Here is the timeline for easy reference.
1. During the primaries never Trumpers start work on the Steele dossier. This is then later on funded by Democrats.
This dossier alleges that Trump watched Russian hookers pee on a bed slept in by Obama on tape and that one of Trump's associates had a meeting in Moscow, when multiple eye witnesses place him in the country at the time of that meeting, among other things.
2. The suspect nature of the dossier did not matter. All it was needed for was to provide justification for FISA warrants for associates in the Trump campaign. There is no one to challenge it in the FISA court as only the government is represented.
The secret FISA courts have so far rejected 9 out of 35000 requests from the government. They rejected this request twice. Obama had to shop around for another judge to approve it on their third attempt.
3. As of now Trump campaign members are now officially under surveillance. It would have been impossible to listen in on people involved in the campaign without picking up information of political value.
At this point it is worth noting that Trump would have been factually correct. When these members were in Trump Tower, and they were at certain points, then the people spying on them could listen to conversations inside Trump Tower.
4.The Democrats now have the information in raw form which needs to be processed. This takes place when Susan Rice requests for the names of the American citizens in these documents to be unmasked.
The media insists that the reason this is so is because there was a need to know who the people were for further investigation. This is false. FBI agents themselves were the ones conducting the surveillance. Administration lawyers drafted the FISA requests. They already knew who the people under surveillance were. The reason that requests for unmasking take place is so that you have a record on paper saying that this person did that instead of redacted did that.
5. Once the names are redacted they can be used for anything. They can be used for further charges. They can be leaked to the press. They can be passed on to Clinton campaign officials.
It is also important to remember that at this time Obama relaxed the rules of sharing between government agencies which means more people would have had access to the unmasked information.
A Rose by Any Other Name
I suppose it would have been more accurate to say “the obama administration abused the FISA courts to put the opposing campaign under surveillance and then used this information for political purposes in a scandal of a scale that dwarfs watergate” but that is a mouthful. Obama wiretapped Trump is much more simple, direct, and covers the essence of what happened.
1. During the primaries never Trumpers start work on the Steele dossier. This is then later on funded by Democrats.
This dossier alleges that Trump watched Russian hookers pee on a bed slept in by Obama on tape and that one of Trump's associates had a meeting in Moscow, when multiple eye witnesses place him in the country at the time of that meeting, among other things.
2. The suspect nature of the dossier did not matter. All it was needed for was to provide justification for FISA warrants for associates in the Trump campaign. There is no one to challenge it in the FISA court as only the government is represented.
The secret FISA courts have so far rejected 9 out of 35000 requests from the government. They rejected this request twice. Obama had to shop around for another judge to approve it on their third attempt.
3. As of now Trump campaign members are now officially under surveillance. It would have been impossible to listen in on people involved in the campaign without picking up information of political value.
At this point it is worth noting that Trump would have been factually correct. When these members were in Trump Tower, and they were at certain points, then the people spying on them could listen to conversations inside Trump Tower.
4.The Democrats now have the information in raw form which needs to be processed. This takes place when Susan Rice requests for the names of the American citizens in these documents to be unmasked.
The media insists that the reason this is so is because there was a need to know who the people were for further investigation. This is false. FBI agents themselves were the ones conducting the surveillance. Administration lawyers drafted the FISA requests. They already knew who the people under surveillance were. The reason that requests for unmasking take place is so that you have a record on paper saying that this person did that instead of redacted did that.
5. Once the names are redacted they can be used for anything. They can be used for further charges. They can be leaked to the press. They can be passed on to Clinton campaign officials.
It is also important to remember that at this time Obama relaxed the rules of sharing between government agencies which means more people would have had access to the unmasked information.
A Rose by Any Other Name
I suppose it would have been more accurate to say “the obama administration abused the FISA courts to put the opposing campaign under surveillance and then used this information for political purposes in a scandal of a scale that dwarfs watergate” but that is a mouthful. Obama wiretapped Trump is much more simple, direct, and covers the essence of what happened.
