Why would President Obama order surveillance of the Trump campaign?

There have been a lot of allegations thrown around, but no coherent narrative has come together. President Trump has claimed that Obama personally ordered his campaign spied upon. No evidence has been provided to support that claim. Instead, we have learned that members of Trump's campaign were caught up in routine surveillance of Russian agents. This looks very suspicious, so now the White House is trying to create a distraction by "leaking" the fact that the National Security Adviser wanted to know who these individuals were. This is not an unreasonable request. The question is: how would she have known that the individuals who were caught in this way were involved in the Trump campaign? Did the recordings mention the Trump campaign? If they did, that would be evidence for collusion.

The timeline is also unclear. When was the initial surveillance done? Was it done before Trump's candidacy, in which case, did Trump know he was recruiting possible foreign agents?

The narrative the White House seems to be selling is that a President who was not up for re-election ordered government assets to spy on a potential candidate who was being given a 0% chance of winning. Why did he not focus his illegal efforts on the more likely winners: Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz? Why have their campaigns not come forward?

If intelligence was gathered, why was it not used? Was it not passed on to the Clinton campaign? Why not? And if it was, why was there no mention of it in the DNC "leaks?" Remember, the fact that no negatives about Trump were published by WikiLeaks is one of the bits of circumstantial evidence for Russia's manipulating the election! If illegally obtained dirt were obtained, it somehow got scrubbed out by whoever gave the emails to WikiLeaks.

Then there is the kompromat. Whether or not the dossier is completely factual, its existence seems to have been known. Where does it fit in? Why no mentions in the leaked material?

Would some Trump supporters please knit these tweets and leaks into a coherent narrative and answer some of these fundamental questions? I am posting here because it is not the Mud Pit. I expect reasoned responses.

a reply to: DJW001

The narrative the White House seems to be selling is that a President who was not up for re-election ordered government assets to spy on a potential candidate who was being given a 0% chance of winning.

It's already been established that information was gathered from the Trump campaign via the FISA warrant and then handed to the Clinton campaign.

And 0%? Really? 60 million votes is a lot for someone who was given a 0% chance of winning, don't you think?

Who gave him this 0% chance of winning?

You?

Seems ironic considering that he was the leading candidate in the GOP primaries from the moment he announced he was running all the way through to the nomination. All of this and before anything from Wikileaks.

But no, somehow all of this overwhelming support that Trump had amassed before he was nominated is irrelevant because Russia got him elected.

Even though Obama, when he was president at the time, said that there was no evidence of any compromised voting machines, somehow it was Russia that got him elected.

This ought be good. Well presented OP. It is common to keep foreign agents under surveillance. That means if one speaks to them on the phone, their communication will be captured as well as the foreign agents.



Looking forward to hearing the persuasive arguments of the resident pro-Trumpers.


And anyway - why are all these people residents of Trump Tower? It's like the entire upper tier of Trump Tower renters are now running our country.

Good luck with the thread.
There is no truth anymore and people will believe what they believe.
Was there wiretapping? Was there russian collusion? Was there neither or both?
The MSM and internet have different stories supporting both claims and debunking both.
There really is no truth anymore

a reply to: DJW001

Because Democrats are responsible for everything that is bad in this country. Democrats have destroyed this country. Everyone hates Congress. Everyone loves the military. What the right wingers want is STRONG leadership that can only come from having a right wing military style dictatorship. Clearly, as Congress has shown, Democracy just doesn't work.

originally posted by: dfnj2015
a reply to: DJW001

Because Democrats are responsible for everything that is bad in this country. Democrats have destroyed this country. Everyone hates Congress. Everyone loves the military. What the right wingers want is STRONG leadership that can only come from having a right wing military style dictatorship. Clearly, as Congress has shown, Democracy just doesn't work.

I'm thinking you might want to add "/sarc" at the base of your post there. At least, I hope I'm correct that you were being sarcastic.......

a reply to: DJW001

The simplest way to put it would be the Obama Administration was terrified of Trump winning because they (Obama Admin) are in cahoots with the Clintons and they knew that if the Clintons won it would help further their collective nefarious agenda/s. Spy on Trump to help Clinton.

Attention

This is a friendly warning for now: This thread is NOT in the Political Mud Pit.

Posts in this thread so far are showing that it's trying to become one.

Keep your posts civil. No insults. No political baiting or trolling (those posts will be removed).


Do not reply to this post.

a reply to: ColdWisdom

It's already been established that information was gathered from the Trump campaign via the FISA warrant and then handed to the Clinton campaign.

Really? Could you provide a link to where this was established, and explain why this was not in evidence earlier?

And 0%? Really? 60 million votes is a lot for someone who was given a 0% chance of winning, don't you think?

When the surveillance allegedly started, the Republican field looked like this:



At that point, the DNC was hoping Trump would get the nomination because they considered him un-electable.

Even though Obama, when he was president at the time, said that there was no evidence of any compromised voting machines, somehow it was Russia that got him elected.

No, Russia did not get him elected... but they certainly tried.

Meh.

Talk about Russia hacking the election, Democrats are happy.

Talk about Obama spying on Trump, Republicans are happy.

As long as nobody talks about pedophile networks, both sides are happy.

a reply to: DJW001

Remember, the fact that no negatives about Trump were published by WikiLeaks is one of the bits of circumstantial evidence for Russia's manipulating the election!

How does that even relate to Russia in anyway? Your argument there is essentially, Wikileaks didn't release anything negative about Trump therefor it was Russia that gave them the emails.

Wikileaks didn't need to release anything about Trump because there were plenty of outlets in the MSM that were doing that 24/7, hence the reason why anything and everything that could have been used to tarnish Trump's character was used whether it was true or not.

If illegally obtained dirt were obtained, it somehow got scrubbed out by whoever gave the emails to WikiLeaks.

Listen to yourself, you're making no sense. If illegal dirt was obtained by the intelligence community through the Obama administration, hacking emails and scrubbing files before releasing them would be useless because the Obama administration would still have the dirt and would have released it if it contained anything damning.

Furthermore, Clinton received intelligence gathered on Trump during her intelligence briefings that she was receiving during the campaign. There would be no reason to be emailing classified material. That you would even suggest that Clinton's emails would have contained damning evidence about Trump that her campaign never used and that we have never seen is a disturbing level of delusion.

Everything they could think of to discredit him was disseminated to the news by the Clinton campaign and blasted all over the MSM 24/7.

originally posted by: o0oTOPCATo0o
Good luck with the thread.
There is no truth anymore and people will believe what they believe.
Was there wiretapping? Was there russian collusion? Was there neither or both?
The MSM and internet have different stories supporting both claims and debunking both.
There really is no truth anymore

There is indeed truth, and critical thinking can establish it. The questions I have posed are explorations to establish the logic, if any, behind the accusations. If a coherent narrative cannot gel because of the logical contradictions or fallacies, we can then proceed to piece together the facts.

Maybe because they knew the polls were wrong. A lot of people were saying "why are his rally crowds so large if no one is voting for him?" The media (left and right) were pushing skewed poll numbers. They knew the numbers were off. Or if you want to go with a reason that is more personal (if you believe Obama ordered the surveillance) simple revenge for Trump's involvement in the birther issue. You can come up with lots of reasons for and against. It's all speculation either way.

a reply to: dfnj2015

Clearly, as Congress has shown, Democracy just doesn't work.

And that is the message the Kremlin wants to convey:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

a reply to: DJW001

No, that's what DJW001 considers about Putin.

originally posted by: ColdWisdom
Even though Obama, when he was president at the time, said that there was no evidence of any compromised voting machines, somehow it was Russia that got him elected.

You do know that no one is accusing the Russians of hacking election machines right?

a reply to: ColdWisdom

Listen to yourself, you're making no sense. If illegal dirt was obtained by the intelligence community through the Obama administration, hacking emails and scrubbing files before releasing them would be useless because the Obama administration would still have the dirt and would have released it if it contained anything damning.

Exactly! If Obama were spying on the Trump campaign why wasn't the dirt released? Why is it only now coming to light?

a reply to: DJW001

Actually, unless and until the "evidence" is released, we really don't know anything...

But I do know that if they gave us that "evidence" for collusion, we would also have the evidence for spying.

Perhaps then someone could answer your questions.

originally posted by: DJW001
No evidence has been provided to support that claim. Instead, we have learned that members of Trump's campaign were caught up in routine surveillance of Russian agents.

This is wrong. Many of the unmasking was on things that had absolutley nothing to do with Russia. A transistion team would be in touch with many different representatives from different countries.

This looks very suspicious, so now the White House is trying to create a distraction by "leaking" the fact that the National Security Adviser wanted to know who these individuals were. This is not an unreasonable request.

You're right it is very suspicious that the national security advisor would be requesting unmasking of routine talks between representatives that have nothing to do with national security which is supposed to be required when unmasking.

The question is: how would she have known that the individuals who were caught in this way were involved in the Trump campaign?

Susan Rice tried to learn the identities of Trump transition team officials whose conversations with foreign officials were “incidentally” collected by US intelligence, according to former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova. By ordering U.S. spy agencies to produce “detailed spreadsheets” of legal phone calls involving Donald Trump and his aides when he was running for president, Rice sought to “unmask” involved parties. Normally, the names of American citizens collected in such a manner are redacted. But after being “unmasked,” the identities of the Trump officials became known.

She wants detailed spreadsheets from the IC about Donald Trump and aides and then asks for those calls to be unmasked.

Unmasking is justified for national security reasons but is governed by strict rules across the U.S. intelligence apparatus that make it illegal to pursue for political reasons or to leak classified information generated by the process.

Why did Susan Rice lie about unmasking if there was nothing to hide?

Perhaps Rice is simply lying as she lied on March 22 when in a PBS interview she said "I know nothing" about unmasking Trump officials. Less than two weeks later, we learn that she did.

The timeline is also unclear. When was the initial surveillance done? Was it done before Trump's candidacy, in which case, did Trump know he was recruiting possible foreign agents?

This is unclear to me as I have seen different timelines reported.

If intelligence was gathered, why was it not used?

Please explain how the Washington post and NY times were handed stories about Flynn on a silver platter if these unmaskings were not leaked to them by Obama officials?

Whether or not the dossier is completely factual, its existence seems to have been known. Where does it fit in? Why no mentions in the leaked material?

The dossier was presented to Obama / Trump during the transition security briefing to show the incoming president what kind of crap was out there.

Biden on Thursday said intelligence officials told him and Obama – whom the VP said wanted to know why the information was relevant – that they didn't want the president to be caught off-guard if the information surfaced. Ultimately it did, with the dossier's contents published by BuzzFeed on Tuesday. "Well, we feel obliged to tell you, Mr. President, because you may hear about it," Biden said the intelligence officials told him and Obama. He also said they drew no conclusions.

"We're going to tell him," Biden said the intelligence officials said of their plans to brief Trump. "Neither the president nor I asked for any detail."

Would some Trump supporters please knit these tweets and leaks into a coherent narrative and answer some of these fundamental questions? I am posting here because it is not the Mud Pit. I expect reasoned responses.

I hope my response was not mud pitty

a reply to: Krazysh0t

You do know that no one is accusing the Russians of hacking election machines right?

That could be the only way to construe any 'election interference,' and it was denounced by then president Obama.

Even if you believe that Russia gave Clintons emails to Wikileaks, that's still not election interference, no more than it was in 1972 when The Washington Post broke the Watergate scandal.