe turns out, let us also never forget that it was Comey’s strategy all along to get a special prosecutor appointed to ‘investigate’ Team Trump — under the guise of “Russian collusion,” though Mueller’s probe has since extended way past that initial mandate. The swamp is deep and wide.

Some House Republicans have called for probes into possible collusion between Mueller, also a former FBI director, and Comey. That definitely needs to happen. In addition, Congress should also be prepping subpoenas for former Obama administration officials involved in this political debauchery.

And finally, the president should go on offense. He should pick up the phone and dial his attorney general; special counsel probes can go both ways.

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CONFIRMED: Trump surveillance DID happen, House Intel chairman says

(NationalSentinel) Political Intelligence: Just two days after FBI Director James Comey told the House Permanent Selection Committee on intelligence he had “no information” to substantiate President Donald J. Trump’s tweeted allegations earlier this month that the Obama administration had his “wires tapped” at Trump Tower, the chairman of that committee essentially confirmed what the president alleged.

As reported by Bloomberg News:

House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes said Wednesday that the U.S. intelligence community collected multiple conversations involving members of Donald Trump’s transition team after he won the election last year.

After making his disclosure at the Capitol, Nunes headed to the White House to brief the president on what he had learned. Trump then told reporters gathered for an unrelated event that“I somewhat do” feel vindicated by the latest development. “I very much appreciate the fact that they found what they found.”

Bloomberg reported further that Nunes said the intelligence he has seen appears to have been collected legally, and that Team Trump and the president were not targets of said surveillance. He also noted that the surveillance was not in connection with the Obama FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into alleged Russian attempts to influence the U.S. election.

Nevertheless, Nunes said he was bothered by the fact that the surveillance identified Trump Team members and their identities were then spread around various intelligence agencies.

“I’m actually alarmed by it,” Nunes, a California Republican, told reporters at the Capitol. “Details with little or no apparent foreign intelligence value were widely disseminated in an intelligence community report,” he said. He said he didn’t know if Trump’s “own communications were intercepted.”

After briefing the president, Nunes told reporters that, after all, “it is possible” Trump was right when he tweeted his allegations March 4.

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Bloomberg noted further:

It was previously disclosed that U.S. intelligence agencies had picked up conversations between Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, and the Russian ambassador to the U.S. before Trump’s inauguration. Flynn was fired in February after making contradictory statements to Vice President Mike Pence about those discussions.

Politico added:

Members of the Donald Trump transition team, possibly including Trump himself, were under U.S. government surveillance following November’s presidential election…

Nunes said the monitoring appeared to be done legally as a result of what’s called “incidental collection,” but said he was concerned because it was not related to the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s meddling in the election and was widely disseminated across the intelligence community.

“I have seen intelligence reports that clearly show that the president-elect and his team were, I guess, at least monitored,” Nunes told reporters. “It looks to me like it was all legally collected, but it was essentially a lot of information on the president-elect and his transition team and what they were doing.”

Nunes said the information was given to him by “sources who thought that we should know it.”

As we have repeatedly said before, the question that needs to be asked – and hopefully Nunes is asking, as he said he’ll be getting more information on Friday – is why the surveillance was conducted in the first place (and why Obama really wanted details of the surveillance then spread to various intelligence agencies).

White House spokesman Sean Spicer, in his daily brief this afternoon, got close.

“An American citizen who’s caught up in a surveillance has, by rule of law, has their name protected,” he told reporters. “The idea that individuals’ names were unmasked and let known suggests — raises serious questions. Why was that name unmasked, what was the intention of doing that?”

Why, indeed. And what’s up with Comey’s denial?

The plot thickens. Don’t be surprised if Trump is eventually completely vindicated.

WSJ: Comey ‘took revenge’ on Trump for his wiretap tweet

(NationalSentinel) Political Intrigue: Reasoned conservatives and constitutionalists concluded long ago – when he refused to recommend Hillary Clinton be prosecuted for mishandling classified information after laying out the case for why he should have – that FBI Director James Comey should not be permitted to continue serving the new president, Donald J. Trump.

Now, The Wall Street Journal has laid out another reason why: A vengeful Comey may have just purposely sabotaged the president. As reported by The Daily Caller:

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board claimed that FBI director James Comey “took revenge” on President Trump for claiming Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower by publicly discrediting the claim in his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee on Monday.

The editors also argued that Trump “blundered” by keeping Comey on as FBI director after the election.

The suggestion as to Comey’s motives came in a column, which will run in Wednesday’s paper, that hammered Trump for making the unsupported claim.

“He has offered no evidence for his claim, and a parade of intelligence officials, senior Republicans and Democrats have since said they have seen no such evidence,” the editors write.

“Yet the President clings to his assertion like a drunk to an empty gin bottle, rolling out his press spokesman to make more dubious claims. Sean Spicer—who doesn’t deserve this treatment—was dispatched last week to repeat an assertion by a Fox News commentator that perhaps the Obama Administration had subcontracted the wiretap to British intelligence,” they continue.

“FBI director James Comey also took revenge on Monday by joining the queue of those saying the bureau has no evidence to back up the wiretap tweet. Mr. Comey even took the unusual step of confirming that the FBI is investigating ties between the Trump election campaign and Russia,” the editors go on to say.

“Mr. Comey said he could make such a public admission only in ‘unusual circumstances,’ but why now? Could the wiretap tweet have made Mr. Comey angry because it implied the FBI was involved in illegal surveillance? Mr. Trump blundered in keeping Mr. Comey in the job after the election, but now the President can’t fire the man leading an investigation into his campaign even if he wants to.”

As we have pointed out, someone is lying about the so-called “wire taps” that Trump accused President Obama of ordering. Comey confirmed during his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee this week that elements of the Trump campaign were, and still are, under counterintelligence investigation, for alleged ties to Mother Russia. That kind of investigation most often requires electronic surveillance (“wire taps”) and a FISA court warrant (paper trail).

Media reports have noted that the FBI indeed got FISA court warrants to conduct electronic surveillance (on a server at Trump Tower – just like the president claimed). CNN here. The Washington Post, reporting that a “broad investigation” into Trump-Russia ties, reported here on “intercepted communications and financial data.” The New York Times here and here – the second report even used the word “wiretap” in the print version of the paper.

Louise Mensch, writing at Heat Street, says a FISA warrant was issued to the FBI; if true, Rep. Schiff, how can Comey legitimately deny it?

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And oh, by the way, reporters Sara Carter and John Solomon, writing at Circa News, say the FBI certainly did obtain a FISA warrant to conduct electronic surveillance (old version: wiretap) of an Internet server at Trump Tower as part of an investigation into illicit Russian activity.

Is it plausible, then, that Comey could have thrown the president under the bus – the same guy who couldn’t find it in his conscience to allow the chips to fall where they may and recommend an obviously guilty Clinton to be prosecuted?

Of course it is.

The WSJ is right; Comey needs to go.

Trump: Dems ‘made up’ Russian interference claim

(NationalSentinel) Politics: President Donald J. Trump said Monday hours before FBI Director James Comey is scheduled to testify before the House Intelligence Committee that Democrats concocted the ‘Russia interfered in the presidential election’ out of whole cloth.

According to The Associated Press, Trump made his accusations via Twitter:

His tweets came just hours before a potentially politically damaging hearing in which FBI Director James Comey and National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers planned to testify on allegations of Russian hacking and whether there were any connections between Moscow and Trump’s campaign.

“The Democrats made up and pushed the Russian story as an excuse for running a terrible campaign. Big advantage in Electoral College & lost!” Trump tweeted.

“The real story that Congress, the FBI and others should be looking into is the leaking of Classified information. Must find leaker now!”

He’s right, of course; the leaking is the biggest concern.

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Based on how easily the president has beaten his opponents repeatedly, on Capitol Hill and in the mainstream media, there is no reason to doubt him. Plus, as we reported earlier, top Democrats also don’t believe there’s any fire to the smokescreen that’s been put up regarding allegations Trump and the Russians colluded to steal the election from Hillary Clinton. (RELATED: Top Dems admitting now there is NO evidence of Trump-Russia collusion)

The president also said in an interview last week with Fox News that “more” information on his initial allegation – that he was “wire tapped” at Trump Tower, which is what The New York Times reported on Jan. 19, will come out in a couple weeks. We’ll see.

Plus, where did that leaked information come from that ensnared former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn and his conversations with Russian diplomats (which were never deemed improper or illegal, by the way)? Had to come from somewhere. Had to come from electronic surveillance (the modern-day version of “wiretapping”).

One thing we’ve learned that Trump opponents haven’t learned yet is that the man does not say something definitive unless he’s absolutely certain he’s right. He may have a flare for embellishment from time to time, but he is always certain of the substance of what he says.

Will some “bombshell” emerge from the Comey testimony? Not according to top Democrats and former U.S. intelligence chiefs who are beginning to worry now they’ve oversold this fake Russia narrative to their base.

Trump accuses Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower in NYC

(NationalSentinel) President Donald J. Trump says that his predecessor, Barack Obama, ordered Trump Towers bugged in the weeks and months before the Nov. 8 election, calling the former president “sick” and comparing the alleged actions to the “Nixon/Watergate” crime.

Trump released a tweet storm regarding the revelations/accusations this morning:

As reported by the UK’s Daily Mail:

The president did not provide any additional evidence to back up his claims. Obama has not responded to the accusations. 

But he seemed to be referring to a Thursday evening radio show hosted by Mark Levin that claimed Obama executed a ‘silent coup’ of Trump via ‘police state’ tactics, according to far-right Breitbart News.

Levin suggested the former president should be the target of congressional investigation.

Just a day before the election last year, former Heat Street editor Louise Mensch reported that ‘sources with links to the counter-intelligence community’ confirmed that a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) had granted a FISA court warrant in October to monitor activities in Trump tower.  

This follows a report on Wednesday by The New York Times claiming that in the waning days of Obama’a lame-duck presidency, his administration spread information about alleged Russian interference in the November election – yes, that phony “Russia stole the election from Clinton to help Trump” lie – throughout the government.

The Daily Mail has more:

In January, American law enforcement and intelligence agencies examined intercepted communications and financial transactions as part of a broad investigation into possible links between Russian officials and associates of Trump, according to the Times. 

The FBI led the investigations, aided by the National Security Agency, and the Treasury Department’s financial crimes unit. 

Investigators found no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing, the officials said.

One official said intelligence reports based on some of the wiretapped communications had been provided to the White House. 

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There are nagging, lingering questions regarding all of this that no one in the U.S. intelligence community or the former president’s administration has been asked or made to answer:

Why did Obama have all of this alleged information on Trump and his inner campaign circle in the first place?

Who authorized the surveillance?

Why was the surveillance authorized – what was the probable cause?

And, most importantly, where is the evidence that any illicit activity was taking place between Trump’s team and Moscow, because so far all we’ve heard are baseless accusations, suppositions, innuendo and allegations?

Trump just upped his game against a former president who is actively seeking to undermine him and get him out of office. Sedition, anyone?