Remember When James Clapper Categorically Denied Any Wiretap Against Trump Campaign?

[Swordsmyth]

Why in the world would the mainstream media continue to take James Clapper seriously?
In March the former Director of National Intelligence under President Barack Obama appeared on Meet the Press to respond to (https://www.mediaite.com/online/i-can-deny-it-former-director-of-national-intelligence-says-no-fisa-wiretap-court-order-against-trump/) President Donald Trump‘s now-infamous tweets regarding a “wiretap” related to his campaign during the Obama Administration. Host Chuck Todd asked Clapper point-blank (https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-03-05-17-n729271) whether any wiretap had occurred:

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 Three authorized entities in the government or a state or local entity.

Watch.
Fmr. DNI Clapper: "There was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president, president-elect, candidate or campaign." pic.twitter.com/yRIg2ygP59 (https://t.co/yRIg2ygP59)
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) March 5, 2017 (https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/838409808411774976)


Clapper’s answer appeared unequivocal, but there was still a little wiggle room. So Todd, to his credit, drilled down and asked a very specific question about a very specific scenario:

TODD: Yeah, I was just going to say, if the F.B.I., for instance, had a FISA court order of some sort for a surveillance, would that be information you would know or not know?
CLAPPER: Yes.
TODD: You would be told this?
CLAPPER: I would know that.
TODD: If there was a FISA court order–
CLAPPER: Yes.
TODD: –on something like this.
CLAPPER: Something like this, absolutely.
TODD: And at this point, you can’t confirm or deny whether that exists?
CLAPPER: I can deny it.
Now we learn that there was, in fact, a FISA court order (https://www.mediaite.com/online/paul-manafort-was-wiretapped-before-and-after-the-election-cnn-reports/) and it came from the FBI and Clapper, in his own words, claimed he would have known about that. And he denied it, unequivocally. Maybe he forgot all about the FISA order wiretapping Paul Manafort while he was in direct contact with Trump in his campaign and after the election.

More at: https://www.mediaite.com/columnists/remember-when-james-clapper-categorically-denied-any-wiretap-against-trump-campaign/

[Zippyjuan]

Dates seem to indicate that the taps were from before Manafort worked for Trump (starting in 2014) and ending a while later but resuming sometime AFTER he quit the Trump campaign though the re-start timing is less clear.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/18/politics/paul-manafort-government-wiretapped-fisa-russians/index.html


The FBI interest in Manafort dates back at least to 2014, partly as an outgrowth of a US investigation of Viktor Yanukovych, the former Ukrainian president whose pro-Russian regime was ousted amid street protests. Yanukovych's Party of Regions was accused of corruption, and Ukrainian authorities claimed he squirreled millions of dollars out of the country.

Investigators have spent years probing any possible role played by Manafort's firm and other US consultants, including the Podesta Group and Mercury LLC, that worked with the former Ukraine regime. The basis for the case hinged on the failure by the US firms to register under the US Foreign Agents Registration Act, a law that the Justice Department only rarely uses to bring charges.

All three firms earlier this year filed retroactive registrations with the Justice Department.

It hasn't proved easy to make a case.

Last year, Justice Department prosecutors concluded that there wasn't enough evidence to bring charges against Manafort or anyone of the other US subjects in the probe, according to sources briefed on the investigation.

The FBI and Justice Department have to periodically seek renewed FISA authorization to continue their surveillance.

As Manafort took the reins as Trump campaign chairman in May, the FBI surveillance technicians were no longer listening. The fact he was part of the campaign didn't play a role in the discontinued monitoring, sources told CNN. It was the lack of evidence relating to the Ukraine investigation that prompted the FBI to pull back.

Renewed surveillance

Manafort was ousted from the campaign in August. By then the FBI had noticed what counterintelligence agents thought was a series of odd connections between Trump associates and Russia. The CIA also had developed information, including from human intelligence sources, that they believed showed Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered his intelligence services to conduct a broad operation to meddle with the US election, according to current and former US officials.

The FBI surveillance teams, under a new FISA warrant, began monitoring Manafort again, sources tell CNN.

This suggests he was NOT monitored while he was part of the Trump campaign.

[Swordsmyth]

Dates seem to indicate that the taps were from before Manafort worked for Trump (starting in 2014) and ending a while later but resuming sometime AFTER he quit the Trump campaign though the re-start timing is less clear.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/18/politics/paul-manafort-government-wiretapped-fisa-russians/index.html



This suggests he was NOT monitored while he was part of the Trump campaign.


FISA order wiretapping Paul Manafort while he was in direct contact with Trump in his campaign and after the election.


Just wiretap everybody you can who deals with the campaign who is not an official part of the campaign, then deny you wiretapped the campaign, that makes me feel better.:rolleyes:

[ChristianAnarchist]

Remember when someone in the goonerment lied to you??? (Like, 5 minutes ago...)

[nikcers]

Section 702 says that they vacuum up all of the data overseas in order to monitor communications with foreigners, we should end this program because this is the back door search they abuse to get your records.

[Raginfridus]

Plausible Deniability (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=plausible%20deniability)

[timosman]

A bunch of morons.:cool:

[timosman]

http://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/351495-it-looks-like-obama-did-spy-on-trump-just-as-he-did-to-me


BY SHARYL ATTKISSON — 09/20/17


Many in the media are diving deeply into minutiae in order to discredit any notion that President Trump might have been onto something in March when he fired off a series of tweets claiming President Obama had “tapped” “wires” in Trump Tower just before the election.

According to media reports this week, the FBI did indeed “wiretap” the former head of Trump’s campaign, Paul Manafort, both before and after Trump was elected. If Trump officials — or Trump himself — communicated with Manafort during the wiretaps, they would have been recorded, too.

But we’re missing the bigger story.

If these reports are accurate, it means U.S. intelligence agencies secretly surveilled at least a half dozen Trump associates. And those are just the ones we know about.
Besides Manafort, the officials include former Trump advisers Carter Page and Michael Flynn. Last week, we discovered multiple Trump “transition officials” were “incidentally” captured during government surveillance of a foreign official. We know this because former Obama adviser Susan Rice reportedly admitted “unmasking,” or asking to know the identities of, the officials. Spying on U.S. citizens is considered so sensitive, their names are supposed to be hidden or “masked,” even inside the government, to protect their privacy.

In May, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates acknowledged they, too, reviewed communications of political figures, secretly collected under President Obama.

Weaponization of intel agencies?

Nobody wants our intel agencies to be used like the Stasi in East Germany; the secret police spying on its own citizens for political purposes. The prospect of our own NSA, CIA and FBI becoming politically weaponized has been shrouded by untruths, accusations and justifications.

You’ll recall DNI Clapper falsely assured Congress in 2013 that the NSA was not collecting “any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans.”

Intel agencies secretly monitored conversations of members of Congress while the Obama administration negotiated the Iran nuclear deal.

In 2014, the CIA got caught spying on Senate Intelligence Committee staffers, though CIA Director John Brennan had explicitly denied that.

There were also wiretaps on then-Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) in 2011 under Obama. The same happened under President George W. Bush to former Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-Calif.).

Journalists have been targeted, too. This internal email, exposed by WikiLeaks, should give everyone chills. It did me.

Dated Sept. 21, 2010, the “global intelligence” firm Stratfor wrote:


[John] Brennan [then an Obama Homeland Security adviser] is behind the witch hunts of investigative journalists learning information from inside the beltway sources.

Note -- There is specific tasker from the WH to go after anyone printing materials negative to the Obama agenda (oh my.) Even the FBI is shocked. The Wonder Boys must be in meltdown mode...

The government subsequently got caught monitoring journalists at Fox News, The Associated Press, and, as I allege in a federal lawsuit, my computers while I worked as an investigative correspondent at CBS News. On Aug. 7, 2013, CBS News publicly announced:


… correspondent Sharyl Attkisson’s computer was hacked by ‘an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions,’ confirming Attkisson’s previous revelation of the hacking.

Then, as now, instead of getting the bigger story, some in the news media and quasi-news media published false and misleading narratives pushed by government interests. They implied the computer intrusions were the stuff of vivid imagination, conveniently dismissed forensic evidence from three independent examinations that they didn’t review. All seemed happy enough to let news of the government’s alleged unlawful behavior fade away, rather than get to the bottom of it.

I have spent more than two years litigating against the Department of Justice for the computer intrusions. Forensics have revealed dates, times and methods of some of the illegal activities. The software used was proprietary to a federal intel agency. The intruders deployed a keystroke monitoring program, accessed the CBS News corporate computer system, listened in on my conversations by activating the computer’s microphone and used Skype to exfiltrate files.

We survived the government’s latest attempt to dismiss my lawsuit. There’s another hearing Friday. To date, the Trump Department of Justice — like the Obama Department of Justice — is fighting me in court and working to keep hidden the identities of those who accessed a government internet protocol address found in my computers.

Evidence continues to build. I recently filed new information unearthed through forensic exams. As one expert told the court, it was “not a mistake; it is not a random event; and it is not technically possible for these IP addresses to simply appear on her computer systems without activity by someone using them as part of the cyber-attack.”

909991817541586944

Patterns

It’s difficult not to see patterns in the government’s behavior, unless you’re wearing blinders.


The intelligence community secretly expanded its authority in 2011 so it can monitor innocent U.S. citizens like you and me for doing nothing more than mentioning a target’s name a single time.
In January 2016, a top secret inspector general report found the NSA violated the very laws designed to prevent abuse.
In 2016, Obama officials searched through intelligence on U.S. citizens a record 30,000 times, up from 9,500 in 2013.
Two weeks before the election, at a secret hearing before the FISA court overseeing government surveillance, NSA officials confessed they’d violated privacy safeguards “with much greater frequency” than they’d admitted. The judge accused them of “institutional lack of candor” and said, “this is a very serious Fourth Amendment issue.”


Officials involved in the surveillance and unmasking of U.S. citizens have said their actions were legal and not politically motivated. And there are certainly legitimate areas of inquiry to be made by law enforcement and intelligence agencies. But look at the patterns. It seems that government monitoring of journalists, members of Congress and political enemies — under multiple administrations — has become more common than anyone would have imagined two decades ago. So has the unmasking of sensitive and highly protected names by political officials.

Those deflecting with minutiae are missing the point. To me, they sound like the ones who aren’t thinking.