Posted on 03/07/2017 1:13:21 PM PST by drewh
President Donald Trump is "absolutely right" to claim he was wiretapped and monitored, a former NSA official claimed Monday, adding that the administration risks falling victim to further leaks if it continues to run afoul of the intelligence community.
"I think the president is absolutely right. His phone calls, everything he did electronically, was being monitored," Bill Binney, a 36-year veteran of the National Security Agency who resigned in protest from the organization in 2001, told Fox Business on Monday. Everyone's conversations are being monitored and stored, Binney said.
Trump's Base Is Standing Firm
Binney resigned from NSA shortly after the U.S. approach to intelligence changed following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He "became a whistleblower after discovering that elements of a data-monitoring program he had helped develop -- nicknamed ThinThread -- were being used to spy on Americans," PBS reported.
On Monday he came to the defense of the president, whose allegations on social media over the weekend that outgoing President Barack Obama tapped his phones during the 2016 campaign have rankled Washington.
"How low has President Obama gone to tap my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!" Trump tweeted.
"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!," he continued.
Binney seemed to go further than the assessment of former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, a George W. Bush administration official, who offered a tacit defense of Trump to ABC on Sunday.
"This is the difference between being correct and right," Mukasey said. "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."
But Binney told Sean Hannity's radio show earlier Monday, "I think the FISA court's basically totally irrelevant."
The judges on the FISA court are "not even concerned, nor are they involved in any way with the Executive Order 12333 collection," Binney said during the radio interview. "That's all done outside of the courts. And outside of the Congress."
Binney told Fox the laws that fall under the FISA court's jurisdiction are "simply out there for show" and "trying to show that the government is following the law, and being looked at and overseen by the Senate and House intelligence committees and the courts."
"That's not the main collection program for NSA," Binney said.
What Binney did not delve into, however, was if President Obama directed surveillance on Trump for political purposes during the campaign, a core accusation of Trump's. But Binney did say events such as publication of details of private calls between President Trump and the Australian prime minister, as well as with the Mexican president, are evidence the intelligence community is playing hardball with the White House.
"I think that's what happened here," Binney told Fox. "The evidence of the conversation of the president of the U.S., President Trump, and the [prime minister] of Australia and the president of Mexico. Releasing those conversations. Those are conversations that are picked up by the FAIRVIEW program, primarily, by NSA."
But the MSM will somehow spin or twist this, and continue to report that Trump accused 0bama of wiretapping, without offering any evidence.
In a “fair” world, the MSM would be trying to get to the truth and details of the story, instead of trying to paint our beloved POTUS as a maniac.
The MSM is so far gone that the only hope, as I see it, is for them to improve over these next 4 years. If not by their own decision to be more thorough and accurate, then by their recognition of their increasing irrelevance to anything going on in our country. (I know, “dream on”, right?)
Intelligence needs to HEEL to the people and our elected representatives.
Soon, the leftist freak Hussein Heads will be HAPPY that Trump was right, because he must be reined in, etc, but then will have to prevent themselves from figuring out that they, themselves, TOO, have been wiretapped.
WRT leaks of private/sensitive conversations that President Trump is having AS PRESIDENT, there HAVE to be intelligence people who go to jail after being convicted of violating the Espionage Act, or for treason.
Failure to charge, and obtain convictions against, these traitors will not go unnoticed by others of similar bent. Make an example of a few - bankrupt them as they defend themselves, then clap them in jail for life - and the leaks will stop. Let it go, and this crap will continue.
For that matter, the same applies to any Obama-era appointees acting as moles within the government. They should ALL be fired, immediately, and any who can be found to have violated the law MUST be prosecuted.
This will be rough sledding, and a LOT of dirt will be flung around and uncovered, but it is critical that the Dept. of Justice do this so that government employees - i.e. civil SERVANTS of the people - understand their place in our society, and so that EVERYONE understands that we are returning to the rule of law. If this is not done, then the Rule of Law is over and everyone will simply do as they please.
Prosecute these people, Mr. President, good and hard...or our society will fall apart and everything that you have ever worked for these last 2 years or so, everything that you value about our society, will turn to garbage.
the ‘deep state’ is getting awfully public these days..
I love the fake the Fake Media was reporting the wire tapping in Jan 2017 as part of their “proof” to back up their fake “Russia hacked the election” propaganda NOW in March 2017 the same “journalists” claim there is no proof of the wiretapping!
In plain English, Obama and his intelligence butt boys had either better have come up with evidence from their monitoring of Trump that Trump posed a national security risk or probable cause that he presented such a risk in order to authorize issuing a warrant.
Otherwise it is pretty clear that they were doing it for the reasons we all know they were doing it: to get information helpful to them in election 2016.
If that is the case, and it appears likely—since we’re well past the “That wasn’t my dog that bit you” stage of typical Clinton/Obama denials—Obama and Clinton are culpable/liable for violating a raft of federal laws intended to protect American citizens’ 4th amendment rights.
... the administration risks falling victim to further leaks if it continues to run afoul of the intelligence community.
Would be a smart thing to do?
Oooops!
He’s been out for 16 years. I’m not sure what he knows that is useful.
The fractures have started.
The MSM is starting to worry about jail time.
They are very deserving. Let’s be sure that they get it!
That sounds like a warning about blackmail.
Nice little shop you have here...
If he knows what the monitoring technology state of the art was in use by NSA 16 years ago, you can be sure it has only improved since then.
O'Reilly didn't get much out of Sen Cotten from what I saw on a video clip of his interview of Cotton.
One more reason to block as many suspected terrorists as possible from coming to our country. "Intelligence Services' use these people as an excuse to spy on Americans.
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