Old And Busted: There Was No Wiretap. New Hotness: Trump Declassified Sensitive Information

RedState ^ | March 5, 2017

[2ndDivisionVet]

This is becoming funnier by the minute. Yesterday morning, Trump’s assertion that he and his campaign had been the subject of a wiretap ordered by the Obama administration was being laughed at. By midday the story was a denial that Obama himself had ordered an wiretap on Trump’s personal phone. By afternoon a consensus had developed that Trump was, in fact, the target, directly or indirectly, of surveillance. This morning on the talk shows the existence of the wiretap is treated as “of course it happened.” And now we’re at the stage where “Trump did a very bad thing by talking about it.” Via ABC News With tweetstorm, Trump may have exercised exclusive declassification authority.

If – through his tweets – Trump revealed secret government information about surveillance, he exercised an exclusive privilege afforded only to the president as the ultimate declassification authority.

If any other government employee had single-handedly made such revelations they could see prison time for potentially damaging U.S. national security, a former official with intimate knowledge of the government secrecy policies told ABC News.

“It’s an extremely serious offense,” ABC News Contributor Matt Olsen, who is the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center and a former FBI counsel, explained.

“Anyone who would reveal the existence of a wiretap would violate federal law,” he said. “It is against federal law to disclose the existence of a wiretap, whether that wiretap is for criminal purposes or intelligence purposes.”

Right now the only people in the world denying that electronic surveillance took place of either Trump, himself, or his campaign are Republicans who hate Trump. And James Clapper. But this is James Clapper we’re talking about.

It is sort of touching to see a news agency that has trafficked in all manner of leaked classified information that would get the leaker a long prison term suddenly concerned about national security. But it is hard to take it very seriously. The real point of this is to try to make Trump’s mention of the wiretap an issue. Up until now the Obama people have had the best of both worlds. They were able to leak about Trump and felt very safe that their own vulnerabilities would remain hidden behind security classification. If Trump wants to know how this movie ends he need look no further than Bush refusing to declassify information about the existence of Iraqi chemical weapons and the fact that US troops had been injured by them while allowing the media and Democrats to continue to falsely claim that there were no chemical weapons in Iraq.

In fact, the only reason this whole Trump-Putin-Russia thing has metastasized is because the evidence and even the allegations are surrounded in secrecy. If Trump wants this to go away he’s eventually going to have to present the intelligence community with an ultimatum: either you make the evidence public, or I do. Because, as the article accurately states, Trump holds the authority to declassify anything that he wishes to declassify.

[cynwoody]

Most people - even Freepers - have no idea about Keyhole or even what it was.

Back in 2001, there was a company named after it, which produced a computer application called Earth Viewer. Google bought them cheap ($35m), and built out their technology into Google Earth, Google Maps, Google Mobile, and Keyhole Markup Language (kml).

Of course, it was named after the KH spy satellites, dating back to 1959. Digital imaging had barely been thought of back then, and telecom sucked even if it had, so they de-orbited shot photographic film and snagged it by its parachute lines as it descended.

[poinq]

No the President does not sigh anything to be president. He takes the one oath that is in the Constitution. All laws have an out for the President. Congress can’t change his rights. But they do change and restrict the rights of all his employees. So, he is surrounded by people who have to live within a labyrinth of laws that are hard to follow and hard to even keep track of.

[sten]

it’s not like he drop 800,000 classified documents in a dead drop...

or outed beyond-top-secret information known to only 10 people on the planet during a national debate...

or told the entire world exactly the size of out nuclear arsenal...

and that’s off the top of my head in 5 seconds. eat it, democrat scumbags. prepare for the investigations.

[Pinkbell]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poz6W0znOfk

[Jim Noble]

OK, so Jake Sullivan and Hillary Clinton published their confessions on Twitter.

Do we even need a trial?

Lock them both up.

[OKSooner]

Erick Erickson is a pr!ck.

I put him right next to Glenn Beck and McMuffin man.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

Hildabeast must have had Trump information on her server.

[Bratch]

President Trump is so far ahead of the curve on this, the media can't even see him.

---

Did Trump Tower “Wire Taps” Exist? Former AG Mulkasey says “Yes”, and Here’s Why….

Posted on March 5, 2017 by sundance

The far-left Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, said this morning there were no wire taps at Trump Tower.   The far-right Director of Non-Intelligence, Mark Levin, outlines all the media reports claiming there were wire taps at Trump Tower.

So were there wire taps, and surveillance at Trump Tower or not?

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey scratches the clay from his cleats, rares back, and hurls an atomic fastball right down the middle.  Saying: Trump was “right” that there was surveillance on Trump Tower for intelligence purposes.  WATCH:

• Former Bush AG Mukasey: Trump ‘Right’ That There Was Surveillance

---

This is the difference between being correct and right. The president was not correct in saying President Obama ordered a tap on a server in Trump Tower. However, 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 through the FISA court.”

---

Here’s what’s going on, that almost everyone seems to be missing.

President Trump cannot publicly disclose anything relating to his first hand knowledge of national security issues, specifically intelligence gathering, without opening himself up to accusations of the mishandling of classified information…. which naturally his opposition would use to: #1) drive a media narrative, #2) demand an investigation of him as a leaker of classified intel, and #3) ultimately lead to pearl-clutching calls for impeachment etc.

President Trump cannot publicly discuss anything related to his knowledge of classified information or intelligence.  His opposition (Dems and Media) know this, and therefore use his inability to discuss these matters as a tool to shape their chosen narratives.

The Alinsky accuser can run to the microphones, but the accused has a constitutional gag order.  See how that works?

Absent of the President’s ability to discuss or defend himself, he enters into the media matrix at a disadvantage.  The media can claim anything, and President Trump cannot provide evidence to refute their claims without compromising his position.   The media knows this. The media use this dynamic to their advantage.

The President cannot publicly discuss anything provided to him from the intelligence community.  However, President Trump CAN publicly discuss, or draw attention to, media reports which contain stories about leaks as derived from classified intelligence leaks.

The President cannot publicly discuss his knowledge of intelligence information; however, the president can publicly use media information to outline a concern.  Ergo:

 

The President is referencing Media Reports which have sold a storyline that claims various intelligence entities during the Obama administration were wire tapping him.

The president protects himself from accusations of revealing classified information by discussing media reports which contain leaks of classified information the president is unable to discuss.

See the play?

 

“Complicated business folks; complicated business”…

This understanding establishes the framework for this following interview.  WATCH:

• WH Spox DESTROYS Host on Obama’s Denial of Wiretap Claim: ‘They Don’t Have the Best Track Record’​

 

(New York Times Link)

 

[varon]

And with every passing hour I'm getting more convinced that he used this knowledge to deliberately pass along disinformation that undermined Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

Brilliant if true...........

[WildHighlander57]

That’s why illary tweeting about it last year, before the election, is also a criminal act.

[Dr.Deth]

New York Slimes. It's either front-page news, or it never happened, depending on what best fits the Daily Truth Bulletin issued by The Party.