Mark Levin laid out the case that President Obama’s administration wiretapped candidate Trump:
Yes, the New York Times used the word “wiretap.”
Andy McCarthy of National Review has been trying to bring attention to this issue. As he notes, President Trump focused a huge spotlight onto the story:
Trump’s tweets on Saturday prompted some interesting “denials” from the Obama camp. These can be summarized in the statement put out by Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis:
A cardinal rule of the Obama Administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice. As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false. This seems disingenuous on several levels.
Here’s the tweets:
Is it legal for a sitting President to be “wire tapping” a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017
I’d bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017
How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017
And today:
Who was it that secretly said to Russian President, “Tell Vladimir that after the election I’ll have more flexibility?” @foxandfriends
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 5, 2017
Here’s Andrew McCarthy’s conclusion, but you should go read the whole thing:
Nevertheless, whether done inside or outside the FISA process, it would be a scandal of Watergate dimension if a presidential administration sought to conduct, or did conduct, national-security surveillance against the presidential candidate of the opposition party. Unless there was some powerful evidence that the candidate was actually acting as an agent of a foreign power, such activity would amount to a pretextual use of national-security power for political purposes. That is the kind of abuse that led to Richard Nixon’s resignation in lieu of impeachment.
Moreover, it cannot be glossed over that, at the very time it appears the Obama Justice Department was seeking to surveil Trump and/or his associates on the pretext that they were Russian agents, the Obama Justice Department was also actively undermining and ultimately closing without charges the criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton despite significant evidence of felony misconduct that threatened national security.
This appears to be extraordinary, politically motivated abuse of presidential power.
Dummies like Matt Dowd are seeing Watergate in this story. I’m seeing Rathergate–where Dan Rather peddles made up information to try to change the election outcome to the Democrats’ favor.
Exit question: Would Watergate work now? Would the American people believe the Washington Post, if their writers reported what an anonymous government source, “Deep Throat,” said?
