General Presidential Campaign: Trump vs Hillary

Let's end that situation while we have a few days left:

Once Trump takes office he will give a golden shower to Obama's executive orders and greatest legislative achievement.

 

The Obama Admin sought FISA warrants against 4 members of the Trump Team during the last months and weeks of the presidential campaign. These are 'wiretap' warrants. The FISA element allows for a lower burden of proof than a standard warrant (i.e., no showing of probable cause of a crime is required).

The record is not complete but Obama may have even sought the FISA warrant against Trump himself. The FISA Court originally turned Obama/FBI down. But some say it was granted later (unclear on this last part).

The short version is that Obama sought to use the FBI to spy on Trump and his campaign. This is Richard Nixon level stuff, or worse. This what Banana Republics use against political adversaries.


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...-mccain-alleging-secret-trump-russia-contacts

 

I am guessing this will not get much US media coverage

 

DOH!

Billionaire George Soros Lost Nearly $1 Billion in Weeks After Trump Election
http://www.wsj.com/articles/billion...lion-in-weeks-after-trump-election-1484227167

 

Didn't Comey allude to an open investigation into Trump and his Russia ties? Could this be the reason for the warrants?

 

This was Nixonian

 

Funny you bring up "Nixonian". Carl Bernstein stated Trump's attacking the media to avoid discussing the topics/actions was very the same strategy Nixon took. For all of us, I hope his administration doesn't endure the same fate.

 

Nothing funny about Obama abusing the power of his office

 

Nothing showing he has. My theory was more plausible than yours.

 

Mine was not theoretical
They wanted to put wiretaps on the Trump Campaign folks (possibly Trump himself, but this part is unclear). They made a FISA app. They did not make a normal probable cause request for a warrant. The FISA app has a much lower threshold. Despite this, the FISA Court turned Obama down. They went back again. Which all happened down the stretch during the election. This is all part of the public record.

 

Given everything we've learned to date doesn't the FBI have probable cause to at least do a cursory investigation?
Consider the following:
- Trump's cozying up to Russia/Putin
- Manafort's ties to Pro-Russian Ukranian adminstrations
- Manafort's effort to mollify any anti-Russia language in the Republican party platform
- Trump's business ties to Russia
- The unverified memos floating around

I'd argue that the FBI was negligent by not looking into it. By all means...keep trying to absurdly tie this to Obama. Let's see how much traction that gets outside of 4chan and the alt-right.

 

Again, they CHOSE not to seek this type of warrant.
They went FISA. In some ways, these are tougher since they have more internal bureaucratic hurdles. But, on the law and the required proof, they are easier (you basically just have to allege a foreign actor is involved).

Bottom Line -- Wiretapping a Presidential Campaign is outrageous.
As I always try and get you to do, reverse the shoes. if this were an R-Pres having the FBI wiretap a Dem Pres campaign, with no allegations of any crime being committed, you guys would be going absolutely apeshyte crazy.

 

I agree the bar should be high. Clearly the FISA court felt they didn't meet the bar when it denied the request. If the FBI had evidence of potential collusion with Russia or Wikileaks (there was ample circumstantial evidence) then they should be following up on it. The grand canyon sized difference between this and Nixon is that it was the FBI that requested the warrants rather than the DNC, Obama or HRC's campaign. That puts the "Nixonian" comparison on more than shaky ground.

 

Two other distinctions: (1) Nixon wasn't investigating anyone for alleged criminal conduct. He was just trying to help his campaign out. (2) Nixon didn't seek an independent court's permission to engage in wiretapping.

I'm not saying that this issue is inconsequential. All I'm prepared to say is that unless and until the contents of the wiretap application become public, there is no way for any of us to know whether Obama was overreaching at all, much less engaging in a scandal of Nixonian proportions.

 

Are you saying that it is NEVER okay to wiretap a presidential candidate, or just that there wasn't a legitimate basis to do so in this case?

If you say "never", suppose that there is credible evidence that a presidential candidate is conspiring with ISIS and plans to bring the US government down if elected. Would a wiretap be appropriate then?

If you say "not in this case", how can you know that? Are you privy to more information about the investigation that I am, or are you just more prepared to leap to conclusions?

 

That's their story. But is it not interesting to you that this story also provides cover for the collection of all effectively all the private and internal phone calls, texts, emails, etc of all the top Trump Campaign staffers down the home stretch of a close election. Banking info too, probably including credit/debit card usage. That's quite a collection of information.

Not that Obama would have let Hillary or the DNC benefit from any of it, right?

 

I cant answer whether it was sufficient. It seems clear they were rejected the first time. There are some reports that they went back a second time after tightening it up and were successful, but I am not sure if that is true. We will just have to wait and see.

And, yes, a sitting President allowing the FBI wiretap the nominee for President from an opposing party, collecting essentially all of that campaign's communications down the homestretch of an election is about as far out on the limb as you can go. Add to that no crime was alleged (which is why they went the FISA route) and Obama is way out these at the end of the limb.

Can you imagine a worse case?

 

You dont know that. You dont know how far up these approvals went.
In any event, maybe LBJ is a better analogy for Obama?

 

Wasnt that on Homeland, or was it "24"?

And, in any event, there are other parallels between Obama and Nixon, and that is their use of the IRS to punish political opponents. If he was willing to turn the IRS loose on people, it is that far of a stretch to think he would not do the same with the FBI?

I dont know if you know this, but the US Code was changed after Nixon's IRS shenanigans. Mishandling/disclosing return information was made a crime. This law is part of what Lerner has been hiding from all this time.

 

Perhaps something like that happened here? Maybe the Clintons got sick of all the Wikileaks and convinced Lynch that it was only fair that "I'm With Her' get access to the same type of information?

 

It was on Designated Survivor.

 

If that is what happened, then yes, it would be Nixonian in scope. But I'm not aware of any evidence that it is what happened.

 

Of course, to believe Obama was behind it you have to assume Comey was in on it, the leader of the same FBI that is now under investigation for violating its own policies in the letter sent to congress days before the election. Comey is a double-agent?

 

You should go back to the "this was all a ruse by 4Chan". That was more believable.

 

LOL, no kidding

 

You have to admit Comey's behavior has been pretty inconsistent.

But at least it has been amusing--
One minute lefties love him
One minute they hate him
Always so emotional

 

Comey's behavior has been the only consistency. Of course, I defended his right to send the open letter to Congress days before the election unlike most liberals that wanted him tared and feathered.

 

Those people are capable of pulling some like this off

 

You may be the only person in the known universe who believes that

 

That may be but I think those attacking him have political agendas as a basis for their disgruntlement.