Sources reveal Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed off on the warrant allowing the Obama Administration to wiretap Donald Trump, via ABC News.
Two separate applications for the warrant were made, and Lynch had to put her name on both of them. The first was denied.
In and of itself, the denial of the first application means that Lynch must have some exceptionally bad judgment.
Only two warrant requests were denied by the FISA court since 2009. Over 10,700 requests were made in that time.
Clearly, the court really didn’t think spying on Donald Trump was a good idea, or met the standards for an ethical use of power.
A former NSA official turned ABC News contributor, Matt Olsen, said, “The fact that the government is successful in almost always getting approval is just an indication the government knows what the standard is.”
There are eleven judges on the FISA court, and each one was appointed while Obama was still president. Perhaps that’s how they were swayed to give in on the matter? Do they feel like they owe Obama something?
Five of the judges were appointed for terms that won’t end until after Trump’s first term. It may take some time to drain this particular swamp. In the meantime, at least we know our new president is ethical and will not abuse his power.
The top of column 2 on the front page of the New York Times on January 20, 2017, that reads “Wiretapped Data Use in Inquiry of Trump Aides”?
Sadly, I’m not surprised Loretta Lynch was involved in this. She’s long been politicizing the Department of Justice, acting suspiciously in favor of the Clintons. Her latest disgusting decision involved telling the liberals that what our streets really need is MORE violence! On June 27, 2016, Loretta Lynch, the Attorney General at the time secretly met with Bill Clinton in a back of a plane. She also pleaded the 5th during congressional testimony regarding the Obama Administrations illegally sending the terrorist state of Iran $1.7 billion in cash.
She was the ONLY person that signed off on FISA warrants over the last year or so of Obama’s terms, so now we know who the rat is. And you know what happens to rats.
June 2016: FISA request. The Obama administration files a request with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) to monitor communications involving Donald Trump and several advisers. The request, uncharacteristically, is denied.
October: FISA request. The Obama administration submits a new, narrow request to the FISA court, now focused on a computer server in Trump Tower suspected of links to Russian banks. No evidence is found — but the wiretaps continue, ostensibly for national security reasons, Andrew McCarthy at National Review later notes. The Obama administration is now monitoring an opposing presidential campaign using the high-tech surveillance powers of the federal intelligence services.
January 2017: Buzzfeed/CNN dossier. Buzzfeed releases, and CNN reports, a supposed intelligence “dossier” compiled by a foreign former spy. It purports to show continuous contact between Russia and the Trump campaign, and says that the Russians have compromising information about Trump. None of the allegations can be verified and some are proven false. Several media outlets claim that they had been aware of the dossier for months and that it had been circulating in Washington.
January: Times report. The New York Times reports, on the eve of Inauguration Day, that several agencies — the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Treasury Department are monitoring several associates of the Trump campaign suspected of Russian ties. Other news outlets also report the exisentence of “a multiagency working group to coordinate investigations across the government,” though it is unclear how they found out, since the investigations would have been secret and involved classified information.
January: Times report. The New York Times reports, on the eve of Inauguration Day, that several agencies — the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Treasury Department are monitoring several associates of the Trump campaign suspected of Russian ties. Other news outlets also report the exisentence of “a multiagency working group to coordinate investigations across the government,” though it is unclear how they found out, since the investigations would have been secret and involved classified information.
Obama administration sought, and eventually obtained, authorization to eavesdrop on the Trump campaign; continued monitoring the Trump team even when no evidence of wrongdoing was found; then relaxed the NSA rules to allow evidence to be shared widely within the government, virtually ensuring that the information, including the conversations of private citizens, would be leaked to the media.
