The gross hypocrisy of the media, who are in a froth over Donald Trumps’ “unsubstantiated” claim that Barack Obama ordered the wiretapping of Trump Tower, is blatant. Meanwhile, very few of the same media and punditocracy question or challenge the unsubstantiated claim that “Russia hacked the DNC and turned the emails over to Wikileaks.” There is not a single piece of forensic evidence or intelligence that backs up that claim. The Russia/Wikileaks claim is a fiction and rests entirely on unsubstantiated assertions based on a forensic computer analysis by a company linked to Ukraine.
While Trump has not provided any proof that Barack Obama actually ordered his minions to wiretap Trump, there is clear evidence that members of Trump’s campaign team were subjected to electronic surveillance, some of it of questionable legality. The evidence comes via media reports and (if one takes those reports at face value and correct) it certainly points to illegal conduct on the part of the Obama Administration.
Let’s review very quickly the relevant articles. The 14 February 2017 NY Times article written by MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT, MARK MAZZETTI and MATT APUZZO states:
American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee, three of the officials said. . . The call logs and intercepted communications are part of a larger trove of information that the F.B.I. is sifting through
13 February 2017, Trump’s former NSC Advisor, Michael Flynn, was wiretapped in December and the White House knew about it:
The White House had examined a transcript of a wiretapped conversation that Mr. Flynn had with Mr. Kislyak in December, according to administration officials. Mr. Flynn originally told Mr. Pence and others that the call was limited to small talk and holiday pleasantries.
But the conversation, according to officials who saw the transcript of the wiretap, also included a discussion about sanctions imposed on Russia after intelligence agencies determined that President Vladimir V. Putin’s government tried to interfere with the 2016 election on Mr. Trump’s behalf. Still, current and former administration officials familiar with the call said the transcript was ambiguous enough that Mr. Trump could have justified either firing or retaining Mr. Flynn.
Who authorized the “wiretapping” of Michael Flynn? (That is the term used by the New York Times). Flynn was operating from the Trump Tower. This, at a minimum, is circumstantial evidence that someone authorized collecting on U.S. territory the conversation of a private U.S. citizen who committed no crime.
19 January 2017, also in the New York Times:
American law enforcement and intelligence agencies are examining intercepted communications and financial transactions as part of a broad investigation into possible links between Russian officials and associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump, including his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, current and former senior American officials said. . . .
One official said intelligence reports based on some of the wiretapped communications had been provided to the White House.
Imagine that. Barack Obama, while still President, was told specifically about “wiretapped” material on at least two occasions, including in December. Hmmmmm?
7 November 2016, on the eve of the election, Heat Street published a story by Louise Mensch, who reported two attempts to get a FISA warrant:
FBI’s counter-intelligence arm, sources say, re-drew an earlier FISA court request around possible financial and banking offenses related to the server. The first request, which, sources say, named Trump, was denied back in June, but the second was drawn more narrowly and was granted in October after evidence was presented of a server, possibly related to the Trump campaign, and its alleged links to two banks; SVB Bank and Russia’s Alfa Bank. While the Times story speaks of metadata, sources suggest that a FISA warrant was granted to look at the full content of emails and other related documents that may concern US persons.
Focus for a moment on the oddity of a FISA request in June. Let us follow the timeline of the so-called “hack” of the DNC email:
- 25 May 2016, The DNC emails were downloaded or hacked late (that is the date of the last email posted on Wikileaks).
- 14 June 2016, Washington Post reports that, “Russian government hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee and gained access to the entire database of opposition research on GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to committee officials and security experts who responded to the breach.”
That’s only 20 days from the “theft” to the “conclusion” that Russia did it. However, the FBI was never given access to the DNC computers. Per CNN:
The Democratic National Committee “rebuffed” a request from the FBI to examine its computer services after it was allegedly hacked by Russia during the 2016 election, a senior law enforcement official told CNN Thursday.
If the FBI never examined the computers, how could it know with any degree of reliability that it was in fact “Russia?” CrowdStrike, by virtue of some of its reported ties to anti-Russian elements in Ukraine, were not exactly honest brokers in this process. Which begs the question, How could the FBI ask for a FISA warrant to look at links between Trump and the Russians without even having had the chance to examine the forensic evidence of the crime?
There is something rotten here and it smacks of political skullduggery. Yesterday’s Wikileaks opens up a whole new avenue of motives and possible culprits. According to Wikileaks, the CIA has a tool, UMBRAGE, which gives it the power to pretend to be a foreign power, hack a system and leave behind false computer “fingerprints:”
A division of the Central Intelligence Agency stockpiled hacking techniques culled from other hackers, giving the agency the ability to leave behind the “fingerprints” of the outside hackers when it broke into electronic devices, the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks alleges as it released thousands of documents Tuesday.
Gee, did someone with ties to the CIA hit the DNC, pass the material to Wikileaks and then help put out the story that this was a joint Trump/Putin effort? Any investigator worth their salt would need to pursue that possibility. If nothing else, simply to rule it out as a plausible explanation.
Here is the bottomline. There are multiple media reports that the Obama Administration tried repeatedly to get authorization to “wiretap” Donald Trump and his associates. There are at least two reports that the White House was fully aware of these actions. There is no evidence, other than the report from CrowdStrike, that Russia actually hacked the DNC computer and then passed the material to Julian Assange or someone at Wikileaks. Yet, much of the media and many pundits prefer the lie over the truth.
The attempt of people within the Department of Justice and the CIA to try to defeat and discredit Donald Trump is in the process of being fully exposed. Yesterday’s Wikileaks dump provides an additional piece of evidence that is going to help put a noose around Democrat partisans with access to classified material. Stay tuned.
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