Trump says he will ask Justice Department to look into campaign surveillance

Chomsky said:

My random thoughts:

1] He's not too crazy about the current news cycle concerning a second Don Jr. meeting with another foreign state, to get their help in throwing the election.

2] I'm not even sure he has the authority to order such an investigation, though as always I suppose he can request it.

3] He is really opening-up a possible can of worms here, perhaps bringing-out the reasons why the feds surveilled him in the first place!

4] What is the point of having the FBI investigate itself?

5] If his claim of the FBI doing this for political is reasons accurate, why didn't we here about it? How can it be political?

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I don't think Chump realizes how badly this will blow-up in his face.

There was nothing wrong in the way Page and Manafort were surveilled, nor is there any evidence the Trump campaign was targeted by the FBI for political reasons. The IG will do his job, see the warrants all had probable cause, and conclude nothing was done illegally.

His narrative will come apart in an official report - which he ordered.

Worse yet, that will give credibility to whatever Mueller finds.

Of course I should qualify my last post as Trump's statements calling a possible informant a spy with no basis for doing so likely amount to the most unscrupulous statements Trump has made as President just squeaking past "Obama wiretapped my offices". In all likelihood, Trump heading a linch mob against the Central Park Five having utterly no basis in fact for their guilt probably make up the most unscrupulous statements Donald has ever made. Its worth pointing out that if a powerful man is wiling to use his resources to lead a linch mob with no basis for understanding their guilt or their innocence, what won't he do?

MovingPictures said:

I don't think Chump realizes how badly this will blow-up in his face.

There was nothing wrong in the way Page and Manafort were surveilled, nor is there any evidence the Trump campaign was targeted by the FBI for political reasons. The IG will do his job, see the warrants all had probable cause, and conclude nothing was done illegally.

His narrative will come apart in an official report - which he ordered.

Worse yet, that will give credibility to whatever Mueller finds.

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Gave you a kudo by mistake ... my apologies ... here, I'll make up with this:

MovingPictures said:

I don't think Chump realizes how badly this will blow-up in his face.

There was nothing wrong in the way Page and Manafort were surveilled, nor is there any evidence the Trump campaign was targeted by the FBI for political reasons. The IG will do his job, see the warrants all had probable cause, and conclude nothing was done illegally.

His narrative will come apart in an official report - which he ordered.

Worse yet, that will give credibility to whatever Mueller finds.

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Completely agree. Trump and Rudy have played a weak hand most likely into a disaster for them somehow deciding that they could mischaracterize an informant and make a big hullabaloo out of nothing in the process. But insisting on characterizing him as a spy is a big big mistake and I suspect what will result is those that oppose Trump's nonsense pointing out in chapter and verse and painful detail the differences between an informant and a spy and the complete unscrupulousness that Trump and Rudy have exposed in characterizing the informant that way.

The funny thing is that either is stupid enough to have come up with this idea. Its a roll of the dice which one of them came up with this. If I had to guess, it would be Trump.

An ironic thing is that its almost impossible to play a hand weakly from the awesome power of the WH. You really have to work at it to put yourself in such a position. Virtually the only thing Trump can do from here is not make his formal request on Monday which would be pretty hard to pull off. It won't change the IG investigation into this. But the amount of focus Trump and Rudy have put on it through their weekend rants is so bad for them.

iguanaman said:

So now you believe the DOJ is nothing but an apparatus for Trump to use against his enemies? What world do you live in? Without the independence of the DOJ we have no rule of law and we have officially become a Banana Republic.

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I don't believe I said that. If I did, then I stand corrected.

Cardinal said:

No, not "good." Trump is crossing the Rubicon into pure Banana Public territory. If he follows through on his order, he'll officially be using the DOJ to investigate his political rivals and blow up an investigation into him.

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On second thought, you're right.

If the DOJ actually does an investigation on its own, though, then the story can be put to rest.

But, then, Trump has but to make up another story.

ElChupacabra said:

Hmm. Is this in the same category as his threats to lock Hillary up once he was elected but then didn't want to because he didn't want to hurt the Clintons anymore?

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Probably.

We'll find out if and when he actually does try to demand an investigation.

Dittohead not! said:

On second thought, you're right.

If the DOJ actually does an investigation on its own, though, then the story can be put to rest.

But, then, Trump has but to make up another story.

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Precisely. There’s no rule that says he can’t make up six more before lunch.

cuban smokes said:

the GOP has ALWAYS hated America; just go back to the election of 1860 & that Abe Lincoln asshole that started The American Civil War

the GOP has ALWAYS been anti America .............................. thank goodness ole Abe got his @ Ford Theater .......................

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I'm sorry but the party of host Abraham Lincoln is not the same as the party of dishonest Donald Trump.

You totally missed my point. My point is Trump supporters attack Kaepernick for protesting injustice by law enforcement. But they support Trump insisting that law enforcement is corrupt. I guess only White people are free to complain about law enforcement.