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Trump: Report that Obama FBI spied on campaign could be 'bigger than Watergate'

Athanasius68 said:
There is a reason why there has been no criminal or counter intelligence investigation into the anti- Trump dirt information the Clinton campaign compiled from annonymous Russian sources.
Its not against the law.

The standard to launch a counter intelligence investigation into an American is that he or she "knowlingly" worked with a foreign government against the USA which violated some law or the other.
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How would we know if we don't investigate?
 
Re: Smoking Gun - Obama Did Spy On Trump

There indeed was a true SPY deeply imbedded into the top levels of the Trump campaign. His name was Paul Manafort and his employer was Russia and allies of Putin.
 
Mycroft said:
What do you think is the job of the DOJ and the FBI?

If you don't answer Justice and Law Enforcement, you are wrong.

Anyone.
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The job of the DOJ and the FBI is to enforce the law, oversight of the DOJ and FBI by congress IS THE LAW.
 
Re: Smoking Gun - Obama Did Spy On Trump

haymarket said:
There indeed was a true SPY deeply imbedded into the top levels of the Trump campaign. His name was Paul Manafort and his employer was Russia and allies of Putin.
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You should tell Mueller. Apparently he's not aware of this. I don't know how he missed it.
 
Re: Smoking Gun - Obama Did Spy On Trump

humbolt said:
You should tell Mueller. Apparently he's not aware of this. I don't know how he missed it.
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Good point, Mueller would have indicted Manafort if there was any evidence that he worked with the Russians.
 
jmotivator said:
The job of the DOJ and the FBI is to enforce the law, oversight of the DOJ and FBI by congress IS THE LAW.
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And yet, you want the DOJ and the FBI to be more interested in checks and balances than in enforcing the law.

Me? I prefer the DOJ and the FBI to do their jobs: Enforce the law.

If the leaky bucket that we call Congress prevents them from doing that, I'll side with the DOJ and the FBI. Congress needs to clean up their house before they look at someone else's house.
 
Re: Smoking Gun - Obama Did Spy On Trump

Mithros said:
Good point, Mueller would have indicted Manafort if there was any evidence that he worked with the Russians.
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Manafort has not been indicted for spying.
 
Mycroft said:
And yet, you want the DOJ and the FBI to be more interested in checks and balances than in enforcing the law.
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Indeed I do! And I do because it is the checks and balances that make the American system work! Any country can have a police force that prosecutes citizens. Having a congress that is a check against the excesses of the prosecutorial power is essential, and defending the DOJ stonewalling such oversight to protect prosecutions has it completely backwards.

Me? I prefer the DOJ and the FBI to do their jobs: Enforce the law.
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Indeed! And if someone leaks details of documents that are essential to oversight I would expect them to investigate and prosecute, and if the Congress stonewalls the DOJ on their investigation I would side with the DOJ. See how easy this is?

If the leaky bucket that we call Congress prevents them from doing that, I'll side with the DOJ and the FBI. Congress needs to clean up their house before they look at someone else's house.
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These are our elected officials, like it or not, and the DOJ must submit to their oversight by law. All you are doing is selecting what laws to enforce and what laws not to enforce.
 
Re: Smoking Gun - Obama Did Spy On Trump

humbolt said:
You should tell Mueller. Apparently he's not aware of this. I don't know how he missed it.
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His actions demonstrate that he was onto this fact a long long time ago.
 
Re: Smoking Gun - Obama Did Spy On Trump

haymarket said:
His actions demonstrate that he was onto this fact a long long time ago.
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Of course, which is why he didn't charge Manafort with spying.
 
MTAtech said:
Where are you getting #1 from? An investigation is, well, an investigation. If one had to prove "the person is willfully engaging in clandestine activity on behalf of a foreign power," the investigation wouldn't be unnecessary, because the government would have everything they need.

Without citation, it sounds like you are making this up as you go along.]
Athanasius68 said:
Us code 50 sec 1801
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sec 1801 is the definitions. I don't see a definition of intelligence investigation.

The following sections related to electronic surveillance, not general investigation. A careful reading of the sections doesn't seem to make your case that the FBI acted improperly.
 
jmotivator said:
Indeed I do! And I do because it is the checks and balances that make the American system work! Any country can have a police force that prosecutes citizens. Having a congress that is a check against the excesses of the prosecutorial power is essential, and defending the DOJ stonewalling such oversight to protect prosecutions has it completely backwards.



Indeed! And if someone leaks details of documents that are essential to oversight I would expect them to investigate and prosecute, and if the Congress stonewalls the DOJ on their investigation I would side with the DOJ. See how easy this is?



These are our elected officials, like it or not, and the DOJ must submit to their oversight by law. All you are doing is selecting what laws to enforce and what laws not to enforce.
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In a perfect world, Congress would boot out anyone who illegally leaks information given to them by the executive branch. Unfortunately we don't live in that perfect world. We've seen these leaks happen far too often with no repercussions.

If the DOJ and FBI give this information that is vital to their criminal cases to Congress, it will be leaked. It will jeopardize those cases. As I've said before, for this reason I side with the DOJ and FBI.

Congress needs to clean their own house before they judge another's house.
 
MTAtech said:
sec 1801 is the definitions. I don't see a definition of intelligence investigation.

The following sections related to electronic surveillance, not general investigation. A careful reading of the sections doesn't seem to make your case that the FBI acted improperly.
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The section concerns FISA laws and the conditions for using the surveillance power of USA intelligence agencies against American citizens.
 
haymarket said:
There indeed was a true SPY deeply imbedded into the top levels of the Trump campaign. His name was Paul Manafort and his employer was Russia and allies of Putin.
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Not so sure why you would be so dismissive over the concept of an FBI spy or agent or whatever in the Trump campaign: Schiff dissagreed with Nunes and claims that the Obama Admin had more than just the uncorroborated dossier as evidence to obtain FISA warrants against former Trump campaign advisors.
 
Athanasius68 said:
The section concerns FISA laws and the conditions for using the surveillance power of USA intelligence agencies against American citizens.
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Instead of vaguely saying "the dection concerns FISA laws," please be specific about what the FBI didn't do. Did the FBI not get the proper authorizations, in Code § 1802? We know that the FISA Court approved this as required in Code § 1803.

It sure looks like everything was handled by the book, so, what specifically are you complaining about?
 
Athanasius68 said:
Cant launch a counter intelligence investigation to find evidence of criminal activity.
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And yet...that's what was done in regards to Trump.

You've hit the nail on the head.
 
Athanasius68 said:
Not so sure why you would be so dismissive over the concept of an FBI spy or agent or whatever in the Trump campaign: Schiff dissagreed with Nunes and claims that the Obama Admin had more than just the uncorroborated dossier as evidence to obtain FISA warrants against former Trump campaign advisors.
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I will wait to see what develops on this claim. Personally, if the government had information that the Trump campaign might be illegally colluding with our chief foreign adversary, I see no reason to NOT place somebody in the campaign to protect the nation from such treason. In fact, if the US government had such information, they would have been remiss and a clear dereliction of their duty to ignore it.
 
MTAtech said:
Instead of vaguely saying "the dection concerns FISA laws," please be specific about what the FBI didn't do. Did the FBI not get the proper authorizations, in Code § 1802? We know that the FISA Court approved this as required in Code § 1803.

It sure looks like everything was handled by the book, so, what specifically are you complaining about?
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The definitions of 1801 control 1802.
"Knowingly" is the threshold.
 
Re: Smoking Gun - Obama Did Spy On Trump

haymarket said:
There indeed was a true SPY deeply imbedded into the top levels of the Trump campaign. His name was Paul Manafort and his employer was Russia and allies of Putin.
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Lol !!
There was some Democrat official on Shannon Breams show last night trying to claim that the surveillance and the investigation of the Trump campaign was all legitimate

Made me wonder if he truly believed that ( which would mean he was delusional ) or if he thought the viewers were a bunch of imbeciles.

If what he did last night is representive of the larger Democrat strategy for dealing with this scandal of epic proportions, then your party is really screwed.
 
Re: Smoking Gun - Obama Did Spy On Trump

roguenuke said:
That cyber team wasn't "going after the Russian cyber attackers" in those plans that they were told to "stand down" on, but rather general Russian entities. Sure, they were government entities, but that doesn't in any way mean that their plans would have stopped the Russian cyber attacks threatening our election process. In fact, there was good reason to believe that it would have caused them to do something to majorly upset our election process. So yes, they should have been told to standdown on those particular plans, since they were basically retaliatory in nature and not likely to actually stop the problem.
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The part bolded here is pure speculation because unless you are some sort of insider to the Obama administration with direct knowledge of Susan Rice's inner most thoughts, you have NO idea why she ordered...So you are putting forth a narrative and trying your best to make it stick by repeating it....Sorry, you have NO proof of this. And the truth is we don't know fully why the stand down order was given, and wouldn't know unless we investigated it....But please don't pretend that you are putting something out as factual, when indeed it is nothing more than your own speculation.

As for the rest, you're grasping at straws. So far, the investigation has led to plenty of evidence that the Trump team at least knew about Russia trying to help them get elected. And President Trump is a huge liar and a petty and immature person.
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Your dislike of the President aside,

"During the Cold War, the KGB worked almost exclusively with leftist groups around the world—labor unions, socialist newspapers, and other organizations sympathetic to the communist cause. With the fall of the Soviet Union, however, Russia morphed into an equal opportunity meddler that seeks to inflame everyone from Bernie bros to Trump deplorables. “The point of an influence campaign is to get people involved who wouldn’t otherwise be involved,” J.M. Berger, a fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, recently told ABC News. "

https://newrepublic.com/article/142344/russia-weaponized-fake-news-sow-chaos

The dirty secret here is that while Russia was successful in what they have been doing since at least JFK's time, they were wildly successful here because of our own stupidity, and what I think is the Obama administration's fear of going after this would expose their own unAmerican attempts to use the American intelligence apparatus against their political opponents....So, while Russia was targeting BOTH campaigns with crap, Obama, and his unAmerican group of corrupted actors went after an opposition political party....Disgusting if you ask me.
 
Mycroft said:
And yet, you want the DOJ and the FBI to be more interested in checks and balances than in enforcing the law.

Me? I prefer the DOJ and the FBI to do their jobs: Enforce the law.

If the leaky bucket that we call Congress prevents them from doing that, I'll side with the DOJ and the FBI. Congress needs to clean up their house before they look at someone else's house.
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lol wow a post from Mycroft that I agree with.

I thought this was as unlikely as a Qatari bribery plot to the president through a personal lawyer via a lawsuit by Ice Cube about a basketball league and exposed by a porn star's lawyer who claimed to have slept with the president.
 
Re: Smoking Gun - Obama Did Spy On Trump

Fenton said:
Lol !!
There was some Democrat official on Shannon Breams show last night trying to claim that the surveillance and the investigation of the Trump campaign was all legitimate

Made me wonder if he truly believed that ( which would mean he was delusional ) or if he thought the viewers were a bunch of imbeciles.

If what he did last night is representive of the larger Democrat strategy for dealing with this scandal of epic proportions, then your party is really screwed.
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If you want to see screwed, just wait for the Mueller report and watch the reaction from Trump and the Trumpkins when the entire nation now has firm documentation and realize just how deep in bed the Russians are with the administration.
 
haymarket said:
I will wait to see what develops on this claim. Personally, if the government had information that the Trump campaign might be illegally colluding with our chief foreign adversary, I see no reason to NOT place somebody in the campaign to protect the nation from such treason. In fact, if the US government had such information, they would have been remiss and a clear dereliction of their duty to ignore it.
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"If" "might" are pretty vague terms when discussing the government using its intelligence and surveillance power against its political opponents.
 
Athanasius68 said:
"If" "might" are pretty vague terms when discussing the government using its intelligence and surveillance power against its political opponents.
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There is no protected class called "political opponents." The same level of oversight is required for "political opponents" as any other citizen suspected of the same crimes. In the cases under discussion, the proper channels were followed and the respective regulations/laws were adhered to.

Just admit it. None of this has anything to do with the FBI doing something wrong or not following requirements. It has to do with you not liking the fact that Trump's campaign was the target. This is about protecting your tribe.
 
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