His own DOJ said it didn't happen. But I'm sure the guy from TWW knows better.

9/19/2017 11:50:44 AM

I don't think they can comment on an ongoing investigation like that so wouldn't they have to say it didn't happen? Trump is known to spill the beans like he did with London. I'm guessing he took to twitter the moment he found out about this. Its his only way to expose things he feels are unfair to him. He can't go through the media and can't rely on his own people.

[Edited on September 19, 2017 at 12:09 PM. Reason : The FBI did it DURING the Obama administration. Tapping manafort is indirectly tapping trump]

Quote :

"This is ironic trolling I'm guessing? Considering he is pushing the same narrative FNC, Wash Times and Breitbart are about this.."

You will never see me making one line or one word posts or resorting to personal attacks. Those are the signs of someone who doesn't know how to support their opinion. Then, they come back the next day with an argument refined to the party line. you will never even find a narrative that matches my posting profile. thats why you struggle with the idea of me and use the word "trolling" so often.

[Edited on September 19, 2017 at 12:11 PM. Reason : lol]

9/19/2017 12:07:43 PM

Who gives a shit which administration wire tapped manafort?

All that matters is that they had probable cause. It's pretty clear at this point they did.

9/19/2017 12:30:31 PM

its also relevant that it wasn't directed by any administration, which was a part of trump's lie

9/19/2017 12:38:06 PM

that's some really good selective arguing there Earl. Respond to the actual argument made about why Manafort being tapped doesn't absolve Trump of making these points:

Quote :

"1. Obama did it (no, FBI and fisa courts) 2. Tapped Trump tower (no, tapped manafort)"

9/19/2017 12:44:33 PM

^^

9/19/2017 1:36:00 PM

...and don't forget Manafort's wiretap began before he went to work on Trump's campaign.

(or maybe Obama knew Trump would hire Manafort)

[Edited on September 19, 2017 at 1:53 PM. Reason : manafort is a soros mole!]

9/19/2017 1:52:20 PM

Quote :

"2. Tapped Trump tower (no, tapped manafort)""

already explained on the previous page. Manafort had a place in Trump tower, and two hops on a FISA warrant when you call the front desk puts all of Trump tower under surveillance.

Regarding #1, A wiretap ordered by the president would look like a FISA warrant on the outside. When the basis for that warrant was a fictitious dossier paid for by NeoCons and Democrats, it's hard not to see the wiretapping take on the appearance of political in nature.

Do you think the weaponization of the IRS to target conservative groups just magically happened and didn't occur due to directions coming from Obama?

9/19/2017 2:06:47 PM

You seriously need to step out of your echo chamber.

9/19/2017 2:27:17 PM

Since we're now getting into semantics of words in order for you guys to try and justify that Trump was correct, what he said was "my" wires tapped. Sure, you could argue that he owns everything in the building so they're all his wires, but the intent of what he was saying is that he was specifically being targeted, not some other guy on his team that happened to be in his building. But you're going to reject this so go ahead. Further, can you please link to where there is something definitive that Trump Tower was wiretapped specifically? I'm not seeing anything, and if this doesn't exist than I don't really even see what you're arguing about other than a hypothetical.

Regarding the first point, you're basically arguing about a theoretical that hasn't been proven. Am I supposed to believe that the guy who lies to everyone's face every single day about just about everything is now absolved of sending some dumbass tweet after watching Fox News because there is some convoluted possibility that he might have been correct even though there's nothing proving that?

[Edited on September 19, 2017 at 2:38 PM. Reason : asdf]

9/19/2017 2:31:40 PM

There is only one circumstance under which a President can order a wiretap (of which I'm aware) and it is covered under this: https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/executive-order/12333.html and this: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1802.

As for the multi-hop situations: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/you-may-already-be-a-winner-in-nsas-three-degrees-surveillance-sweepstakes/

Trump was not wiretapped by President Obama. The DOJ requested FISA approval to conduct surveillance on Paul Manafort (among others, including Carter Page). Any communications he had with anyone else would have likely been intercepted (including Trump). That's Trump's fault for hanging out with criminals and possible traitors.

That is not even remotely the same as Obama walking over to the DOJ and instructing them to request a FISA warrant from the FISA court and then subsequently walking over to the FISA court and ordering them to approve it, all for the purpose of intercepting the communications of someone that nobody outside of racists, homophobes and white nationalists thought was going to win an election. And this is precisely what Trump was suggesting with his irresponsible shit.

The conspiracy theories don't even make sense now. People used to be a bit more creative with them.

9/19/2017 3:31:00 PM

^FISA courts approve 99.9% of warrant requests. Don't act like it would take any effort from Obama other than him saying "make it happen" to Lynch and Rice.

Quote :

"Since we're now getting into semantics of words in order for you guys to try and justify that Trump was correct, what he said was "my" wires tapped. Sure, you could argue that he owns everything in the building so they're all his wires, but the intent of what he was saying is that he was specifically being targeted, not some other guy on his team that happened to be in his building. But you're going to reject this so go ahead."

you're missing the point; the surveillance on Manafort was constructed for the sole purpose of spying on Trump while also establishing plausible deniability that Trump was their intended target. They knew that their three hops rule would capture everything they wanted to know about Trump and his team through a warrant on Manafort, and Manafort having a place at Trump tower would give them justification for surveillance on the entirety of Trump tower.

Quote :

"Further, can you please link to where there is something definitive that Trump Tower was wiretapped specifically? I'm not seeing anything, and if this doesn't exist than I don't really even see what you're arguing about other than a hypothetical."

you're asking me to provide definitive proof that the FBI isn't full of incompetent morons that don't know how to establish surveillance at the place of residence of the person they're investigating.

9/19/2017 4:03:14 PM

Quote :

"^FISA courts approve 99.9% of warrant requests. Don't act like it would take any effort from Obama other than him saying "make it happen" to Lynch and Rice. "

Since 1979, approximately 35,000 FISA warrant requests have been approved. That is an insanely small fraction of the total population since then. People don't go to FISA unless they have a reason to. Get the paranoia out of here.

Furthermore, yes it would have taken a substantial effort for Obama to do something like that because it would have leaked and been thrown in the news the second he walked out of the room. Not only that - you have to present evidence to a FISA court and then they, members of the court who do not answer to the President whatsoever, have to approve it. If by some insanely unlikely chance Obama DID request this, the court approved it for a reason.

So which is it? Trump is innocent and he wasn't caught under FISA or Trump is guilty and was?

[Edited on September 19, 2017 at 4:11 PM. Reason : a]

9/19/2017 4:09:55 PM

^^
Trump was trying to imply obama wiretapped him as some sort of vengeance or corruption.

Trump had some of his calls incidentally intercepted because he chose to work with known scumbags.

Wouldn’t surprise me if his phone calls with Flynn were intercepted too. It’s possible someone reading this has had your calls intercepted.

If Trump was trying to make an argument against FISA or wiretaps or something, then you could argue he was saying something substantially true.

But trump was just trying to spew invective to deflect from his Trump U fraud case or some other scandal he was caught up in, he wasn’t making an intelligible claim for any real point.

It’s part of trump’s strategy to make ever possible type of claim, then hope he can justify it post facto, and some of you are falling for this. Trump is given too much leeway for his nonsense statements than most people get, maybe because he’s an idiot, but this is how he gets away with things.

9/19/2017 4:10:00 PM

I'd love to know what Reddit thread he's getting this FISA three hops rule from. Man, since the election this forum has been reduced to posts by idiotic trolls and people responding to them.

9/19/2017 4:11:34 PM

http://fortune.com/2017/09/19/paul-manafort-fbi-surveillance-donald-trump-russia/

Quote :

"The surveillance, which included wiretapping, searches, and other types of observation, reportedly began in 2014""

Quote :

"the surveillance on Manafort was constructed for the sole purpose of spying on Trump"

Please go on...

And yes, I'm asking you to provide definitive proof. You are the one alleging that something occurred which Trump's own DOJ has stated did NOT. You have provided a lot of reasons for WHY something MAY or MAY NOT have occurred and why the DOJ might not share such a report, but yes, you have to show proof at this point

[Edited on September 19, 2017 at 4:12 PM. Reason : as]

9/19/2017 4:11:34 PM

^^https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/you-may-already-be-a-winner-in-nsas-three-degrees-surveillance-sweepstakes/

9/19/2017 4:13:50 PM

So him/you are conflating the NSA's mass foreign surveillance programs with how FISA warrants work. There is absolutely nothing that says a FISA warrant on one American allows you to execute wiretaps on other Americans within' "three hops". Read better.

9/19/2017 4:19:38 PM

^No, I'm with you - I was just showing a link as to where he likely is getting that from.

9/19/2017 4:21:41 PM

Ah gotcha, sorry!

9/19/2017 4:23:07 PM

I agree, Manafort is the real victim here. Imagine the false evidence that was fabricated for a FISA warrant. Mueller is so dedicated to this charade he told Manafort to expect an indictment during the raid on his house. Talk about dedication from the deep state!

Trump, despite saying he didn't really mean "wiretapping" in an interview with Tucker Carlson, was just playing the media again to get them off his back about the claim. In the same interview, he talked about how he first learned about the wiretapping through a NY Times article that mentioned wiretapping a lot. What a political tactician! Tweet something outlandish, walking back those claims and hope everyone forgets it, then when your former campaign manager is under investigation for working with Russia, you are correct!

9/19/2017 4:23:24 PM

I'm kinda surprised this story isn't as big of a deal as I thought it would be.

9/19/2017 4:25:38 PM

^

People have been waiting for action for a while, we need to start seeing heads roll.

9/19/2017 5:20:38 PM

Huh? This is still one of the biggest stories

9/19/2017 5:34:56 PM

Quote :

"No, I'm with you - I was just showing a link as to where he likely is getting that from."

there is sworn congressional testimony on the three hops rule, and that is EXACTLY how a FISA warrant works.

https://icontherecord.tumblr.com/post/57811913209/hearing-of-the-senate-judiciary-committee-on

Quote :

"I agree, Manafort is the real victim here. Imagine the false evidence that was fabricated for a FISA warrant. Mueller is so dedicated to this charade he told Manafort to expect an indictment during the raid on his house. Talk about dedication from the deep state!"

Two strongarm raids and very vocal threats of indictment on Manafort, and nothing to show for it. Sounds like a lot of smoke and mirrors to deflect from the situation the FBI has gotten itself into with the wiretapping allegations and the bungling of the Clinton email investigation.

Quote :

""The surveillance, which included wiretapping, searches, and other types of observation, reportedly began in 2014"" Quote : "the surveillance on Manafort was constructed for the sole purpose of spying on Trump" "

you do realize the 2014 investigation was dropped due to a lack of evidence, correct? Can you not possibly imagine a situation where a DNC controlled DOJ would want to establish witch hunts against lobbyists with Black, Manafort, and Stone, similar to how they targeted Tea Party groups through the IRS?

9/19/2017 5:51:44 PM

Quote :

"Huh? This is still one of the biggest stories"

Not really. As the news broke last night, only a few major news outlets ran with the story. For people who have been paying attention, I think this is a critical link in connecting the dots, but it's already buried beneath headlines about Hurricane Maria and Trump's abortion of a UN speech earlier today. As evidenced by some people ITT, plenty of people don't even understand just how big of a deal a potential indictment is...

[Edited on September 19, 2017 at 5:56 PM. Reason : .]

9/19/2017 5:55:51 PM

^ it’s the biggest news of the collusion/obstruction scandal to date. To prove obstruction legal experts have been saying there needs to be evidence there was something to obstruct. We already know Flynn’s hands were dirty, now it seems there’s clear evidence Manaforts were too. Kushner likely is in the middle of this. Seems really unlikely Trump hasn’t been involved but nothing has leaked out directly implicating him, beyond his own public statements he fired Comey to interfere w/ investigation.

I think #nevertrump people are hoping something big on trump is going to come out of this and hopefully take him down, but don’t want to blow their load on Manafort.

9/19/2017 9:29:24 PM

Quote :

"Sounds like a lot of smoke and mirrors to deflect from the situation the FBI has gotten itself into with the wiretapping allegations"

Ah the Devin Nunes defense.

[Edited on September 19, 2017 at 9:31 PM. Reason : The real story is the leakers]

9/19/2017 9:30:45 PM

Quote :

"it’s the biggest news of the collusion/obstruction scandal to date."

sure, but like I said, more people have been talking about Trump's bullshit UN speech (is anyone remotely surprised), Hurricane Maria, and now the massive earthquake in Mexico City. I get that natural disasters sell, but I find the relative lack of coverage this is getting to be a bit odd.

9/19/2017 11:31:52 PM

I'd rather people focus on the ACA repeal over the next 10 days...I wish that were a bigger story right now

9/20/2017 7:11:19 AM

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/manafort-offered-to-give-russian-billionaire-private-briefings-on-2016-campaign/2017/09/20/399bba1a-9d48-11e7-8ea1-ed975285475e_story.html

GUILTTTTEEEEEEE

9/20/2017 7:15:00 PM

Well damn.

9/20/2017 7:45:51 PM

Kinda speechless tbh. Just wow.

9/20/2017 7:50:48 PM

Now read this from May 2017:

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/us/politics/oleg-deripaska-paul-manafort.html?referer=https://t.co/AXQP8aeGYB?amp=1

Deripaska offered to testify to congress for immunity then. First, their relationship goes pretty far back, they both seem sketchy AF, but also Congress turned him down on testifying because they thought it might interfere with investigations! I think they (FBI, Intelligence, congress cmtes to some degree) have been making these connections for a while.



After this week I think we can safely say Manafort is in deep shit. Flynn has been there for a while. Who's next?

[Edited on September 20, 2017 at 9:05 PM. Reason : Deripaksa = Bond villain]

9/20/2017 8:54:45 PM

^ Kushner is likely hosed

I think Bannon actually but not as certain

Trump’s literal closest policy advisors wrapped up in criminal activity seems a good reason someone might obstruct justice too…

9/20/2017 11:07:58 PM

But at least Trump was right when he tweeted out about being wiretapped! Take that, Liberals!

9/21/2017 8:19:57 AM

I mean, it wasn’t a secret Manafort was dirty as hell and highly connected. Trump himself is too stupid and lazy to do any research on him so the real question is who connected the two? Aside from where he lived to my knowledge there was no appreciable relationship between the two pre-campaign.

Also, I’ve often wondered if all of this is a study in bias. Are we too biased too realize that all campaigns have connections like this to Russia or is it Trump-specific? I honestly don’t know..

^^ Trump himself almost assuredly has long been engaging in mob activity or at least soliciting mob help. This isn’t new or even secret. It’s all out there. New York area people have known this for decades and have been shouting it from the rooftops for three years. No one cares.

[Edited on September 21, 2017 at 9:21 AM. Reason : X]

9/21/2017 9:19:26 AM

^Roger stone and Manafort worked at the same political consulting agency for years and I think Stone and Trump have been "friends" for years too, so I think that's probably how they were introduced. Stone excels at dirty political tricks but Manafort seems to excel at polishing political turds and making the shittiest human beings on the planet somehow appetizing to voters. Which is exactly what the Trump campaign needed.

And you could be right about bias, on a couple different levels IMO. First there is a strong chance other politicians have been getting Russian money (see rohrbachar). I think there's a strong chance other politicians have been getting money from other nations too (Clinton and KSA as a well known example. It all goes back to the FEC being completely broken and unable to enforce anything.

And I also think it's a possibility that other candidates have met with various nations. But it's the breadth of interaction that the Trump campaign had with Russia, and the near universal denials from everyone in the campaign, that makes it so sketch IMO. This was WAY more than just one or two meetings, and there was WAY more exchanged at these meetings beyond ideas.

If the FBI (or media) digs into other politicians and finds Trump-like antics it should prosecute. But we definitely shouldn't dismiss Trump's transgressions because other people haven't been caught yet.

9/21/2017 10:03:17 AM

[Edited on September 21, 2017 at 10:09 AM. Reason : ...]

9/21/2017 10:08:53 AM

https://twitter.com/natashabertrand/status/910883574613757952

Is it taboo to talk about how accurate the Steele Dossier is on a lot of what has come out?

9/21/2017 11:18:30 AM

eleusis and earl sure are quiet right now...

9/21/2017 11:23:25 AM

It is literally impossible to sort through the meandering connections that keep popping up. Glad its not my job to decipher what is important and what is just coincidental. I think by the end of this we are all gonna have a loose understanding of the seedy underbelly of white collar criminals in NYC.


http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article174493821.html

Quote :

"Before he became Trump’s bodyguard, Gary Uher was an FBI agent involved in a complex deal to bring Sater back from Russia in the late 1990s. The resulting plea deal allowed Sater to avoid prison time in a Wall Street probe by serving as a government informant until his sentencing in 2009. During much of the time that he was a secret informant, Sater was a Trump Organization business associate, working on projects in New York, Florida and Arizona."

9/21/2017 12:38:25 PM

Quote :

"I mean, it wasn’t a secret Manafort was dirty as hell and highly connected. Trump himself is too stupid and lazy to do any research on him so the real question is who connected the two?"

everyone that's ever been involved with an RNC campaign, ever? Black, Manafort, and Stone have been heavily involved with every campaign since they got Reagan elected. Manafort arranged for John McCain to meet with Deripaska in person in 2008 while McCain was running for president. There's nothing going on here that hasn't happened in every election. If Roger Stone hadn't been leading the Brooks Brothers riot during the 2000 ballot recount in Miami and jammed that process up, we may have had Al Gore as president.

9/21/2017 1:36:19 PM

I mean I get it, you guys want multinational corporations and billionaires working on behalf of campaigns during elections just so long as they aren't Russian.

But to me, a person who has long been appalled by the amount of "collusion" between our politicians and big money that doesn't have our people's best interest at heart, this is no different. I don't like it, but I don't like it when Time Warner or CITI or JP Morgan/Chase "interfere" in our elections either.

I will say that the "Russia hacked our election" statement is much further from being true than the "Obama wiretapped trump" statement.

Let me break down what the words mean.

Obama- this does not literally mean Obama did it. Bush didn't "make" intel on Iraq, his administration did. We say "Obama" and it represents the entire umbrella of his executive administration. That includes the entire FBI.

Wiretapped- in 2017 this means monitoring calls in some way. Manafort works for Trump. If you want to listen to someone calls without tapping "them", you can just tap people who you know they will talk to. Already been explained in this thread.

Trump- This also can refer to anyone under his umbrella. If you tap the campaign chair, or anyone close to Trump, we can go ahead and call that "Trump"

Russia- You guys are using this to mean people from Russia, with Russian names, and companies in Russia but insinuating that it implicates the Russian government. People have been using Russia and Putin interchangeably when all of the evidence involves people who just happen to be Russian.

Hacked- DNC is the only thing that was hacked. IP addresses were tracked to Russia. That means nothing. I can make my IP address Russian right now.

the election- no one has any evidence that the election (voting booths and vote count) was hacked but someone Russian companies putting political ads on facebook is being intentionally misrepresenting as "hacking" the "election".

If dark money can fund campaigns anyway, then there is no point in worrying about Russian companies buying ads on freaking facebook.

9/21/2017 3:12:09 PM

So your argument is that we should take the widest possible meaning from that incredibly thought out tweet storm he didn't even bother to spellcheck?

Also, who on here has been saying the election itself was hacked? I'll give you a head start to that answer, your post is the first use of the word in the last 3 pages.

9/21/2017 4:05:02 PM

Quote :

"no one has any evidence that the election (voting booths and vote count) was hacked but someone Russian companies putting political ads on facebook is being intentionally misrepresenting as "hacking" the "election". "

There are people in this thread that seriously believe Russia managed to derail a billion dollars worth of Clinton campaigning with $100,000 in facebook advertising.

9/21/2017 4:10:37 PM

Quote :

"I mean I get it, you guys want multinational corporations and billionaires working on behalf of campaigns during elections just so long as they aren't Russian. "

Actually, a few of us, myself included specifically cited SCOTUS and Citizens United as reasons why we would support Clinton despite not being huge fans. She lost, we got Gorsuch and a conservative court for a generation.

[Edited on September 21, 2017 at 4:14 PM. Reason : Manafort was surveilled starting in 2014. It actually lapsed while he was campaign mgr.]

9/21/2017 4:12:55 PM

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I call bullshit because I remember you being one of the ones on here supporting Hillary over Bernie.

9/21/2017 4:15:57 PM

You’re wrong. Once it was apparent she would win and face Trump I did. I’ve said at least a dozen times on here that I have only voted for her once in an election — 2016 general.

[Edited on September 21, 2017 at 4:18 PM. Reason : I poked fun at HA Goodman but so did a lot. And he’s an attn whoring Trump guy now]

9/21/2017 4:17:22 PM

https://thewolfweb.com/message_editpost.aspx?edit=16331326

This is my first post on a search for Sanders and my name. Not much has changed with my thinking.

Haha, in going back through posts, you argued with me about how Trump was not going to nominate Heritage Foundation justices and against my Citizens United stance. Gold.

[Edited on September 21, 2017 at 4:26 PM. Reason : X]

9/21/2017 4:23:06 PM