March 7, 2017 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:04:31
3611 The Truth About ObamaGate | Donald Trump Wiretapping Scandal
On March 4th, 2016, President Donald Trump published a series of tweets alleging that former President Barack Obama and his administration spied on him during his presidential campaign. President Barack Obama's carefully worded statement to President Trump's accusations have only added fuel to the political fire engulfing the highest office in the United States.“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism! … 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! … 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! … How low has President Obama gone to tap my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”Sources: http://www.fdrurl.com/obamagateFreedomain Radio is 100% funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by signing up for a monthly subscription or making a one time donation at: http://www.freedomainradio.com/donate
Hi everybody, Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio.
Hope you're doing well.
So recently Donald Trump set off a firestorm Of political controversy and rack and ruin and potentially the end of the republic or the media, which seems to be an either-or proposition these days, about wiretapping under the Obama regime.
Now, the reality is the media is being played, as usual, like a fine Stradivarius by Donald Trump.
I hope that you're not being played, but just in case you are or want to convince other people that they are, here are the facts about the wiretapping at Trump Tower.
So President Donald Trump tweeted, terrible, just found out that Obama had my wires tapped in Trump Tower just before the victory.
Nothing found.
This is McCarthyism.
Is it legal for a sitting president to be wiretapping a race for president prior to an election?
Turned down by court earlier.
A new low.
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.
How low has President Obama gone to tap my phones during the very sacred election process?
This is Nixon-Watergate, bad or sick guy.
According to Obama spokesman Keith Lewis, quote, 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.
Well, there was that time where Bill Clinton met Loretta Lynch on a tarmac.
But I guess technically, you see...
Bill Clinton was not part of the Obama administration at the time.
So you see, technically that's, well, you understand.
Former George W. Bush Attorney General Michael Mukasey said, I think he's right in that there was surveillance and that it was conducted at the behest of the Attorney General at the Justice Department.
Former Obama National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes said, No president can order a wiretap.
Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you.
Okay, big picture time.
If there was no wiretapping, then a lot of the information that the media had leaked to it in order to convince the population, the general public, the voting public, and people overseas...
That Trump was a stooge of Putin, that he was an agent for Russia, that they were controlled and influenced by Russia.
A lot of that information came from wiretapping.
So you see, if there was no wiretapping, then all of the information they pushed about Trump being a stooge of the Russians, false.
If there was wiretapping, okay, then we can talk about that other stuff, but then claiming there's no wiretapping is ridiculous.
So you understand, they're kind of in a bind.
This is what I mean.
They're being played by the master.
So instead of taking Ben Rhodes' word regarding the US president's ability to order a wiretap, ooh, I don't know, let's do the massive archaeological search, let's learn ancient Aramaic and Egyptian hand sign language and actually go and read the law.
See, that's apparently tough for people to do.
So there's that important part.
Chapter 36 of Title 50 of the U.S. Code, War and National Defense, Subchapter 1, Section 1802.
Okay, it's a little bit of a lower intestine map of the London subway system on steroids, but this is the law.
1.
Nonwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year if the Attorney General certifies in writing under oath that A. The electronic surveillance is solely directed at I,
the acquisition of the contents of communications transmitted by means of communications used exclusively between or among foreign powers, as defined in section 18a1, 2, or 3 of this title, or I, I, the acquisition of technical intelligence other than the spoken communications of individuals from property or premises under the open and exclusive control of a foreign power, as defined in section...
B. There is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party.
So, regarding the question of has this ever been targeted at American citizens, right?
So this B here says, well, you can't target anything involved with American citizens.
However, if you remember one Edward Snowden, his disclosures have shown us that the NSA and the FISA Court are very willing to make U.S. citizens collateral damage in the process of investigating wrongdoing.
The idea that there's some massive evidence of a Trump-Russian collusion for him to be surveilled is simply false, and we'll get into that as we go forward.
So yes, the president may authorize wiretapping.
James Clapper.
All right.
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper just resigned January 20th, 2017.
He said, I can't speak officially anymore, but I will say that for the part of the national security apparatus that I oversaw as DNI, there was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president-elect at the time, or as a candidate, or against his campaign.
I can't speak for other Title III authorized entities in the government or a state or local entity.
So...
I mean, it's careful.
We'll get into his credibility in a moment, but it's careful stuff.
Okay?
No such wiretap activity mounted against the president-elect at the time.
Now, wiretap activity, generally, it's communications between two or more people.
So if I target Bob, but he talks to Sally...
And the communications between Bob and Sally, does that mean I'm targeting Sally?
No!
I'm targeting Bob.
He just happens to be talking to Sally.
So, what does that mean?
Against.
Or, as a candidate, or against his campaign.
What does that mean?
Individuals within his campaign?
I don't know.
He also said that if a wiretap like that occurred, he would certainly hope that he would be aware of it.
So, hope is not a strategy.
When asked about confirming or denying the existence of a FISA court order, Clapper claimed, I can deny it, and followed up with, not to my knowledge.
While Clapper's statements go against President Trump's allegations, and these were widely disseminated, the media mostly ignored his later claims.
This is important.
Chuck Todd, Let me ask you this.
Does intelligence exist that can definitively answer the following question?
Whether there were improper contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials?
James Clapper.
We did not include evidence in our report.
And I say our, that's NSA, FBI and CIA with my office, the Director of National Intelligence that had anything, that had any reflection of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians.
There was there no evidence, there was there no evidence of that included in our report.
Chuck Todd, I understand that, but does it exist, James Clapper?
Not to my knowledge.
See, this whole Russian story, the Russian excuse the dog from Russia ate my homework, is denied by James Clapper.
Now, of course, they're talking about him not being aware of or hoping that he would be aware of this, I think, linguistically somewhat ill-defined wiretap activity against Trump or his campaign or whatever.
So they're pushing that narrative.
But they're not pushing the narrative or the facts that he's put forward that says, no, there was no improper contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.
See what I mean about being played?
This is the guy.
Oh, well, James Clapper said this, and he's a guy to be trusted, and he's got the facts, and he's got credibility.
Okay.
Then you've got to drop the Russian narrative, you crazy bastards.
Russian narrative.
I mean, it's so mad.
I mean, I'm old enough to remember when The left were more than happy to facilitate spying from the Kremlin all throughout the U.S. government.
I've done a whole presentation on this called The Truth About Joseph McCarthy, Truth About McCarthyism, which you should really, really watch.
But no, they love them, some Russian spying.
But of course, you know, when you blow untold hundreds of millions of dollars on a campaign and you run a very experienced candidate against a newbie and you have the entire support of the Hollywood and the media and the academics and the newspapers and the magazines and the websites and you still lose, well, you've got some explaining to do.
And rather than say, well, I'm sorry, I guess we're just that incompetent, we're going to fire ourselves and go and get jobs, I don't know, at the level to which we should be working at.
In other words, asking if you'd want some fries with that, we're instead going to say...
We're not incompetent!
We didn't blow hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars fielding a failing candidate who coughed her way into political extinction.
No!
It wasn't us.
We're not idiots.
We're not incompetent.
We didn't completely misread the American public.
We're not out of touch!
Russians!
Yeah!
That's it!
Russians did it!
Well, if James Clapper's believable, About whether or not there was water tapping, then he's got to be believable that there's no improper contacts between the Trump campaign and the Russians!
I can't believe I have to spend my days explaining this stuff!
Not to you.
You guys are brilliant.
I just mean to everyone else.
Okay, let's talk about credibility.
In March 2013, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified before a Senate committee under oath serious business regarding the National Security Agency's collection of data.
Oregon Senator Ron Wyden said, Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?
James Clapper said, No, sir!
Hang on, let me just put my fingers crossed, put him behind.
No cooties.
No, sir, he said.
Go to the nose.
Oregon Senator Ron Wyden.
It does not?
James Clapper.
Not wittingly.
There are cases where they could inadvertently perhaps collect, but not wittingly.
No plan, no process for collecting data.
In January 2014, Edward Snowden reported that his breaking point, which led him to becoming a whistleblower in May 2013, was, quote,"...seeing the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, directly lie under oath to Congress." Edward Snowden said,
There's no saving an intelligence community that believes it can lie to the public and the legislators who need to be able to trust it and regulate its actions.
Seeing that really meant for me that there was no going back.
Beyond that, it was the creeping realization that no one else was going to do this.
The public had a right to know about these programs.
James Clapper, June 21st, 2013.
He said, My response was clearly erroneous, for which I apologize.
While my staff acknowledged the error to Senator Wyden's staff, soon after the hearing I can now openly correct it because the existence of the metadata collection program has been declassified.
Ha!
Jimmy James, why was it declassified?
Because of Snowden.
Because you lied under oath to Congress about massive collections of data on countless Americans.
And this is the thing, right?
So, oh, we got upset about Jeff Sessions and what he said to Congress because he had not included a public flyby with some Russian diplomat or bumping into a Russian diplomat at a party.
It does not make him a Russian spy.
Otherwise, everyone who goes to a strip club actually has a girlfriend.
But this is important and serious stuff about lying to Congress.
This guy was never charged for lying under oath.
Never.
I assume he's on the left.
You can do anything!
It's a get-out-of-jail-free card that never seems to expire.
Wait, no, actually...
It might be expiring right about now.
So, facts and evidence.
So, former Obama speechwriter and reformed worm tongue John Favreau said, I'd be careful about reporting that Obama said there was no wiretapping.
Statement just said that neither he nor the White House were Ordered it.
It's an important distinction.
I didn't order it doesn't mean it didn't happen.
Hey, you know what I didn't order?
I didn't order the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Anyway, I'll let you cogitate on that one.
Well, at least there's no proof I did.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said, President Trump is requesting that as part of their investigation into Russian activity, the congressional intelligence committees exercise their oversight authority to determine whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016.
Neither the White House nor the president will comment further until such oversight is conducted.
Influential members of Congress have communicated that they will follow up on President Trump's request to investigate the Obama administration's possible surveillance overreach.
I love the language that some of you...
It's just an overreach, guys.
You know, like a bank robbery is just an over-withdrawal.
A python.
It's just a tiny overhug.
It has also been reported that President Donald Trump's chief counsel, Donald F. McGahn, that would be the second, is in the process of securing access to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court authorization to perform surveillance on Trump and his campaign associates.
The paperwork may be coming.
It may go missing, as a lot of this paperwork does seem to do relatively quickly after this stuff comes up.
But if there's paperwork, it will come out, and we'll see.
We'll see what comes up.
Despite their own coverage supporting the nature of this scandal, the mainstream media is playing word games to discredit the controversy and distance themselves from their prior reporting.
This is a crazy thing.
This is the kind of free-flowing, balloon-headed, 1984-style, a little bit too much living in the now that's happening, right?
People saying, oh, there's no evidence of any kind of wiretapping.
Unless you read the left-wing media over the past couple of months.
In which case, oh, yes, there is, in fact, quite a lot.
On October 31st, 2016, the New York Times published a story titled Investigating Donald Trump.
FBI sees no clear link to Russia.
The New York Times said, FBI officials spent weeks examining computer data showing an odd stream of activity to a Trump organization server and Alphabank.
It just sounds like a superhero villain.
I am Alphabank.
My money is manly.
They said, computer logs obtained by the New York Times.
Again, I'll stop the New York Times right there.
I'm just going to stop you right there.
Computer logs obtained by the New York Times?
Crazy!
This is a confidential investigation.
Look, when the government looks into what you do, I'm not saying I know this from personal experience.
When the government looks into what you do, they don't tell anyone.
And you're not supposed to know when they're doing an investigation.
A, they don't want to tip you off.
And B, if they find nothing, they don't want to besmirch your reputation.
That's probably not most of it, but it's an important consideration.
So when they're doing an investigation, no one's supposed to know.
So if you're leaking information about the investigation to the New York Times, you're breaking the law.
Huh.
Breaking the law.
Wiretapping a presidential candidate in the height of a heated election cycle.
I think that might be breaking the law.
So you're breaking the law by leaking...
I don't know.
I can't put these things together.
It's too tough for my brain.
Crazy.
So, computer logs obtained by the New York Times show that two servers at Alphabank sent more than 2,700 lookup messages, a first step for one system's computers to talk to another, to a Trump-connected server beginning in the spring.
Interesting.
Interesting.
I got a couple of questions.
If you know the answers, leave them in the comments below.
But I got a couple of questions.
How the hell does the FBI know that there were 2,700 lookup messages?
I'm just going to call them pings because that's kind of what I think they are.
It's just a little ping to probe to see if you've got a firewall, to see if your computer is accessible.
It happens all the time.
You know, just if you're ever really bored, you can sit on your router and just watch the internet, right?
Open up a port, watch the internet, just go, bing, bing, bing.
Are you there?
Can I steal stuff?
Are you there?
Can I steal stuff?
That's why we have security and firewalls and air gaps, right?
I mean, this is what it's all for.
So, how the hell does the FBI know...
That there's a server or a computer in Trump Tower that's receiving 2700 pings from some computers in Russia.
How would they know?
How would they even know to start investigating?
See, you're supposed to have suspicion and then you're supposed to start the electronic surveillance if you get the warrant or if you get the visa authorization if it's overseas.
How would they know ahead of time, prior to getting the authorization to do the electronic surveillance, how would they know?
Is there anything these people can't see?
Can you check my colon, please?
Would you mind just send a scope up there?
there I'm 50 it's time and these probes are happening all the time It could be anything.
It could be, obviously, it's spam.
It could be, would you like a Russian bride or two shipped to you in duct tape or a carpet roll?
It could be, hi, I'm available for webcam chats.
I mean, it could be any number of things.
It could be that it's been hijacked.
It could be malware on this platform.
A server that's probing and trying to do all of this kind of stuff.
So because there were 2,700 pings, which I didn't even know how they found out about it, the 2,700 pings from two computers in Russia to a computer in Trump Tower.
Ah!
Clearly that means that Trump is a Russian spy controlled by Putin.
Are you kidding me?
It's not a relationship.
They never said this computer answered back.
They just bing, bing, bing, bing.
You're a Russian spy!
What?
Are you kidding me?
They never responded.
It's a one-way relationship.
Stalkers aren't married to the victims.
Oh, my God.
It's mad.
And this is why we have to escalate to World War III. Ah.
So the New York Times went on to say, but the FBI ultimately concluded that there could be an innocuous explanation, like a marketing email or spam for the computer contacts.
Turns out, being pinged from Russia doesn't mean that you're completely owned and controlled by Russia.
Isn't that interesting?
On November 7th, 2016, Luis Mench of Heat Street...
Took a break from publishing about her past mental instability and published an article titled FBI Granted FISA Warrant Covering Trump Camp's Ties to Russia.
Ah!
November 7th, 2016.
November rings a bell.
It'll come to me.
So...
Granted a FISA warrant covering Trump's camp's ties to Russia.
Heat Street said, Two separate sources with links to the counterintelligence community have confirmed to Heat Street that the FBI sought and was granted a FISA court warrant in October, giving counterintelligence permission to examine the activities of U.S. persons in Donald Trump's campaign with ties to Russia.
U.S. persons!
I think Trump would qualify.
Ted Cruz?
Eh, not so much.
But Donald Trump?
Absolutely.
So, saying there's no evidence of wiretapping?
Bring it up with the New York Times.
Bring it up with Heat Street.
Of course there's evidence of wiretapping.
Heat Street went on to say, contrary to earlier reporting in the New York Times, which cited FBI sources as saying that the agency did not believe that the private server in Donald Trump's Trump Tower, which was connected to a Russian bank, had any nefarious purpose.
The FBI's counterintelligence armed sources say redrew an earlier FISA court request around the possible financial and banking offenses related to the server.
See, now you see, not only are you a Russian spy if a Russian computer pings your computer and Trump wouldn't need me aware of this or anything like that, right?
But also, you see, if a Russian bank pings your computer...
You're breaking banking laws, and then we're going to investigate you.
Madness.
Madness.
Heat Street went on to say the first request, which, sources say, named Trump, was denied back in June, but the second was drawn more narrowly and was granted in October after evidence was presented of a server possibly related to the Trump campaign and its alleged links to two banks, SVB Bank and Russia's Alpha Bank.
Um, it's not a link.
If I knock on your door, we don't have a relationship.
Otherwise, I guess I'd be a Mormon by now.
And remember, with FISA 2013, that over 33 years, the FISA court granted almost 34,000 warrants with only 12 denials.
So how bad was your FISA request if you were in this denial, right?
And why would you submit a FISA request that was so specific that named Trump Trump?
In order to have it denied, it's because you want to get a hold of Trump's communications.
How on earth do you get from a server in the basement being pinged randomly by some computer in Russia to, we've got to electronically monitor everything that Trump does?
Ah, politics.
I mean, it's a witch hunt.
You get this, right?
I mean, I said this before.
Hopefully you won't have to say it again.
Just imagine if the story in October of 2007 was that Dick Cheney was monitoring Barack Obama's cause.
People would go insane.
Mad.
Heat Street went on to say, While the Times story speaks of metadata, sources suggest that a FISA warrant was granted to look at the full content of emails and other related documents that may concern U.S. persons.
U.S. persons!
Donald Trump, he be a U.S. person.
Heath Street said, The FISA warrant was granted in connection with the investigation of suspected activity between the server and two banks, SVB Bank and Alpha Bank.
However, it is thought in the intelligence community that the warrant covers any U.S. person connected to this investigation and thus covers Donald Trump and at least three further men who have either formed part of his campaign or acted as his media surrogates.
Roger Stone, I would assume, Manafort and so on, right?
About the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Pursuant to FISA, the court entertains applications submitted by the United States government for approval of electronic surveillance, physical search, and other investigative actions for foreign intelligence purposes.
Most of the court's work is conducted ex parte, as requested by statute, and due to the need to protect classified national security information.
On January 11th, 2017, The Guardian published a story titled, John McCain passes dossier alleging secret Trump-Russia contacts to FBI. First of all, John McCain, you're kind of supposed to be on the same team, you unbelievable douchebag.
The Guardian said, The Guardian has learned that the FBI applied for a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Visa Court over the summer in order to monitor four members of the Trump team suspected of irregular contacts with Russian officials.
So don't tell me!
There's no evidence of wiretapping, because it's all over the media.
You just haven't read it or been told about it by the media that's frantically covering its tracks.
You know, like one of those low-caste Indians who have to sweep the floor as he walks out the room.
Backwards.
Madness.
What is an irregular contact?
I don't know.
Is that a contact that can't take a crap in the morning?
What is that?
I don't even know what that means.
Guardian said the FISA court turned down the application, asking FBI counterintelligence investigators to narrow its focus.
According to one report, the FBI was finally granted a warrant in October, but that has not been confirmed.
And it is not clear whether any warrant led to a full investigation.
On January 12, 2017, the New York Times published a story titled, NSA Gets More Latitude to Share Intercepted Communications.
Now, just before we go on with this, I just want to mention something.
Hey, FBI, you're probably listening to this anyway.
Maybe even while I'm recording it.
Hi.
You seem to be spending a lot of time investigating pings from Russian servers to a server in New York City.
I don't know if you've looked at the world lately, picked up the newspaper, a couple of other things you might want to be spending your time on.
Feel like vetting some refugees?
Oh, that's a possibility.
What do you think?
Feel like, I don't know, investigating things around the world that seem to be going to hell in a handbasket?
Just a possibility.
You seem to have a lot of time to look at logs and try and figure out why one computer in one country might be pinging a computer in another country that doesn't appear to be responding.
You seem to have a lot of time on your hands.
Might I invite you...
To deal with more pressing matters, unless you've been doing stuff that's kind of not good.
In which case, having Donald Trump come into power is probably going to switch a light on in this dark chamber of potential not-goodness.
So this might be why you're trying to find dirt on the guy, if that is indeed what's happening.
We'll find out over time.
Oh, and it'll be a long time, too.
It's a congressional investigation that's going to be terminally like slow robot in deep jello, slow walked by the Democrats.
So it's going to take time.
The New York Times, this is January 12th, 2017, said, In its 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 protection.
So what this means is...
It's going to get leaked because when it goes out, you know, if you only hand stuff to one other person and it gets leaked and it's not you who leaked it, you know who it is, right?
If it's going out to 16 alphabet soup agencies full of loathsome spotty behind career bureaucrats all trying to get a hand job from the reporters, the prostitutes, well, it's going to be pretty hard, if not downright impossible to figure out who leaked it.
So it's a great way to ensure that you continue to get inside information scooped up Through what I consider the highly unethical NSA practice, you can continue to get all the information from the Trump administration dumped out to the mainstream media.
It's a beautiful thing.
You don't want that when you're in office.
But just as you're leaving, let's find a way to get all of these tumbleweeds of information come rolling down the hillside into the waking, gawping shark mouths of the mainstream media so that they can chew up and spit out any potential remaining freedoms.
So, there's that.
The New York Times says the new rules significantly relax.
Relax.
Relax.
Chill out.
Significantly relax.
Longstanding limits on what the NSA may do with the information gathered by its most powerful surveillance operations, which are largely unregulated by American wiretapping laws.
I just love this.
Yeah, largely giant, massive data-gathering operations on everything with a pulse that's even remotely carbon-based, that's even walked by a computer.
Yeah, it's largely unregulated by American wiretapping laws.
That is very true.
You know, in the same way that the sun is largely unregulated, when I point my head at it and go...
Yeah, it doesn't really seem to do much.
The New York Times says, These include collecting satellite transmissions, phone calls, and emails that cross network switches abroad, and messages between people abroad that cross domestic network switches.
Okay, fine.
Just say everyone.
Just say everyone.
American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Patrick Toomey said, Rather than dramatically expanding government access to so much personal data, we need much stronger rules to protect the privacy of Americans.
17 different government agencies shouldn't be routing through Americans' emails with family members, friends and colleagues, all without ever obtaining a warrant.
Absolutely!
I'd like for them not to do that.
I'd also like a flying pony, but I'm not holding my breath.
The only way this is going to stop, Mr.
Toomey, is when people who've broken the law are dragged ass backwards through the blunt cheese grater of the American legal system until they are quivering wrecks of former corruption.
And we'll see how that's going to happen.
What?
Bodies shall be found when the swamp is draineth.
We shall see.
I hope we shall see.
On January the 19th, 2017, the New York Times published a story titled Wiretapped Data Used in Inquiry of Trump Aids in their print edition.
Print edition, a little bit more difficult, you know, without Winston Smith to recall and change.
So that's the print edition.
Wiretapped data used in inquiry of Trump Aids.
So why people would think there was any wiretapping involved when the New York Times, just two months ago, I said wiretap data used in inquiry of Trump aides.
The title of the story was then changed.
Changed to Intercepted Russian Communications, Part of Inquiry into Trump Associates.
That's for the online edition.
A little bit more malleable.
A little bit more flexible.
So...
See, wiretap data used in inquiry of Trump aides.
It sounds bad.
It sounds like, wow, they're being investigated.
So wiretap is really good at making Trump looking bad in January.
Ah, but you see, when Trump is saying, I don't like being wiretapped, then you have to cover up that there was a wiretap, so now you can make Trump look bad for accurately quoting a headline you had quite recently.
You see how this works?
If you do, be afraid.
Be very afraid.
Ah, it's madness.
You dog!
I hear you like wiretapping, so I gave you some wiretapping in your wiretapping.
Shouldn't laugh.
New York Times also said, The FBI is leading the investigations aided by the National Security Agency, the CIA, and the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Unit.
The investigators have accelerated their efforts in recent weeks, but have found no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing, the official said.
One official said intelligence reports based on some of the wiretapped communications have been provided to the White House.
Huh.
The White House.
Let's just let's back hold the phone back up the truck a little bit here because um they found no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing what does that mean what does that mean i open up a fridge the fridge is empty my wife says is there anything in the fridge i say i have no conclusive evidence of emptiness i mean come on see if they say found no evidence of wrongdoing well Then it should have ended, right?
If you're doing an investigation, you don't find anything bad, the key thing is to stop your investigation.
Otherwise, you're phishing, and that's wrong.
So, found no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing.
What does that mean?
If it's somewhat evidence of wrongdoing, I don't know.
You got pinged by a Russian server.
And if you're not finding anything wrong, do you really just get to accelerate your efforts?
Do you really?
Isn't that called a phishing expedition?
Well, we haven't found anything wrong, but, you know, we're just going to start casting the net wider and looking deeper until we find something!
It's political.
It's political.
One official said intelligence reports based on some of the wiretap communications have been provided to the White House.
Now, why would the White House be interested In a couple of pings from one server to another, in some potential, what are they thinking, banking crimes?
Why on earth would the White House care about this?
Why would information being gleaned from a political opponent be furnished to the White House?
Why?
Would the White House ask for this?
Would it be provided without being asked for?
Why?
Do they regularly get updates at the White House on fairly minor, nothing was found, investigations into server communications between two computers?
Is that what Barack Obama is up to?
Oh, were there any other tiny little investigations that didn't go anywhere?
Can you provide me all of that information too?
because I don't like to golf.
Oh my God.
This politics in America until recently is like Lady Macbeth's hands.
They shall never be clean.
New York Times said in 2002, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court secretly began permitting the NSA, the FBI, and the CIA to share raw intercepts gathered domestically under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Good.
So, that's important.
After Congress enacted the FISA Amendments Act, which legalized warrantless surveillance on domestic soil, so long as the target is a foreigner abroad, even when the target is communicating with an American, the court permitted raw sharing of emails acquired under that program, too.
So much needs to be fixed in the West.
So much needs to be fixed.
If the founding fathers, if Thomas Paine, if John Locke were to come back to life and see what a vicious, ugly mess has been made of the tight, lean and clean political system they envisioned and developed and, in the case of the founding fathers, enacted, they'd say, what have you people been doing?
Aren't you supposed to push back against this stuff just a little bit?
Government spreads.
Government expands.
Government extends.
Until you stop it.
You understand?
It's an inexorable process.
Until you stop it.
Now's the time.
We push back.
Verbally, peacefully, rationally, with evidence, but with conviction.
Also, How clean is Donald Trump?
I just wanted to say that.
You got the FBI, the CIA, a FISA, a national security agent.
You got them all over, all up in your business.
What have they got?
What have they got?
He's so clean.
I mean, it's amazing.
I think you might have chosen the right guy.
On February 14th, 2017, the New York Times published a story titled, Trump campaign aides had repeated contacts with Russian intelligence.
New York Times, phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.
Okay.
Oh, my God.
intelligence community.
Shut up!
For God's sakes, you have one job.
You know what it is?
Lock it up, throw away the key.
Shut up!
You sign all these agreements.
It's breaking the law to reveal all this confidential information to the press.
Shut up!
It's this so hard.
You have one job, which is to not open your mouth.
Ah...
That's your job, you understand?
And the reason why it's kind of important is if you keep breaking the law in this way, if you keep leaking all this confidential stuff, Then the fact that you operate in the shadows and seem to be perfectly willing to break the code of silence, the omurta that is actually legally enforceable, that is the entire reason for you having a job, people aren't going to trust you as far as they can throw you.
And given how big some of you people are, it's not very far.
So, I just don't...
Sure, yeah, I've got a code of silence.
And it goes something like this.
Sing away.
Sing away.
New York Times said, American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee.
Three of the officials said...
We'll get back to that in a sec.
The officials said, New York Times again, the officials said the intercepted communications were not limited to Trump campaign officials and included other associates of Mr.
Trump.
New York Times, the officials said that one of the advisors picked up on the calls was Paul Manafort, who was Mr.
Trump's campaign chairman for several months last year and had worked as a political consultant in Ukraine.
The officials declined to identify the other Trump associates on the calls.
Yeah, really great time to finally shut up, guys.
Good time to finally close your lips.
Oh, you see, they may have had contact when they were working with people who may have had some associations with Russia.
Hillary Clinton took 25 million dollars from the Saudi Arabian people heads.
Saudi Arabia, 25 million dollars into Hillary.
Saudi Arabia, funny story, well not really, recently in Saudi Arabia Fifteen-year-old boy was found listening to Western music.
They dragged his ass out into a public square and beheaded him.
So, I've got to tell you, I'm a little bit more nervous of the sounds than I am of the Russians.
So, if you want to talk about foreign influences on an election, let's start there, shall we?
But apparently not.
And this is like a parallel quasi-legal system, right?
Because they can do an investigation based on very little.
And then they can leak it to the press who can then pump it up as if there's something really nasty going on.
You don't get to defend yourself.
You don't get to confront your accusers.
There's no law system, no court system, no lawyers, no evidence, nothing!
Nothing!
It's a shadowy, star chamber, kangaroo court of innuendo and falsehoods and misdirections and law-breaking.
It's vicious and it's savage.
And if you're jeering at it because it's hitting your enemy, just wait, my friend.
Could be you one day.
It could be someone you love.
Where leaks start happening.
Innuendos start spreading.
You can't respond.
You don't know what's happening.
You don't have access to the information.
Nobody can verify anything.
But there's this giant skydump of innuendo down on your head.
Like an incontinent elephant squatting over a trapped mouse.
Welcome to your weekend.
This is not how the law is supposed to work.
Well, In a free society.
New York Times said, The call logs and intercepted communications are part of a larger trove of information that the FBI is sifting through as it investigates the links between Mr.
Trump's associates and the Russian government.
A larger trove of information.
So where would they get this information?
They're sifting through it.
Not talking about interviews.
Maybe they are interviews.
But it sure sounds like a lot of wiretapping to me.
It sure sounds like a lot of surveillance to me.
New York Times says the intercepted calls are different from the wiretapped conversations last year between Michael T. Flynn, Mr.
Trump's former national security advisor, and Sergei Kislyak, Russia's ambassador to the United States.
But the cases are part of American intelligence and law enforcement agencies' routine electronic surveillance of the communications of foreign officials.
See?
See?
Now, what they're saying is these wiretapped conversations...
With Trump's associates, these wiretapped conversations are kind of different than the wiretapped conversations that occurred before regarding Flynn.
So it's important to differentiate these wiretapped conversations from these wiretapped conversations.
But don't worry, there's no wiretapped conversations.
Oh, good job, public schools, for having people swallow this sideways swordfish of nonsense.
On March 5, 2017, the New York Times published a story titled, Comey asks Justice Department to reject Trump's wiretapping claim.
New York Times said the FBI Director James B. Comey asked the Justice Department this weekend to publicly reject President Trump's assertion that President Barack Obama ordered the tapping of Mr.
Trump's phones, senior American officials said on Sunday.
Mr.
Comey has argued that the highly charged claim is false and must be corrected, they said.
But the department has not released any such statement.
So, yeah.
It may be, and I would imagine is the case, that either Barack Obama, when he was president, did not order this wiretapping, or there's no way to verify that he did or didn't.
He's not dumb, right?
I mean, he's a lawyer.
I guess he was.
And...
It's not implausible deniability, right?
Again, I'm not, you know, I don't think he ordered it myself.
I don't think that's how politics work.
I don't think that you order something.
It's a silly example.
When my daughter wants something sweet, she doesn't say, I want something sweet.
She says, oh, I really, really feel like something sweet.
You know?
Oh, it'd be great if I could just get a hold of a little bit of that communication.
I wonder what's in that communication.
It would be interesting to have a look at it.
I mean, I shouldn't, because, you know, but it would be interesting to get some information.
Come on.
You know how politics works.
It's in that way a lot of life works.
But, again, no proof of any of that, and that is important to remember.
But...
The point is, did he know about it, right?
He knew about the wiretapping of Angela Merkel and then allowed that to continue, right?
This was some years back.
So did he know about it?
And did he use any intelligence that was gleaned from these investigations?
Did he get a hold of any information that was gleaned from these investigations?
In which case...
Oh, my God.
The Democrats, I can't even tell you just how ridiculously incompetent they are.
Trump is very competent, don't get me wrong.
But, I mean, if it turns out that they got...
Politically relevant information from these wiretaps and they still lost?
Dude, please go do something else.
Go be a bicycle repairman or something.
On March 1st, 2017, the New York Times published a story titled, Obama Administration Rushed to Preserve Intelligence of Russian Election Hacking.
In the Obama administration's last days, some White House officials scrambled to spread information about Russian efforts to undermine the presidential election.
And about possible contacts between associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump and Russians across the government.
Former American officials say they had two aims.
To ensure that such meddling isn't duplicated in future American or European elections.
And to leave a clear trail of intelligence for government investigators.
At intelligence agencies, the New York Times continues, there was a push to process as much raw intelligence as possible into analysis.
And to keep the reports at a relatively low classification level to ensure as wide a readership as possible across the government and in some cases among European allies.
You traitorous bastards.
I'm telling you.
You've got information that you're getting from wiretapping, right?
I mean, if it's raw data, that's not an interview, I would assume, because an interview clarified during the...
This is raw data you're getting electronically.
This is wiretapping.
Come on.
We all know that, right?
We all understand that.
And you're spreading this among European allies to discredit and delegitimize the incoming president?
Oh my god.
I can't even tell you how appalling that is.
How astonishing that is.
They said they found no evidence of improper contact.
Ooh, but let's spread it around.
On the idea that America is really, really into respecting the electoral process of other countries.
Yeah, that's right.
How's Iran doing these days?
How's South American countries?
A lot of South American countries doing these days.
Ooh, how's Syria?
How's Libya doing these days?
They went on to say the nature of the contacts between Trump associates and Russian officials remains unknown.
Several of Mr. Trump's associates have done business in Russia, and it is unclear if any of the contacts were related to business dealings.
So this Russian narrative was being put in place.
So that, I guess, should Trump, well, because Trump had won, they wanted to undermine his legitimacy, right?
By, not my president, right?
The Russians hacked it, it was all corrupt, blah, blah, blah, right?
Because apparently that's going high, you know?
Democrats speak.
Leftists speak.
Whatever they accuse you of, they're actually planning, A. And B, whatever they tell you they're going to do, they're going to do the opposite.
This is not going high in any way, shape, or form.
And this, well, you know, we got hacked.
Hacked by Russia.
Russia hacked the DNC and then handed the info over to WikiLeaks.
Well, Julian Assange...
Who I think is kind of in a position to know these things, said that it was an inside job.
It was a whistleblower.
Maybe it was that guy who got shot in Washington.
I don't know if we'll ever know that.
So Assange says, no, it was not Russia hacking anyone.
It was an insider who leaked all of this stuff.
What did this do?
But let's say Russia did somehow hack the DNC and hand over the emails that they found or the information they found to WikiLeaks.
Oh no!
Facts!
Truth!
This is what's actually happening in the Democrat mind and in the Democrat camp.
How is that hacking the election?
I've turned the light on!
Wait, you've made my house ugly!
No, all I did was turn the light on.
So even if everything...
That the Democrats' claim is true is true, which it's not.
But even if it was, it's not hacking the election.
It's turning the light on so that you can see the Democrats for who and what they are.
So, brief summary here.
The New York Times and other media agencies are saying that the Obama administration did not tap Trump's phones, that Obama did not order this tapping of the phones, and that that way the whole story is false.
Now, I don't know.
You don't know.
We don't know the full story of what happened, which is why Trump called for an investigation.
You know, there's all these semantic, sophist word games that are going on, like I've just finished the first draft of my book, The Art of the Argument, which is the greatest thing I've ever written, but it's so much fun to write.
But it's all these semantic word games.
Oh, Obama didn't technically order it.
It doesn't necessarily involve Trump's phones and so on, but that's not addressing the actual story.
The real story is that under the Obama administration, several levels of questionable surveillance techniques were used against political opponents and his associates.
That is sinister stuff.
You're not supposed to have that kind of advantage just for being in office.
It's supposed to be a free and fair election.
And then Obama made it easier for the NSA to share raw data, disregarding privacy concerns.
And then rush to disseminate all of this highly speculative anti-Trump theories across multiple security agencies.
And again, you pour the water into the sieve, you can't be that shocked when some of it comes out the bottom.
This is...
It's a deep state battle against Trump.
And it's aided by Barack Obama's decisions and actions, the actions that were taken under his administration.
If I had to guess...
I don't have any proof, but if I had to guess, I would say that these security agencies have been up to some pretty bad stuff.
And they don't want it to come out.
So they're working to discredit, to try and dismember the Trump administration to possibly get him impeached or removed from power so that they can get somebody in who's more controllable, who's more malleable.
This is a hydra, 16 or 17 heads, all circling one orange knight.
And it's important to remember and recognize that.
I mean, come on, the media in particular doesn't want this stuff coming out.
Media might actually have to get back to doing real jobs if they just can't get a bunch of leaks from the government and publish it as if they're doing reporting.
I'll wait by the phone until some shadowy, tinny voice gives me information and then I'll type it up so that I don't have to go out of my office.
I mean, in Trump's first month in office, 88% of the stories written about him were negative.
Something good is happening, you understand?
I love what Winston Churchill said.
He said, you have enemies.
Good!
That means you have stood up for something, somewhere, sometime.
Nobody opposes people who aren't there.
So, is this unprecedented?
Has there been any evidence of past surveillance under Barack Obama?
Yeah, just a little.
In 2008, the United States intercepted communications between UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and German Chancellor Angela Merkel related to a climate change strategy meeting in Berlin.
The National Security Agency targeted the Swiss phone of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Chief of Staff for long-term surveillance.
The World Trade Organization Rules Division Director Johann Heumann also had his Swiss phone targeted for long-term surveillance.
The United States intercepted Italian diplomatic cables concerning Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, imploring Italy Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to assist in patching up his relationship with U.S. President Barack Obama.
Communications from top European Union and Japanese trade ministers were intercepted, uncovering their strategy and red lines to stop the United States from extorting them at the World Trade Organization Doha Talks.
The talks later collapsed.
Italy's NATO ambassador and several additional top Italian officers were targeted for long-term surveillance.
Five top European Union economic officials were targeted for long-term surveillance involving their French, Austrian, and Belgian phone numbers.
Communications describing a crucial meeting between then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Italy Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, where they discussed the impending collapse of the Italian banking system, also where to get attractive underage girls.
Sorry, that was just the Italian guy who was convicted of that, and then the conviction was later withdrawn.
The Obama Department of Justice...
Still...
Still sounds weird, doesn't it?
The Obama Department of Justice investigated Fox News reporter James Rosen and his family related to government officials leaking information to journalists.
You see, when government officials leak information to Fox News, really, really bad.
But when they leak it to the New York Times, double plus good.
While Rosen was ultimately not charged with the crime, his movements and actions...
Retract.
In 2013, several members of the Associated Press were also targeted for long-term surveillance.
The New Yorker said, Ah, the bubble.
All the people scooped up from their little towns and put into the Ivy Leagues and sent off to the biosphere of corruption and wealth known as Washington, D.C. It really bothers them when a reporter gets targeted for surveillance.
See, that's really bad.
Unacceptable.
Dismember the Middle East.
Drop 100,000 bombs over the course of your presidency.
Be the first U.S. president to be at war every single day of his presidency.
But see, that's okay.
Destroy Libya.
Unleash the migrant tide to take down Western civilization.
That's fine, but for God's sakes, he might have been tapping our phones.
He might have learned my Candy Crush score.
It's lower than I want.
I'm not sure how much I have in common with some of my fellow bipeds.
In October 2013, it was reported that President Barack Obama was told about the National Security Agency wiretap and surveillance of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone in 2010, which actually had gone on since the early 2000s.
He had allowed it to continue, as I mentioned.
In 2014, investigative journalist Cheryl Atkinson was hacked during her detailed coverage of the Benghazi incident.
Spyware proprietary to a government agency was later found on Atkinson's computer, which apparently was feverishly pinging Trump Tower.
No, it wasn't.
I'm just kidding.
According to WikiLeaks from January 26, 2015, quote, Investigations editor Sarah Harrison, section editor Joseph Farrell and senior journalist and spokesperson Kristen Grafsen have received notice that Google had handed over all their emails and metadata to the United States government on the back of alleged conspiracy and espionage warrants carrying up to 45 years in prison.
Because most of the American public, most of the Western public, most of the world, in fact, is not trained in logic, is not trained in critical thinking, all of this stuff seems to make sense.
Well, we know that Trump and his associates have improper ties to Russia because that's what the wiretaps tell us.
Trump says, I've been wiretapped.
No, you haven't!
You understand, it makes no sense.
Even though the wiretaps themselves show that there's no...
Improper contact between Trump and his associates and various Russian officials.
We must be concerned just a little tiny bit with privacy concerns here.
Just a little bit.
Being found guilty in the smear court of public opinion is becoming an all-too-common tactic of targeting enemies of the powers that be.
This is horrible.
This is terrible.
This is not only...
Anti-democratic.
It's just fundamentally wrong.
And we should reject this whole smear campaign that goes on repeatedly where people just get, ooh, let me see if I can vaguely staple negative words to you and then you walk around and everyone thinks you're a bad person.
You kind of respond or reply?
Right.
Oh, it's crazy.
It's crazy.
This is giving awesome power to the state to target its enemies.
With ill-defined shadowy laws and standards and God knows what.
Where did they find out about the 2700 pings from the Russian computer in the first place?
How do they even know prior to an investigation?
What information do they have on everyone?
On you, on me, on everyone.
Is this the kind of world that we want to live in?
Big Brother constantly up in your tubes, constantly up in your pipes, looking at everything that you're doing.
First of all, it won't catch any of the bad guys.
I mean, they encrypt.
I mean, whatever.
I don't know what they do, but there's tons of ways.
Some deep web, I don't know, whatever.
They go someplace.
So it's not for that.
It's for gathering information on people who don't think they're doing anything wrong, who aren't trying to do anything wrong.
But it's looking for deviations.
Like anyone who's going to challenge the powers that be, bring facts to the masses, is going to be a non-standard issue human being anyway.
Dig something up and find something that's off the charts, that's off the map.
We're going to make something up.
Russia!
Russian agent!
Russian contacts!
Russia!
You have to stop absorbing this information.
This constant grabbing you by the lapels and breathing whiskey-laced cigarette breath in your face.
It's the Russians!
Shut up.
It's not the Russians.
It's not the Russians.
Democrats, the Russians did not steal this election from you.
Telling people that the election was stolen and hacked and that Donald Trump is not their president, he's an illegitimate president, is third world bullshit.
It's banana republic bullshit.
It's incredibly dangerous.
Because it's going to convince millions and millions and millions of Americans that the government is illegitimate.
And what that means is they'll feel no compulsion to obey even legitimate laws.
Incredibly dangerous.
This is how countries fracture and split apart.
Maybe that's what they want.
Maybe that's what they want.
But let me close with this.
In a weird way, it is very true that Russia hacked the American elections.
It's just not live, current, nationalistic Russians.
It's the dead globalist communist ideology that leapt over the ocean and infested academia and the mainstream media and Hollywood and other places Starting in the post-war period in 1950s and onwards, it infested and programmed and turned the American youth against America.
Those American youth have now grown up and occupy positions of power and influence within America, and they have drifted to the left, to globalism, which is communism rebranded, just as communism is Satanism rebranded.
And This influence has outlasted and outlived even Russia, the communist dictatorship itself.
Russia fell decades ago.
The ghosts of Soviet totalitarian collectivism still stalk the halls and the mines of the soulless cavities where people's humanity used to live all throughout the world.
So it is kind of true that Russia hacked the election.
It just did it in a very subtle way.
A very long time ago.
And the zombies of socialism, of communism, of dictatorship, have outlived the body that first gave them life.
