Surveillance by Obama and his administration.
When President Trump originally tweeted that Obama had carried out surveillance on him, the response from much of the mainstream media was to cast doubt over this claim.
However, in a recent interview with MSNBC, Obama's former Deputy Asst. Secretary of Defense, Evelyn Farkas, appeared to suggest that surveillance and intelligence gathering did take place.1
This is a key quote from the interview:
"I was urging my former colleagues, and, and frankly speaking the people on the Hill, it was more actually aimed, aimed at telling the Hill people, get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can before President Obama leaves the administration, because I had a fear that somehow that information would disappear with the senior people who left, so it would be hidden away in the bureaucracy, um, the Trump folks, if they found out HOW we knew what we knew about their, the staff, the Trump staff, dealing with Russians, that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence, so I became very worried because not enough was coming out into the open and I knew that there was more. We have very good intelligence on Russia, so then I had talked to some of my former colleagues and I knew that they were also trying to help get information to the Hill."
Hopefully this admission will be picked up by congressional investigators and Evelyn Farkas will be asked to expand upon her statement.
However, although a significant admission, it isn't really anything that wasn't already known. In a recent press briefing, Sean Spicer read out a long list of news stories reporting on surveillance by Obama and his administration.
You can watch the video of the press briefing below:
Here are a selection of quotes that were read out by Sean Spicer regarding the media reports on wiretapping and surveillance:
On March 3rd, Fox News chief anchor Brett Baier said:
"There's a report in June 2016, a FISA request by the Obama administration Florida Intelligence Surveillance Court to monitor communications involving Donald Trump and several other campaign officials."
Baier continues:
"A June FISA request that foreign intelligence surveillance courts gets shot down. A judge says 'no go' to monitoring Trump Tower. They go back in October. They do get a FISA granted. This is wiretap going on under monitoring of computers. ... By all accounts they don't come up with anything big in the investigation, but the investigation continues and we don't know it."
Sara Carter reported:
"The start of the new year brought with it unexpected politicizing of the intelligence gathered in secret. Separately, the Obama administration amended a long standing executive order allowing information intercepted through FISA warrants or by the National Security Agency to be shared by a wider audience in 16 government agencies as Obama was leaving office. Intelligence normally reserved for just a handful of intelligence leaders was spread throughout briefings to scores of workers, and soon leaks began appearing in news media organizations. often in stories lacking context of how national security investigations are actually concluded."
The New York Times reported on January 12th 2017:
"In his final days, the Obama administration has expanded the power of the National Security Agency to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government's 16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections. The new rule significantly relaxed long standing limits on what the NSA may do with the information gathered by its most powerful surveillance operations which are largely unregulated by wiretapping laws."
On November 11th, 2016, Heat Street reported:
"Two separate sources with links to the counter- intelligence community have confirmed to Heat Street that the FBI sought and was granted a FISA warrant in October giving counter-surveillance intelligence permission to examine the activities of US person's in Donald Trump's campaign ... The first request which sources say named Trump was denied back in June but the second was drawn more narrowly and granted in October..."
Sara Carter from Circa News:
"Intelligence professionals tell Circa News they were concerned that some of the Russian intelligence was spread through group briefings to a much larger than usual audience back in January. This would have happened during the final days of the Obama administration when it expanded executive order 12333 which allows employees with a need to know have further unfettered access to raw data stored by the NSA. The new rules allow the NSA to share raw signals intelligence information including the names of those involved in phone conversations and emails. 'The expansion of the order makes it difficult to narrow in on the leaks and frankly it allows too many people access to the raw data which only used to be available to a select few,' said a US official who spoke on the condition of anonymity and was not granted to speak on the authority."
On February 14th, the New York Times refers to phone records and intercepted calls:
"The officials said the intercepted communications were not limited to Trump campaign officials and other associates of Mr Trump. The call logs and intercepted communications are part of a larger trove of information that the FBI is sifting through."
Sean Hannity of Fox News:
"Protections which are known as minimization procedures have been put in place to protect Americans that are not under warrant, American citizens that are caught up in the surveillance, by the way, their identities are protected. Their constitutional rights are to be protected. Now of course this was not the case with Lieutenant General Flynn because a transcript of his call was created and then given to intelligence officials who then leaked this information which is a felony to the press that printed it."
On March 14th, Judge Napolitano on Fox News:
"Three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command. He didn't use the NSA. He didn't use the CIA. He didn't use the FBI, and he didn't use the Department of Justice. He used GCHQ. What is that? It's the initials for the British intelligence spying agency. So simply by having two people say to them, "The president needs transcripts of conversations involving candidate Trump's conversations," he's able to get it and there's no American fingerprints on this."
Sean Spicer sums it up as follows:
"Putting the published accounts and common sense together, this leads to a lot."
Given all of the media reports on surveillance listed above, it seems incredible that until recently some sections of the media were still trying to claim that no surveillance took place!
Trump is the master of 4D chess. Give the press enough rope and then let them hang themselves with it.
- - - - - - - - - -
Source:
1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24y32xPH8I8
However, in a recent interview with MSNBC, Obama's former Deputy Asst. Secretary of Defense, Evelyn Farkas, appeared to suggest that surveillance and intelligence gathering did take place.1
This is a key quote from the interview:
"I was urging my former colleagues, and, and frankly speaking the people on the Hill, it was more actually aimed, aimed at telling the Hill people, get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can before President Obama leaves the administration, because I had a fear that somehow that information would disappear with the senior people who left, so it would be hidden away in the bureaucracy, um, the Trump folks, if they found out HOW we knew what we knew about their, the staff, the Trump staff, dealing with Russians, that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence, so I became very worried because not enough was coming out into the open and I knew that there was more. We have very good intelligence on Russia, so then I had talked to some of my former colleagues and I knew that they were also trying to help get information to the Hill."
Hopefully this admission will be picked up by congressional investigators and Evelyn Farkas will be asked to expand upon her statement.
However, although a significant admission, it isn't really anything that wasn't already known. In a recent press briefing, Sean Spicer read out a long list of news stories reporting on surveillance by Obama and his administration.
You can watch the video of the press briefing below:
Here are a selection of quotes that were read out by Sean Spicer regarding the media reports on wiretapping and surveillance:
On March 3rd, Fox News chief anchor Brett Baier said:
"There's a report in June 2016, a FISA request by the Obama administration Florida Intelligence Surveillance Court to monitor communications involving Donald Trump and several other campaign officials."
Baier continues:
"A June FISA request that foreign intelligence surveillance courts gets shot down. A judge says 'no go' to monitoring Trump Tower. They go back in October. They do get a FISA granted. This is wiretap going on under monitoring of computers. ... By all accounts they don't come up with anything big in the investigation, but the investigation continues and we don't know it."
Sara Carter reported:
"The start of the new year brought with it unexpected politicizing of the intelligence gathered in secret. Separately, the Obama administration amended a long standing executive order allowing information intercepted through FISA warrants or by the National Security Agency to be shared by a wider audience in 16 government agencies as Obama was leaving office. Intelligence normally reserved for just a handful of intelligence leaders was spread throughout briefings to scores of workers, and soon leaks began appearing in news media organizations. often in stories lacking context of how national security investigations are actually concluded."
The New York Times reported on January 12th 2017:
"In his final days, the Obama administration has expanded the power of the National Security Agency to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government's 16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections. The new rule significantly relaxed long standing limits on what the NSA may do with the information gathered by its most powerful surveillance operations which are largely unregulated by wiretapping laws."
On November 11th, 2016, Heat Street reported:
"Two separate sources with links to the counter- intelligence community have confirmed to Heat Street that the FBI sought and was granted a FISA warrant in October giving counter-surveillance intelligence permission to examine the activities of US person's in Donald Trump's campaign ... The first request which sources say named Trump was denied back in June but the second was drawn more narrowly and granted in October..."
Sara Carter from Circa News:
"Intelligence professionals tell Circa News they were concerned that some of the Russian intelligence was spread through group briefings to a much larger than usual audience back in January. This would have happened during the final days of the Obama administration when it expanded executive order 12333 which allows employees with a need to know have further unfettered access to raw data stored by the NSA. The new rules allow the NSA to share raw signals intelligence information including the names of those involved in phone conversations and emails. 'The expansion of the order makes it difficult to narrow in on the leaks and frankly it allows too many people access to the raw data which only used to be available to a select few,' said a US official who spoke on the condition of anonymity and was not granted to speak on the authority."
On February 14th, the New York Times refers to phone records and intercepted calls:
"The officials said the intercepted communications were not limited to Trump campaign officials and other associates of Mr Trump. The call logs and intercepted communications are part of a larger trove of information that the FBI is sifting through."
Sean Hannity of Fox News:
"Protections which are known as minimization procedures have been put in place to protect Americans that are not under warrant, American citizens that are caught up in the surveillance, by the way, their identities are protected. Their constitutional rights are to be protected. Now of course this was not the case with Lieutenant General Flynn because a transcript of his call was created and then given to intelligence officials who then leaked this information which is a felony to the press that printed it."
On March 14th, Judge Napolitano on Fox News:
"Three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command. He didn't use the NSA. He didn't use the CIA. He didn't use the FBI, and he didn't use the Department of Justice. He used GCHQ. What is that? It's the initials for the British intelligence spying agency. So simply by having two people say to them, "The president needs transcripts of conversations involving candidate Trump's conversations," he's able to get it and there's no American fingerprints on this."
Sean Spicer sums it up as follows:
"Putting the published accounts and common sense together, this leads to a lot."
Given all of the media reports on surveillance listed above, it seems incredible that until recently some sections of the media were still trying to claim that no surveillance took place!
Trump is the master of 4D chess. Give the press enough rope and then let them hang themselves with it.
- - - - - - - - - -
Source:
1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24y32xPH8I8
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