The "Obama spied on Trump!!!" thread

[Allen773]

Since even Ross Douthat appears to have fallen victim to this particularly popular bit of "the Deep State is out to get Trump" CT, now being promoted by the Attorney General of the United States (along with Trump himself of course).

Just linking an NYT opinion piece from May 3 by a former federal prosecutor for context and explanation:

President Trump has repeatedly said that the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election was “a coup.” According to the president and his supporters, individuals in the F.B.I. formed the heart of a nefarious conspiracy to take him down by engaging in rogue “spying” on the his campaign.

New details from reporting on the counterintelligence inquiry in summer 2016 lays out how a government investigator posing as a research assistant met with George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, to better understand any potential Trump campaign “links to Russia.” Brad Parscale, the 2020 campaign manager for the president, said it’s further proof that the “real scandal was the Obama administration using the Justice Department to spy on a political adversary’s campaign.”

But make no mistake, in the broad context of high-profile public corruption investigations, the methods used against Mr. Trump’s associates are by no means an anomaly.

What is anomalous is the effort by some Republicans to undermine legitimate counterintelligence concerns. After Mr. Barr’s testimony, Senator Hawley tweeted that “the F.B.I. spied on @realDonaldTrump and launched multiyear investigations” because “unelected progressive elites in our government have nothing but contempt for” Trump voters.

The “spying” rhetoric casts a cloud of illegitimacy over the Russia probe and the F.B.I. and undermines the special counsel’s findings. This is useful misdirection: Mr. Mueller’s conclusion that the Trump “campaign anticipated receiving derogatory documents and information from official Russian sources that could assist candidate Trump’s electoral prospects” challenges Mr. Barr’s declaration that the evidence showed “no collusion.” In that light,it’s not hard to see who’s serving the truth and who’s serving the president.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/03/opinion/trump-campaign-spying-fbi-russia-.html

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I bloody hope he spied on Trump - it was his constitutional duty to make sure that the future holder of the Biskuit isn't a foreign agent.

 

[bknight]

No investigation into Hilary? How convenient.

 

[Axxman300]

Couple of problems. Obama was not running for re-election in 2016 having served his full two terms in office, so Trump was not a political rival. There has been no evidence that any information from the FBI was passed along to the Clinton campaign (Clinton WAS Trump's political adversary). It is the job of the FBI to investigate allegations of operations being conducted within the United States by foreign, and particularly HOSTILE foreign governments.

The fact that Trump's campaign staff is too stupid to understand these facts underlines the ultimate problem.

Obama's administration failed in regard to Russian interference going back to the 2014 election. That has already been documented, they turned a blind eye, and have yet to be called on it.

In the end, Trump won the White House. The FBI and Obama were non-factors.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

No investigation into Hilary? How convenient.

she had many, many background checks - unlike Trump.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...
The fact that Trump's campaign staff is too stupid to understand these facts underlines the ultimate problem....

It's also evidence the AG knows full well he is working for Trump, not for the US.

 

[Norman Alexander]

Doubling down on an already lost and hopeless bet is not how to win your money back.

 

[bknight]

Not after she left the State Department.

 

[Brainster]

They didn't spy on Trump. They used a cloaked investigator. Totally different thing.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

They didn't spy on Trump. They used a cloaked investigator. Totally different thing.

How?

 

[Bubba]

Could that be The Fat Lady I hear backstage, warming up...?

 

[Bob Klase]

The fact that Trump's campaign staff is too stupid to understand these facts underlines the ultimate problem.

It's not Trumps's campaign staff that's too stupid. Trump & his staff rely on the fact that so many of his supporters are too stupid to see the lies and/or too stupid to care.

 

[ahhell]

Couple of problems. Obama was not running for re-election in 2016 having served his full two terms in office, so Trump was not a political rival.

That is oddly naive, as though Obama has no loyalty to the dems what at all?

There has been no evidence that any information from the FBI was passed along to the Clinton campaign (Clinton WAS Trump's political adversary). It is the job of the FBI to investigate allegations of operations being conducted within the United States by foreign, and particularly HOSTILE foreign governments.

The fact that Trump's campaign staff is too stupid to understand these facts underlines the ultimate problem.

Obama's administration failed in regard to Russian interference going back to the 2014 election. That has already been documented, they turned a blind eye, and have yet to be called on it.

In the end, Trump won the White House. The FBI and Obama were non-factors

.

I think we should be concerned that the nations intelligence apparatus was used to spy and or infiltrate a domestic political campaign. If this had been the FBI under Bush looking into some democrats ties to Russia or China, I have a hard time believing dems and liberals wouldn't be upset about it.

It all depends on what the basis for the spying was. If its hinges on "we just don't trust the guy" and the Steele Dosier, some folks should get fired. Maybe prosecuted but I'm no lawyer.

Anyrate, I'm not certain it was nefarious. Trump and his associates are shady but it deserves an investigation and it should not be taken lightly. Unfortunately, I don't know any organization I'd trust to investigate fairly.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I think we should be concerned that the nations intelligence apparatus was used to spy and or infiltrate a domestic political campaign. If this had been the FBI under Bush looking into some democrats ties to Russia or China, I have a hard time believing dems and liberals wouldn't be upset about it.

It all depends on what the basis for the spying was. If its hinges on "we just don't trust the guy" and the Steele Dosier, some folks should get fired. Maybe prosecuted but I'm no lawyer.

Anyrate, I'm not certain it was nefarious. Trump and his associates are shady but it deserves an investigation and it should not be taken lightly. Unfortunately, I don't know any organization I'd trust to investigate fairly.

Why would you be immune from counter-intelligence investigations when you are part of a political campaign?

 

[ahhell]

Why would you be immune from counter-intelligence investigations when you are part of a political campaign?

You shouldn't, but it should obviously be done with great caution. Its a great tool to suppress of the opposition.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

You shouldn't, but it should obviously be done with great caution. Its a great tool to suppress of the opposition.

From what we know, it was done with extreme caution, to the point that it never leaked - unlike every investigation into Clinton

 

[Horatius]

From what we know, it was done with extreme caution, to the point that it never leaked - unlike every investigation into Clinton

Yeah, this. They'd have us believe that Obama deliberately spied on the purely-innocent Trump campaign for purely political reasons, to help Clinton win the election, but then never actually did anything with it during the election.

Yeah, right, I'd have to be as stupid as a Trump supporter to believe that.

 

[Axxman300]

That is oddly naive, as though Obama has no loyalty to the dems what at all?

If you've read the report, and if you've read Comey's testimony before Congress, and Obama's statements about his approach to dealing with the intelligence as it came to him you'd know that he likely showed too much restraint. In his defense he would have been damned if he said anything to the press, and damned if he didn't.

I think we should be concerned that the nations intelligence apparatus was used to spy and or infiltrate a domestic political campaign.

If it happened in a vacuum, or happened out of an act of political malice then yes, I'd be upset. But it didn't. The investigation was evidence based. The known record shows that the FBI handled it with kid gloves. There were no leaks to the press about their investigation during the campaign.

It all depends on what the basis for the spying was. If its hinges on "we just don't trust the guy" and the Steele Dosier, some folks should get fired. Maybe prosecuted but I'm no lawyer.

A lawyer would point out that the FBI had the proper warrants. A lawyer will also tell you Judges who issue such warrants have a solid BS detector. The Mueller Report says knowledge if the Russian hacking and interference in US elections dates back to 2014, well before the Steele Dossier. This fact was underlined BY THE RUSSIANS in January 2017 with the arrests of Sergei Mikhailov, and his deputy, Dmitry Dokuchaev (and later Ruslan Stoyanov, and one other unnamed person), all heads of the FSB's Cyber Security section. All have been convicted of passing information to the CIA.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/01/3...egedly-passed-information-to-cia-trump-putin/

The idea that a FISA warrant was issued on the Steele Dossier alone is ignorant of the facts.

I don't know any organization I'd trust to investigate fairly.

That is your bias. The FBI, CIA, NSA, and every other agency are staffed by Americans. There are just as many Republicans as there are Democrats working at these organizations. At the end of the day it's about the job, the mission, and national security. Political actors within these agencies end up having their dirty laundry leaked, and then run out of town.

 

[Mycroft]

Investigating and spying are not the same things. It would be spying if the FBI did something inappropriate with the information they gathered, such as handing it over to the Clinton campaign for political advantage.

As the agency responsible for counter-intelligence in the US, the FBI has to investigate everything Russia does, especially if that's interfering in US elections. Those that want to smear the FBI to provide political cover for Trump are clearly not people loyal to the US.

 

[eerok]

You shouldn't, but it should obviously be done with great caution. Its a great tool to suppress of the opposition.

Just for perspective here, the Russians are the opposition.