FBI and news media collude to nail Trump to the wall
“Almost on a daily basis the American people are bombarded with the word ‘collusion’ by the nation’s news organizations. However, they are only interested in proving President Donald Trump colluded with the Russian government to ‘steal’ the presidency from Hillary Clinton. There were no stories about collusion between the Clinton campaign and a former British intelligence officer to create a dossier filled with conjecture, half-truths and lies as big as those told by Clinton, Obama, Brennan, and others following the Battle of Benghazi. No stories of collusion between the FBI and the news media to confuse the American people.”
One of the biggest news stories to come out just after the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States was that his campaign team members were victims of electronic eavesdropping by federal law enforcement and members of the U.S. intelligence community.
President Trump’s longtime friend and short time campaign chairman, multi-millionaire Paul Manafort, was an unfortunate victim of the Obama administration wiretapping scheme. But the news media — without even feigning to investigate the claim — balked at the accusation and claimed anyone who believed it was a low-intellect Trump deplorable. In fact, Trump had complained that he was being wiretapped at his headquarters in New York City’s Trump Tower, but the news outlets treated it as just another Trump lie.
However, a report Monday night said FBI agents received a surveillance warrant on Manafort from a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court judge. It was later discovered that the Justice Department and FBI attorneys used a foreign-created “dossier” that had little if any facts to get the judge’s go-ahead and the FBI monitored Manafort before and after the election, including a “period when Manafort was known to talk to President Donald Trump.”
The report said the secret court that handles the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act had authorized a surveillance warrant against Manafort for an investigation that began in 2014, looking into his firm, the Podesta Group, and another firm’s lobbying work for Ukraine’s pro-Russian former ruling party.
For a brief period, the FBI spies abandoned the surveillance of the Trump and his transition team. However, the FBI then restarted the surveillance after obtaining a new FISA warrant that extended the shenanigans. The report notably does not say when the new warrant was obtained. Manafort joined the Trump campaign as its chairman in May 2016.
The new warrant was “part of the FBI’s efforts to investigate ties between Trump campaign associates and suspected Russian operatives,” according to the report.
The report notes, “such warrants require the approval of top Justice Department and FBI officials” — but doesn’t specify which top Justice Department and FBI officials had approved it.
Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former FBI Director James Comey were leading the agencies, respectively, at the time of the initial FISA surveillance warrant.
The report said the first warrant had already expired when Manafort had become the chairman in May 2016. Before he left in August 2016, FBI investigators “noticed what counterintelligence agents thought was a series of odd connections between Trump associates in Russia.”
At some point, the FBI obtained the new FISA warrant and began monitoring Manafort again — who has a residence in Trump Tower. The story said it’s “unclear” whether the FBI surveillance took place there.
During Trump’s campaign, he had tweeted a message accusing President Barack Obama of wiretapping but both the Justice Department and the FBI denied that Trump was being wiretapped.
Comey later in March disputed Trump’s claims — in testimony that GOP lawmakers now find misleading.
Comey told the House intelligence committee, “With respect to the president’s tweets about alleged wiretapping directed at him by the prior administration, I have no information that supports
those tweets, and we have looked carefully inside the FBI.”
Agencies continued to deny that Trump’s team was wiretapped in any way. The New York Times reported that James Comey claimed Trump’s accusations were off base and that he asked the Justice Department to reject it.
The former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told intelligence agencies that no one ever wiretapped Trump or anyone in his administration. Not only that, but the FBI never obtained any court orders to monitor Trump’s phone calls.
It was always clear that Democrats would say or do everything in their power to stop Trump from becoming President and it was never beneath the Obama administration to break the law to ensure that never happened. It should be no surprise that any of this took place and the only thing the Dems can do now is to deny the allegations.
“Of course, in the end it will do them no good and the truth will be revealed. Fortunately, Trump is President and we no longer have to worry about Obama or Hillary running the show. The only thing left now is to expose Obama for the criminal he is and bring him to justice,” said former detective sergeant Sid Franes. “They should also handcuff Comey, Clapper and Hillary Clinton while they’re at it,” he added.
