Obama had Trumps phone tapped?

[Sea Ray]

Are you still confused about who's phone was actually tapped? Do you understand the gulf of difference, especially legal, that this little detail entails?

We don't know who's phone was tapped but someone's was

 

[zinfamous]

We know for a fact that a call made from Trump Tower was tapped. Does that make you happy?

The only thing we seem to know for a fact at this point is that a server exchanging data between Trump Tower and some Russian bank was being intercepted.

We know nothing about phone calls.

 

[Sea Ray]

The only thing we seem to know for a fact at this point is that a server exchanging data between Trump Tower and some Russian bank was being intercepted.

We know nothing about phone calls.

Then where did the transcript of the call come from?

 

[zinfamous]

We don't know who's phone was tapped but someone's was

It seems to have been known that Kislyak's phone was tapped for some time, in addition to the various surveillance ordered on him, as a suspected spy. I mean, you should be able to put this together: if the spy's phone calls were already being tapped, and you are suspicious of his contacts with US citizens, politicians, military--then what is the point (besides the obvious illegality) of randomly tapping then-unknown contacts? You just tap the one suspect's phone. You can't really do it any other way.

 

[zinfamous]

Then where did the transcript of the call come from?

This is far, far, far, far simpler than you want it to be. see above. Or you're just playing dumb for the sake of playing dumb. Look, your tin foil hat is done drying. You should put it back on.

 

[brycejones]

You're just playing the gotcha game but it gets us nowhere. We don't know what Cotton knows because the info is classified so you can't say with certainty who tapped the phone call between Flynn and the Ambassador

LOL, really? Its not the gotcha game when someone points out your contradictory posts in the same thread. You weren't asked leading questions and no one was trying to trick you into misspeaking. You just posted bullshit and it was pointed out. That isn't the gotcha game.

 

[fskimospy]

You're just playing the gotcha game but it gets us nowhere. We don't know what Cotton knows because the info is classified so you can't say with certainty who tapped the phone call between Flynn and the Ambassador

You're arguing in circles now. You said that you wouldn't believe the Russian foreign minister or the Washington Post because Cotton contradicted them. When informed he didn't contradict them you simply decided to continue not believing the Post anyway despite having considered it a credible source earlier in this thread. What is your reason for not believing them now?

 

[zinfamous]

You're arguing in circles now. You said that you wouldn't believe the Russian foreign minister or the Washington Post because Cotton contradicted them. When informed he didn't contradict them you simply decided to continue not believing the Post anyway despite having considered it a credible source earlier in this thread. What is your reason for not believing them now?

classic case of herping when he should have just derped.

 

[Sea Ray]

It seems to have been known that Kislyak's phone was tapped for some time, in addition to the various surveillance ordered on him, as a suspected spy. I mean, you should be able to put this together: if the spy's phone calls were already being tapped, and you are suspicious of his contacts with US citizens, politicians, military--then what is the point (besides the obvious illegality) of randomly tapping then-unknown contacts? You just tap the one suspect's phone. You can't really do it any other way.

So now we're going from facts to "it seems to have been known"...I could play the gotcha game with this all day but I have better things to do. You have a choice to make. Do you want to stick to facts or do you want to get into the "it seems to have been known" bit? If it's the latter then we have to include Newt Gingrich and others

 

[Sea Ray]

You're arguing in circles now. You said that you wouldn't believe the Russian foreign minister or the Washington Post because Cotton contradicted them. When informed he didn't contradict them you simply decided to continue not believing the Post anyway despite having considered it a credible source earlier in this thread. What is your reason for not believing them now?

You're tying yourself in knots. I said many times in this thread that the info is classified so no one is willing to state on the record who was tapping what. The WaPost can have their opinion. FoxNews can differ. But after pages and pages we're back to where we started: we don't know who tapped who but we know someone was tapped. Hence Pres Trump calling for an investigation

 

[woolfe9998]

This entire discussion of the Flynn call is ridiculous. Flynn was fired a month ago essentially under protest from Trump, who blamed the media. What's important is who and what Trump didn't blame at the time. Remember, Trump was told 2 weeks prior to Flynn's call being made public that the FBI had a transcript of the call. But Trump didn't cry foul over the fact that this call was recorded either at that time he learned of it or when he later had to fire Flynn. He clearly didn't cry foul because neither he nor anyone on his national security team believed there was anything untoward about the recordation of this call. Trump was pissed for sure, dishonestly blaming the media for the fact that he had to fire Flynn, but not blaming the agency who recorded the call.

Nor did he mention Flynn in his the tweets he sent last Saturday. Those tweets had to do with a Breitbart article derived from a radio rant by Mark Levin, which in turn seems to be based on some UK media reports from several months ago, before the Flynn call even took place. This stuff about Flynn is being brought in after the fact to justify Trump's ludicrous allegations.

Trump defenders will grasp on to anything, no matter how thin, to rationalize Trump's disgraceful behavior.

 

[fskimospy]

You're tying yourself in knots. I said many times in this thread that the info is classified so no one is willing to state on the record who was tapping what. The WaPost can have their opinion. FoxNews can differ. But after pages and pages we're back to where we started: we don't know who tapped who but we know someone was tapped.

We don't know with absolute certainty who was tapped, but we do know with overwhelming likelihood who was tapped. This is just common sense and I don't know why you're so ideologically hell bent on ignoring it.

Hence Pres Trump calling for an investigation

This is illogical. He already has access to that information, no investigation is required.

 

[woolfe9998]

Sean Spicer once again refusing to answer questions about the wiretap allegations, this time because it is "above my pay grade."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/us/politics/trump-wiretap-claim-obama.html?_r=0

Funny thing, to make allegations then refuse to answers questions about them. What if I claimed that Donald Trump is a child molester, and when asked to substantiate the allegation, I claimed it is "above my pay grade."

 

[Jhhnn]

You're tying yourself in knots. I said many times in this thread that the info is classified so no one is willing to state on the record who was tapping what. The WaPost can have their opinion. FoxNews can differ. But after pages and pages we're back to where we started: we don't know who tapped who but we know someone was tapped. Hence Pres Trump calling for an investigation

Pres Trump has the power to investigate it for himself & to declassify the results should he see fit. He doesn't need Congress at all. He merely needs to command that it be done & federal agencies will obviously comply. He could have a dossier on his desk in short order.

He could say "Here's the proof." to score a major political coup. And yet he does not.

The only way to explain that is to say that he was just pumping some sunshine up your skirt in the first place. You're apparently desperate to avoid that inevitable conclusion.

 

[Sea Ray]

We don't know with absolute certainty who was tapped, but we do know with overwhelming likelihood who was tapped. This is just common sense and I don't know why you're so ideologically hell bent on ignoring it.

Since there is a transcript, we know that that conversation was tapped

 

[alien42]

Since there is a transcript, we know that that conversation was tapped

if you didn't know that the Russian ambassador's phone was tapped, you are ignorant, there is no other excuse. pretty sure i've known that since i was about 4.

 

[Sea Ray]

Pres Trump has the power to investigate it for himself & to declassify the results should he see fit. He doesn't need Congress at all. He merely needs to command that it be done & federal agencies will obviously comply. He could have a dossier on his desk in short order.

He could say "Here's the proof." to score a major political coup. And yet he does not.

The only way to explain that is to say that he was just pumping some sunshine up your skirt in the first place. You're apparently desperate to avoid that inevitable conclusion.

Why are you making this personal against me? I haven't said that I agree with Trump that Obama tapped his phones. I'll have to see the evidence first and that burden is on Trump

 

[fskimospy]

Since there is a transcript, we know that that conversation was tapped

Yes, and the overwhelmingly likely target of that tap was the Russian ambassador, not Flynn. Again, this is just common sense.

The only thing anyone should care about is who the target of the wiretap was. If you are scandalized by who is on the other end then you should have been enraged for years about all those innocent pizza places that were wiretapped when a mob boss called them.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Michael Smerconish had argued recently that we need to "look deeper" into Trump's words and actions, implying that there is some hidden agenda or strategy behind what seems otherwise to be myopic, paranoid and outrageous behaviors of a man living in a narcissist reality-bubble.

Consider that Susan Sarandon, who supported Trump publicly, has made it clear that her own purpose in doing so showed a complete divorce from Trump's whacky base: she wanted to see the progressive movement energized by falling under the shadow of a Trump presidency. I have to take her at her word.

Trump, on the other hand, seems like someone who never did his own taxes, relying on others. He doesn't pay attention to statistics, so he's not a "card-counting" businessman, but an "all-in" gambler whose only strongpoint is the "art of the bluff." When he bluffs, his behavior suggests that at least some of the time -- he believes the reality he's trying to convey.

So if you look at the scatter of points and connections in a search-tree of relevant events, it begins early with the two school-terror hoaxes of 2015-2016, targeting the two biggest Democratic voter "blue" strongholds in the United States, each within 50 miles of a major terror ground-zero. They occurred within 32 hours before a major GOP debate and Dem Town-Hall in New Hampshire, the pattern consistent with a variant of the old "Reichstag Fire" campaign. The FBI later announces that they traced the IP address back to eastern Germany -- a part of the world known for its intelligence activity and intrigue, and the early career post for another Believer in the Roman Empire Paradigm, Vladimir Putin.

So you can flesh out all of these facts, and try to enumerate the various possible causes.

When you superimpose the statements and observable behaviors of Trump and Obama respectively, Obama only looks like the president whose forethought and wisdom prevented him from going public about the Russian dimension just to avoid the appearance of interfering in the election himself. Trump, the bluffer, appears to be making mistakes in all that bluffing, because his "tells" are completely consistent with inferences about all those news-event points and their possible causes and connections which merely increases the probability that Trump has somehow colluded with the Russians, thinks he has so colluded, can't completely remember how any collusion took place, and only wants to muddy the issue with outlandish accusations.

He has bluffed his way into a logical impossibility -- that Obama illegally surveilled his communications during the election for purely partisan reasons.

If there had been any "tell" by Obama, the only one I imagined was Bob DeNiro's Medal of Freedom Award last October. Interpreting that as somehow deliberate makes the O-man look so subtle and cool that it is "off the map" and under the radar.

Obama was forced to gamble on the chances of Hillary's win versus the ability of the system to protect us from an executive like Trump. He would be counting on the numbers, while Hillary failed her campaign in states guaranteeing electoral victory. He would be thinking about various criminal statutes, like "misprision of a felony," which are only possibilities in the sieve driven by the observable events. Obama doesn't know everything that Trump is doing; Trump doesn't even know what is likely or almost impossible in Obama's actions, timing or statements.

Trump isn't behaving like an executive -- you can say that in many different tones. He is losing emotional control to such an extent, that his own bluffs are coming back to haunt him.

 

[agent00f]

In lieu of reading the last few pages can someone answer if the dumbshit has figured out how telephones work yet? You know those things where if you listen in you can hear both sides talk.

 

[cytg111]

I think the goalposts are moving
1. wiretapping means two ends, equally inclusive.
2. ordering a wiretap equals having knowledge about a wiretap

 

[sdifox]

In lieu of reading the last few pages can someone answer if the dumbshit has figured out how telephones work yet? You know those things where if you listen in you can hear both sides talk.

I wonder if there is a wikihow article on how telephones work.

 

[fskimospy]

I think the goalposts are moving
1. wiretapping means two ends, equally inclusive.

Not in the sense the word is commonly used, no.

2. ordering a wiretap equals having knowledge about a wiretap

But presidents don't order wiretaps?

 

[cytg111]

Not in the sense the word is commonly used, no.

But presidents don't order wiretaps?

I didnt say I agreed with it, just that that is what is happening (watching fox last night).
Selling the story as this: Obama must have been aware of it therefor it was his responsibility to shut it down therefor "he did it". It requires a little spinning, non the less....

 

[Jhhnn]

I didnt say I agreed with it, just that that is what is happening (watching fox last night).
Selling the story as this: Obama must have been aware of it therefor it was his responsibility to shut it down therefor "he did it". It requires a little spinning, non the less....

It requires a lot of spinning. It assumes that in tapping Kislyak's phone that the Admin knew who he would talk to over the phone.

"Flynn? Really? WTF is that bonehead doing talking to Kislyak? Surely he realizes that Kislyak's phone is tapped?"