Here's the thing: After eight years of Clintonian shading of what the meaning of "is" is, Bush's inept handling and prosecution of the war, and then eight more years of Clintonian re-definings and shadings of common words by the most transparent administration
EVAH11!!, I am reflexively suspicious when anybody says there is no evidence based on (fill in the blank) alphabet soup agency or bureau that anything occurred.
Was a FISA request asked for by someone in the Obama administration? Yes. Was it granted? Not for the first two attempts at it, no. Was it ethical for someone in the Obama administration to ask for some form of surveillance on Trump's staff/property/campaign when they are a member of the opposition party and in close proximity to Election Day? No. Is there any agency or bureau that has not already been politically weaponized by the Obama administration that could be trusted to impartially investigate Trump or his concerns without bias? Not to my knowledge.
This much we
do know: Gen. Flynn was caught in a surveillance operation as a private citizen and his participation in such an operation is supposed to be scrubbed from the raw intel that the surveillance produces. If it involves criminal activity, the proper authority is supposed to handle it, i.e. the FBI. They didn't handle it, instead it went outside the closed loop where
Constitutionally it is suppposed to by law remain.
Now, as a former serviceman, I have strong opinions on this matter in regard to Flynn and his son, who I believe behaved in a manner unbecoming of an officer and possibly even engaged in treason. Certainly selling his influence to Russians and Turks is unethical despite any wiggle room the law might give him while acting on Trump's behalf.
So what occurred? At this point we don't know and may never know due to the nature of intelligence operations and the regular use of deception such matters employ. But it is not beyond the pale to think that if someone, be that in the Obama administration or an alphabet soup agency says, "There was absolutely no wiretapping going on of the Trump campaign and it is raining outside," I'd still want to go outside and check to see if water is falling from the sky. Why? Because we have been taught, lo, over these past 24 years that nothing means what we as ordinary citizens think words and such mean. Is the speaker using the term "wiretapping" in a strict sense? Or is he using it as a catch-all to signify all types of surveillance? Is surveillance a term we can all agree is the act of physically watching someone? Or does it include electronic and digital vacuuming of broad spectrum media? If Obama says he can unequivocally say
he did not order surveillance on Trump, does that include any and all minions of his, either in his direct employment or by extension, some faceless bureaucrat who fervently desires to do what he thinks Obama would want and wishes for plausible deniability? Does having the Brits do his dirty work for him fall under this venue?
You see, it all comes back to Obama is utterly untrustworthy in thought, word, and deed. He
directly ordered the killing of an American citizen overseas without due process. How much more proof do we need that he would have no qualms about the mere surveillance of someone who he deemed a dire threat to both his legacy and the trajectory BHO had set America on?
Napalitano hasn't been to date a wild eyed conspiracy theorist, but has been an openly critical observer of the lawlessness of the Obama administration. I'd be willing to concede that Napalitano is a full-on Trump supporter, which, for me, means I weigh his opinions carefully before subscribing to them. At this point I see nothing which is blatantly wrong or misguided. He may have sources that we are unaware of and has not disclosed them. I just don't know. But if he says GCHQ had a hand in the surveillance of Trump and the Brits deny it, that doesn't categorically end the discussion, it just could very well mean the Brits don't want to be embarrassed by having been Obama's snitches-- something he's been very good at getting nations to do (see the UN resolution against Israel).
(Edit: In regards to gathering intel on everyone other than his own IRS agents, DOJ officials, and ICE bosses, Trump made a joke of Obama's surveillance of Angela Merkel today at their press conference. She looked rather nonplussed at his sense of humor.)
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... istration/
That's where I am on all of this right now. With everything that Wikileaks has published-- and I don't necessarily believe a word of it yet --complete and full-on surveillance that just happens to suck up information on your political opponent unbeknownst to the president who just happens to come across this during his daily briefings and just happens to have bureaucrats leak to to the press... well, I was born, but just not yesterday.
