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The New York Times Told Us that Trump Was Wiretapped

LowDown

LowDown

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The New York Times has a dilemma. Like every other newspaper, the Times characterized as baseless President Trump’s recent accusation that his campaign was wiretapped. Or, more precisely, the paper said that Trump didn’t provide any evidence of the alleged wiretapping.

Fair enough. Trump didn’t give any proof. He just sent out one of his infamous tweets. But does that mean he’s wrong? I’ll get back to that.

The reason the Times has a dilemma is that, on Jan. 20, the paper ran a front-page story with the headline “Wiretapped Data Used in Inquiry of Trump Aides.”

...The Obama White House probably didn’t wiretap Trump or hack his emails. Too sloppy. Too obvious. And I’d hope an American president would be above all that.

But that doesn’t mean one US intelligence agency, on its own, didn’t record Trump conversations. And since Obama was president, he could have received the transcripts of those conversations just by asking.
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And the Times reporters most likely were able to read those transcripts, although that would have been highly illegal. That is the sort of thing that we can expect of President Obama's administration.

In any case, the Times can either admit that Trump's aides were tapped, as they reported, or they can admit that they were lying in their story of Jan. 20th. They can't have it both ways.

Did the New York Times already tell us Trump was ‘wiretapped’? | New York Post
 
The Rachel Maddow Show on msnbc ? Latest News & Video

Racehl Maddow had an excellent segment on this last night. Watch it. Learn. She pointed out that a wiretap was the only way we could have learned of the transgressions of Mike Flynn that got him fired. And she lays out the legality of doing that and what it means for the Trump presidency.

The point is that wiretaps could have indeed been LEGALLY ordered by the proper authorities. The Trump claim of one week ago is the opposite - that President Obama himself illegally taped Trumps phone. And there has not been a single shred of evidence that such a crime occurred.
 
haymarket said:
The Rachel Maddow Show on msnbc ? Latest News & Video

Racehl Maddow had an excellent segment on this last night. Watch it. Learn. She pointed out that a wiretap was the only way we could have learned of the transgressions of Mike Flynn that got him fired. And she lays out the legality of doing that and what it means for the Trump presidency.

The point is that wiretaps could have indeed been LEGALLY ordered by the proper authorities. The Trump claim of one week ago is the opposite - that President Obama himself illegally taped Trumps phone. And there has not been a single shred of evidence that such a crime occurred.
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But leaking the transcripts to the press was highly illegal. Any information gained about Americans with a FISA warrant is highly classified. Even the facts that the taps took place and the transcripts exist are highly classified. The Obama administration resorted to breaking the law in order to harm Trump's election prospects.
 
LowDown said:
And the Times reporters most likely were able to read those transcripts, although that would have been highly illegal. That is the sort of thing that we can expect of President Obama's administration.

In any case, the Times can either admit that Trump's aides were tapped, as they reported, or they can admit that they were lying in their story of Jan. 20th. They can't have it both ways.

Did the New York Times already tell us Trump was ‘wiretapped’? | New York Post
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Actually, as is typical of liberals and liberal media, they'll try to have it a third way: They'll ignore their hypocrisy...hope not very many people point it out...and let it just go away.
 
LowDown said:
But leaking the transcripts to the press was highly illegal. Any information gained about Americans with a FISA warrant is highly classified. The Obama administration resorted to breaking the law in order to harm Trump's election prospects.
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No evidence of any lawbreaking has been offered.
 
Mycroft said:
Actually, as is typical of liberals and liberal media, they'll try to have it a third way: They'll ignore their hypocrisy...hope not very many people point it out...and let it just go away.
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What hypocrisy? Wiretaps can be legal. Others can be illegal.
 
haymarket said:
The Rachel Maddow Show on msnbc ? Latest News & Video

Racehl Maddow had an excellent segment on this last night. Watch it. Learn. She pointed out that a wiretap was the only way we could have learned of the transgressions of Mike Flynn that got him fired. And she lays out the legality of doing that and what it means for the Trump presidency.

The point is that wiretaps could have indeed been LEGALLY ordered by the proper authorities. The Trump claim of one week ago is the opposite - that President Obama himself illegally taped Trumps phone. And there has not been a single shred of evidence that such a crime occurred.
Click to expand...

What actually got Flynn fired wasn't any "transgressions" (to this date, there is no evidence of any transgressions), it was his conversation with people in his own administration...aided, of course, by the media witch-hunt onslaught. Speaking of which, that media witch-hunt is based on illegally distributed, illegally obtained and illegally reported information on the part of the Mainstream Media and the leakers within the government.

The issue of wiretapping...whether legal or illegal...is another issue altogether.

Maddow is blowing smoke up your ass.
 
haymarket said:
What hypocrisy? Wiretaps can be legal. Others can be illegal.
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The question of legality is irrelevant.

The NYT is trying to have it both ways. THAT'S the hypocrisy.
 
haymarket said:
The Rachel Maddow Show on msnbc ? Latest News & Video

Racehl Maddow had an excellent segment on this last night. Watch it. Learn. She pointed out that a wiretap was the only way we could have learned of the transgressions of Mike Flynn that got him fired. And she lays out the legality of doing that and what it means for the Trump presidency.

The point is that wiretaps could have indeed been LEGALLY ordered by the proper authorities. The Trump claim of one week ago is the opposite - that President Obama himself illegally taped Trumps phone. And there has not been a single shred of evidence that such a crime occurred.
Click to expand...

A sitting president and their admin using the nation's intelligence services to wiretap and surveil a presidential candidate, and their campaign, of the opposing political party, only to have this intelligence be purposefully leaked to the press in order to damage the candidate, their campaign, and, now that they are elected, their presidency.

Never mind that there was no criminality by the candidate or his campaign found.

This is something akin to a police state, and you see no reasons to be concerned?
Would you, I wonder, have the same opinion, had this been done to Obama during his campaign? I highly doubt it.
 
Mycroft said:
The question of legality is irrelevant.

The NYT is trying to have it both ways. THAT'S the hypocrisy.
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Hypocrisy and revisionist history, suitable to be Orwellian, if you ask me.
 
Mycroft said:
What actually got Flynn fired wasn't any "transgressions" (to this date, there is no evidence of any transgressions), it was his conversation with people in his own administration...aided, of course, by the media witch-hunt onslaught. Speaking of which, that media witch-hunt is based on illegally distributed, illegally obtained and illegally reported information on the part of the Mainstream Media and the leakers within the government.

The issue of wiretapping...whether legal or illegal...is another issue altogether.

Maddow is blowing smoke up your ass.
Click to expand...

The latest on Flynn that I've read reported was that he was a registered lobbyist for Turkey, and Trump's position on that is clear, as in 'no was in hell'. I think this may have also been a consideration in Flynn's firing.
 
Mycroft said:
What actually got Flynn fired wasn't any "transgressions" (to this date, there is no evidence of any transgressions), it was his conversation with people in his own administration...aided, of course, by the media witch-hunt onslaught. Speaking of which, that media witch-hunt is based on illegally distributed, illegally obtained and illegally reported information on the part of the Mainstream Media and the leakers within the government.

The issue of wiretapping...whether legal or illegal...is another issue altogether.

Maddow is blowing smoke up your ass.
Click to expand...

What did Maddow have wrong in her detailing of the events?
 
eohrnberger said:
A sitting president and their admin using the nation's intelligence services to wiretap and surveil a presidential candidate, and their campaign, of the opposing political party, only to have this intelligence be purposefully leaked to the press in order to damage the candidate, their campaign, and, now that they are elected, their presidency.

Never mind that there was no criminality by the candidate or his campaign found.

This is something akin to a police state, and you see no reasons to be concerned?
Would you, I wonder, have the same opinion, had this been done to Obama during his campaign? I highly doubt it.
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Just because somebody is running for a public office or a member of a campaign for public office does NOT protect them from legal procedures if there is evidence they are involved in crime.
 
Mycroft said:
The question of legality is irrelevant.

The NYT is trying to have it both ways. THAT'S the hypocrisy.
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The question of legality is highly relevant as any legal wiretaps are a very different than the irresponsible and groundless accusation Trump made in his twitter orgasm last saturday morning where no evidence of anything obviously illegal was offered.
 
Consider this example: a person calls a drug dealer (or Russian agent) from their office and the call is recorded resulting in a transcript of it being made for the record. Was that person's office phone illegally tapped or was the tap legally placed on the drug dealer (or Russian agent)?

The assertion that the tap was (must have been?) placed on that person's office because that was one end of the monitored/recorded call is nonsense. The problem is not with what was recorded, or who ordered it, but that the result (call content) was illegally used (released to the press/public).
 
eohrnberger said:
The latest on Flynn that I've read reported was that he was a registered lobbyist for Turkey, and Trump's position on that is clear, as in 'no was in hell'. I think this may have also been a consideration in Flynn's firing.
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But the Flynn situation was well known to the head of the Trump transition team months ago - long before he was fired for other reasons.

Elijah Cummings told Mike Pence in November that Michael Flynn was working for Turkey | Miami Herald

The top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform told then Vice President-elect Mike Pence in a November letter that the man Donald Trump had tapped to be his national security adviser was lobbying on behalf of a foreign government. The letter, a copy of which was shared with McClatchy, contradicts White House claims that neither Pence nor Trump knew of Michael Flynn’s lobbying until it was revealed in a Justice Department filing this week.

In the letter, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland, asked Pence, then the leader of Trump’s transition team, for information regarding Flynn’s business interests and statements regarding potential conflicts of interests. Cummings said Flynn’s work for Turkey and a speech Flynn gave in Russia could violate Trump for America’s code of ethics if Flynn was advising Trump on policy related to those two nations. Flynn was Trump’s principal foreign policy adviser during the campaign.
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In addition, there were many news stories about this at the same time. Pence knew and the comment from Spicer yesterday that Trump did not know stretches believability far far far beyond the credible.
 
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haymarket said:
The Rachel Maddow Show on msnbc ? Latest News & Video

Racehl Maddow had an excellent segment on this last night. Watch it. Learn. She pointed out that a wiretap was the only way we could have learned of the transgressions of Mike Flynn that got him fired. And she lays out the legality of doing that and what it means for the Trump presidency.

The point is that wiretaps could have indeed been LEGALLY ordered by the proper authorities. The Trump claim of one week ago is the opposite - that President Obama himself illegally taped Trumps phone. And there has not been a single shred of evidence that such a crime occurred.
Click to expand...

Sorry haymarket, I honestly tried to watch the video you linked, but Maddow is so virently offensive to me, I couldn't do it. "wheels coming off, sound of lug nuts..."

So in Maddows opinion, President Trump was wiretapped, just as the President claimed.

That is all that needs to be known.

Your effort to claim EX President Obama didn't have a hand in it has no basis in fact. It's just your opinion, which you are entitled to.

What I hope all rational people have taken from the Flynn situation, and from the other leaks, is the proof a shadow government was left in place tasked with the effort to harm the duly elected Executive Branch of the Federal Government.

The fact these deep operatives have committed felonies, with apparent confidence their tracks have been covered, should be alarming to everyone, regardless of ideological preference.
 
ocean515 said:
Sorry haymarket, I honestly tried to watch the video you linked, but Maddow is so virently offensive to me, I couldn't do it.
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That is your problem - not mine. A refusal to accept information because of your own ideological virginity is a poor excuse for a justification to play ostrich.
 
haymarket said:
The question of legality is highly relevant as any legal wiretaps are a very different than the irresponsible and groundless accusation Trump made in his twitter orgasm last saturday morning where no evidence of anything obviously illegal was offered.
Click to expand...

Is the content of "legal" wiretaps now able to be handed to the press/public? Once that happens then the "legal" nature of the wiretap makes no difference. If the wiretap content was used illegally then that makes me question whether the agency making the tap/transcript should be held accountable for its later (ab)use. Just because I am given a key to a home to perform maintenance work/repairs does not mean that I may copy and distribute that key legally.
 
haymarket said:
The Rachel Maddow Show on msnbc ? Latest News & Video

Racehl Maddow had an excellent segment on this last night. Watch it. Learn. She pointed out that a wiretap was the only way we could have learned of the transgressions of Mike Flynn that got him fired. And she lays out the legality of doing that and what it means for the Trump presidency.

The point is that wiretaps could have indeed been LEGALLY ordered by the proper authorities. The Trump claim of one week ago is the opposite - that President Obama himself illegally taped Trumps phone. And there has not been a single shred of evidence that such a crime occurred.
Click to expand...

Flynn committed no transgressions in the eye of the law. Only in the eyes of the talking heads like Rachel was any transgression committed.

High government officials talking to other high government officials, foreign government officials, is part of the job description.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Is the content of "legal" wiretaps now able to be handed to the press/public? Once that happens then the "legal" nature of the wiretap makes no difference. If the wiretap content was used illegally then that makes me question whether the agency making the tap/transcript should be held accountable for its later (ab)use. Just because I am given a key to a home to perform maintenance work/repairs does not mean that I may copy and distribute that key legally.
Click to expand...

The reality is what the reality is and all the hand wringing and anguishing about who leaded what does not change the substance of it.
 
Thoreau72 said:
Flynn committed no transgressions in the eye of the law. Only in the eyes of the talking heads like Rachel was any transgression committed.

High government officials talking to other high government officials, foreign government officials, is part of the job description.
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You see nothing wrong with him being a paid employee of a foreign government and failing to comply with the laws at the same time he was advising Trump in his position?
 
ocean515 said:
So in Maddows opinion, President Trump was wiretapped, just as the President claimed.
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I think the point is: OBVIOUSLY NOT. Trump or his people didn't need to be wiretapped, and really, probably were not (at least initially). Wiretaps probably did exist on Russian ambassadors and known agents, and that would be how information was first collected.

ocean515 said:
Your effort to claim EX President Obama didn't have a hand in it has no basis in fact. It's just your opinion, which you are entitled to.
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Do you believe Trump didn't order his own wiretap? Because if so, there's no basis in fact. It's just your opinion, which you are entitled to...

c'mon. Seriously?
 
The one person that has access to the intelligence to prove his claims (Trump himself) doesn't.

He chooses to make an unsubstantiated tweet and whine about how he is a victim.

Trump, substantiate your claims. Show your proof that Obama singled you out for a wiretap and he specifically hand a hand in authorizing it.
 
haymarket said:
You see nothing wrong with him being a paid employee of a foreign government and failing to comply with the laws at the same time he was advising Trump in his position?
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If what you describe actually applies to Flynn and what he did, then it is common practice inside the Beltway. Read Sibel Edmonds book "Classified Woman". The influence of Turkey inside the Beltway is huge.

Otherwise, high government officials get paid to, among other things, have conversations with high government officials from foreign countries. It is part of the job description.
 
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