Trump and the non-existent wiretaps: Much ado about nothing

Well, folks, the train wreck that is the Trump presidency keeps getting loopier with each passing day. 

By now you've probably gotten word that the 45th President of the U.S. is now claiming that former President Barack Obama had his office wiretapped during the 2016 election. Yep, that's right. Mr. "Most Unpopular President" says that his predecessor took his cues from disgraced ex-President Richard Nixon and bugged the phones in Mr. Trump's suite at the Trump Tower in Manhattan to, as conservative radio host Mark Levin claims, "surveille members of his campaign." 

In a Twitter tweet posted on Saturday, the President said, "How low has President Obama gone to tapp (sic) my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!"

These are serious allegations, especially since (a) the FBI, CIA, NSA, or any of the federal intelligence agencies can't wiretap anyone without a court order and (b) President Trump isn't accusing Obama loyalists of such perfidy. He's accusing the former President. By name, at that.

Apparently, Mr. Trump seems to have gotten this strange (and toxic) notion from reading stuff on Breitbart, the far right "news" website which Stephen K. Bannon oversaw until he was named the White House's chief strategist last year. 

According to Politifact, the alt-right's favorite media outlet published an article last Friday that asked the Republican-controlled Congress to investigate radio commentator Mark Levin's claims that minions of then-President Obama bugged Mr. Trump's phones to dig up dirt so they could discredit him either before or after the election.

In the article, Levin claims that the investigations of connections between Mr. Trump's associates (including former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn and current Attorney General Jeff Sessions) amount to a virtual coup d'etat by the previous administration.

In its typical "attack mode" tone, Breitbart stated:

In summary: the Obama administration sought, and eventually obtained, authorization to eavesdrop on the Trump campaign; continued monitoring the Trump team even when no evidence of wrongdoing was found; then relaxed the NSA rules to allow evidence to be shared widely within the government, virtually ensuring that the information, including the conversations of private citizens, would be leaked to the media.

Levin called the effort a “silent coup” by the Obama administration and demanded that it be investigated.

But, as Politifact's Lauren Carroll writes:

 (N)o source alleges Obama personally ordered phone wiretaps or any other form of surveillance. The closest some get is alluding to possible FBI requests for a warrant to monitor Trump associates amid their investigation into improper Russia-related activity.

Carroll explains that while it is a well-known fact that U.S. intelligence agencies have been looking into the connections between Russia's government and members of Mr. Trump's campaign during (and after) the 2016 election, there is no evidence that President Obama or his administration bugged Mr. Trump's phones. 

The New York Times and Washington Post are reporting — based on anonymous sources — that FBI Director James Comey asked the Justice Department to publicly refute Trump’s tweets because they wrongly imply the FBI broke the law.

Additionally, an Obama spokesman has categorically denied that the Obama White House ordered any wiretapping.

"Neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false," spokesman Kevin Lewis said.

James Clapper, director of national intelligence under Obama, also denied that there was any FISA court-authorized national security wiretap of Trump or his campaign during the election, in a March 5 Meet the Press interview on NBC.

"I will say that for the part of the national security apparatus that I oversaw as DNI, was there no such wiretap activity mounted against the president-elect at the time or as a candidate or against his campaign," Clapper said. "I can't speak for other title 3-authorized entities in the government or a state or local entity."

Our take at A Certain Point of View is that Mr. Trump is either grasping at straws or he is muddying the waters in an effort to deflect attention from the Republicans' assault on the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the environment, the Department of Education, and the funding of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. 

As long as his right-wing base is enraged about allegations of nefarious doings by President Obama and the "mainstream media," the alt-right and the Republicans in Congress can push their pet projects of ending regulations that protect the environment, repealing the ACA and replacing it with a new healthcare plan that favors the wealthy, and dismantling the Department of Education. 

Sources: 

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/837996746236182529?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/mar/06/did-donald-trump-invent-claim-barack-obama-tapped-/

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/03/03/mark-levin-obama-used-police-state-tactics-undermine-trump/