Boardman writes: "'that Obama had' - it's unlikely Trump could know whether Obama did or didn't do anything like this without Trump's learning about classified information to which he has little or no legal access. As has been widely reported, Obama (like Trump) has no such authority to 'wire tap' private citizens, any more than Nixon did."
Donald Trump, James Comey. (photo: Getty Images)
FBI Challenges Justice Department to Tell Truth About Presidents
07 March 17
Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!
irst, let’s look at the text and its inherent anomalies:
- “Just found out” – shortly after 6 a.m., just before sunrise? Really? How?
- “that Obama had” – it’s unlikely Trump could know whether Obama did or didn’t do anything like this without Trump’s learning about classified information to which he has little or no legal access. As has been widely reported, Obama (like Trump) has no such authority to “wire tap” private citizens, any more than Nixon did.
- “my ‘wires tapped’ [sic]” – perhaps the Trumpian quote marks around “wires tapped” indicates his awareness that most if not all his communications are wireless, but “wires tapped” is more understandable to his base. This phrase is also useful for “my,” which more or less limits the accusation to Trump and his extensions – NOT most of the 58-story Trump Tower.
- “in Trump Tower” – makes little sense, since “wire taps” in Trump Tower would be of limited coverage and usefulness. Almost surely, any surveillance secretly authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (the FISA Court) would be based on evidence of criminal activity that would require a much broader reach than just Trump Tower.
- “just before the victory” – like days? Weeks? Relevance? If there were “wire taps” then, is Trump suggesting Obama knew Hillary was going to lose? Or is there some other obscure point to this alleged timing?
- “Nothing found.” – Trump apparently also learned this around 6 a.m. on March 4, assuming it’s a fact. If true, it could be evidence of innocence. It could be evidence of good cyber-security. Whatever it might mean is easily clarified by de-classifying whatever exists.
- “This is McCarthyism!” By definition, it’s NOT McCarthyism, certainly not if this claim refers to the body of the Tweet that precedes it. In that context, the claim of McCarthyism is as absurd as it is inflammatory.
On March 2, radio commentator Mark Levin (“Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America”) devoted part of his two-hour radio show to castigating Republicans for not defending Attorney General Jeff Sessions against what he derided as spurious attacks on Sessions for not revealing two meetings with the Russian ambassador. Then Levin, an attorney and former chief of staff to Attorney General Edwin Meese, said:
But there’s a bigger scandal here, folks, and this is what I want to walk you through again. There is a much bigger scandal here. We have a prior administration – Barack Obama and his surrogates – who were supporting Hillary Clinton and their party, the Democrat Party – who were using the instrumentalities of the federal government – intelligence activities – to surveil members of the Trump campaign! And to put that information out in the public! Those are police state tactics! Nothing General Flynn did, nothing General Sessions has done are even in the same category as that!
Levin went on to elaborate his perception of conspiracy: “This is a silent coup – a silent, non-violent coup. That’s what’s going on here.” The next day, March 4, his analysis was reported and enlarged on Breitbart.com with a timeline starting with a FISA court request by the FBI on June 16 that was “uncharacteristically” denied. Breitbart also noted another “new, narrow” FISA Court request that was granted. One unintended takeaway from Breitbart’s reporting is that the FBI thought it had enough evidence to pursue a criminal investigation that included two Russian banks and the Trump campaign, all lodged in Trump Tower.
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!
Shortly after sunrise in Palm Beach at 6:42 a.m., and with fourteen minutes to consider his first Tweet, the President sent another misleading Tweet accusing President Obama of exercising authority he lacked, still offering no evidence. Saying “Turned down by a court earlier” he effectively lied by omission of the second, approved FISA Court order. “A NEW LOW!” would be accurate, applied to the Trump Tweets. Three minutes later, Trump tripled down on his allegation, which he now characterizes as “fact” (although the fact is that the fall surveillance was FISA Court-ordered):
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!
Ten minutes later, President Trump has completed his investigation and trial, reaching not only a verdict but a psychological conclusion about his predecessor:
How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!
In response to inquiries as to what the President meant and what evidence he had to support his escalating claims, the White House didn’t respond for more than 24 hours. Then the press secretary’s office tried to shut the story down with a brief written statement (here in its entirety) on March 5:
Reports concerning potentially politically motivated investigations immediately ahead of the 2016 election are very troubling.
President Donald J. Trump is requesting that as part of their investigation into Russian activity, the congressional intelligence committees exercise their oversight authority to determine whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016.
Neither the White House nor the President will comment further until such oversight is conducted.
The statement is bizarre. The first sentence refers to President Trump’s Tweets, falsifies them (by using “potentially”) and, with presumably unintended irony, calls them “very troubling.” Indeed, they are. Then the statement mischaracterizes – or lies about – what President Trump said, claiming he was calling for expanded Congressional investigations. That is simply false. No wonder “neither the White House nor the President will comment further….” When you’re in a hole, stop digging.
Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, presidential candidate Mike Huckabee’s daughter, went on ABC talk shows Sunday and Monday, falsifying the Trump Tweets in an effort to back the President away from his accusations presented as fact. Both Martha Raddatz and George Stephanopoulos challenged Huckabee’s false assertions. On March 5, Martha Raddatz accurately said of Trump’s Tweets about the “wire tapping” that: “He said it did happen.” Huckabee responded evasively and falsely:
Everybody acts like President Trump is the one that came up with this idea and just threw it out there. There are multiple news outlets that have reported this. And all we’re asking is that we get the same level of look into the Obama administration and the potential that they had for a complete abuse of power that they’ve been claiming that we have done over the last six months….
After further circular discussion, and no showing of “multiple news outlets” reporting the President’s allegations as facts, Raddatz summed up her frustration:
Well, what about these accusations? You keep saying, if, if, if. The President of the United States said it was a fact. He didn’t say I read a story in Breitbart or “The New York Times” or wherever else. He said, “Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower.” That’s not an if.
At that point, the best Huckabee was able to say was: “I will let the President speak for himself.” That’s what he did in the first place. And the White House has yet to explain why the President made has series of sunrise Tweets, or to offer any supporting evidence that they are true. All of this leaves us with President Trump accusing the Obama administration of illegal wire-tapping so late in the game it couldn’t prevent Trump’s election or, among the alternatives, a Trump Tweet-attack designed to distract from the ever-growing evidence of the Trump campaign’s long and complex interactions with Russian officials and non-officials.
Meanwhile, inside the Justice Department on March 4, FBI director James Comey responded to the Trump Tweets by asking the Justice Department to rebut them, according to the Monday New York Times. Reportedly, Comey objected to the Trump Tweet storm “because it falsely insinuates that the F.B.I. broke the law.” Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department commented publicly on the story. Similarly, the White House refused to comment on the reported Comey request. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said, “I’m not aware that that occurred.” He also said the White House had not asked either the Justice Department or the FBI for clarification.
This is classic cover-up behavior. The late Maurice Stans was a high-level Nixon fundraiser and Commerce Secretary who was never convicted of crimes but admitted violating campaign finance laws and paid fines. Early in the Watergate cover-up, when his underling Hugh Sloan asked him about money anomalies, Stans famously replied with this instruction in cover-up tactics: “I don’t want to know, and you don’t want to know.”
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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