I forgot to add that the bum failed miserably in his efforts to make his contempt of court case to be declared a mistrial. In court Arapaio tossed the bombshell that he had put the wife of the judge in his case under investigation. A clear attempt at making his own trail fail as his logic was to force the judge into a conflict of interest situation and expecting the judge to recuse himself or to declare a mistrial. Or Joe Arpaio was an idiot. Already he had made the previous judge to recuse himself but the courts realized what the game Joe was playing.
This is important IMHO because it shows the kind of people Trump and his staffers are. Trump and Arpaio joined hips during the past election. And yes, to do so Trump willfully ignored what Joe Arpaio was doing already in court. It was all in the open then and the mainstream media on the whole also forgot to inform the American people of who the friends of Trump were and what they were doing.
Okrahoma, I notice you seem to be interpreting Trump’s claims in the most charitable way possible.
Why?
Here’s an important note about that tweet: various Trump supporters did not interpret that in that way. A large number of them jumped to exactly the conclusion Trump was hoping they would jump to: “Obama specifically targeted Trump. He probably did this to get dirt on him”. The statements mildened somewhat after the spin and damage control came in (although I’m sure you can still find some fucking morons who hold to that interpretation).
So why take it at its most charitable interpretation? Why give the guy the benefit of the doubt? When did that become reasonable when talking about Trump? Particularly given that if we do go by the charitable interpretation, what he’s complaining about is either a non-issue or quite damning to the Trump team.
Someone (possibly, from the latest revelations, as highly placed as Brenner) committing a felony in order to damage the President politically is “a non-issue”?
Aside from a desperate desire to see if this thread can be kept going for another couple of weeks, do you have an actual point to make, here?
Trump claimed that president Obama ordered someone (‘cause Trump never says who) to spy on Trump.
That is the topic of this thread.
If Trump was not the target of any surveillance in which his or his cronies’ conversations were captured, then it is clear that Trump was not spied upon due to any orders from Obama. In other words, Trump lied again.
Everything else in your posts is tap dancing to imply evil behavior for which no one–particularly Trump’s minions, and certainly not you–have provided evidence.
It is because sources like World (nut) News Daily, Breitbart and others start their report with “apparently” and it is one of the oldest weasel words the right wing media uses to make a mountain out of a mole hill.
But of course it was pointed out that it is more likely that with that crew the administration has that it is more likely that they did commit a felony** just to cover a dumb lie from Trump**. Of course it is an issue, but not as the Trump followers wish it was.
The emphasis on the supposed “unmasking” issue* serves two purposes:
[ul]
[li]It deflects from the fact that Trump lied about Obama surveilling him–it’s an attempt to make the Other Side the villain, here; and[/li]
[li]It reminds anyone tempted to blow the whistle on anything Trump or his associates do, that It’s A Felony And You Will Rot In Prison If You Do It (in other words, the discussion is intended to intimidate and silence).[/li][/ul]
*Do we have anyone’s word besides that of Devin Nunes that unmasking did actually occur?
So in the course of FBI wiretapping of criminal or espionage investigations, Trump associates were caught on tape dealing with the subjects of the investigations. And the then-President and his advisors found out about this and wanted details of the investigations. And how is this a bad thing?
Just to be clear, “unmasking” is entirely different than “leaking”, right? Rice “unmasked” names in that she wanted to know the names… not that she leaked the names, right?
Yeah, she just asked “who are these foreigners talking about?” There’s nothing abnormal about this but there’ll be someone along shortly to try and make a scandal out of it.
From my reading of this, it’s not the FBI, it’s probably the CIA doing their usual spy stuff on foreign representatives. Those foreigners talked to someone about the Trump campaign, or in some cases talked to Trump campaign people themselves. Susan Rice saw the reports of those conversations, and asked to see the names of the US citizens who took part (names which were redacted).
The question is whether Rice was wanting to know this because she was monitoring for collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians, or whether she was just wanting inside information on the Trump campaign to help out Obama. With only the info we currently have, the Trump people can claim the latter. If she was just wanting inside info on the Trump campaign, that doesn’t exactly match what Trump tweeted, but to my mind it’s pretty close.
If it is true that she was the one that authorized the “unmasking”, that means she lied about it when asked recently about it on PBS Newshour:
Woodruff: "We spoke earlier this evening with former Obama White House National Security Adviser Susan Rice, the author of that piece. It was her first interview since leaving the White House.
I began by asking about the allegations leveled today by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes that Trump transition officials, including the president, may have been swept up in surveillance of foreigners at the end of the Obama administration.
Rice: “I know nothing about this. I was surprised to see reports from Chairman Nunes on that count today.”
