If true, this isn’t the wiretapping of Trump Tower, as Trump claimed in his infamous tweet a few weeks ago, but it is spying in any commonly understood sense of the word.
.. While the answers might not vindicate Trump, they are legitimate questions. If it turns out intel wasn’t properly minimized, this is the kind of abuse that civil libertarians have long warned undermines Americans’ privacy, a Fourth Amendment right.
.. Intelligence agencies cannot share details about American citizens with no foreign-intelligence value. If Nunes is right, how
.. It could very well be that Nunes is attempting to give the president cover. He’s a partisan, after all. That doesn’t make the incident potentially less serious.
‘There’s a Smell of Treason in the Air’
The greatest political scandal in American history was not Aaron Burr’s shooting of Alexander Hamilton, and perhaps wasn’t even Watergate. Rather it may have been Richard Nixon’s secret efforts in 1968 to sabotage a U.S. diplomatic effort to end the Vietnam War.
.. This is guesswork, but it might have seemed natural for Trump aides to try to milk Russian contacts for useful information about the Clinton campaign. Likewise, the Russians despised Hillary Clinton and would have been interested in milking American contacts for information about how best to damage her chances.
.. The Associated Press reports that Manafort had secretly worked for a Russian billionaire close to Putin, signing a $10-million-a-year contract in 2006 to promote the interests of the Putin government. The arrangement lasted at least until 2009.
.. At some point, I suspect, members of the Trump team gained knowledge of Russian hacking into Clinton emails, which would explain why Trump friend Roger Stone tweeted things like “Trust me, it will soon the Podesta’s time in the barrel.”
.. Treason isn’t necessarily spelled out as a quid pro quo, and it wasn’t when Nixon tried to sink the Vietnam peace initiative in 1968.
.. Republicans should replace Nunes as head of the House Intelligence Committee; he can’t simultaneously be Trump’s advocate and his investigator.
GOP Lawmaker Devin Nunes Sparks New Battle Over Trump Spy Claim
.. Rep. Devin Nunes (R., Calif.), who is leading a congressional investigation into alleged Russian interference in U.S. elections, shared his information with the media and Mr. Trump before he gave it to other members of his committee. The move drew criticism from members of the committee in the House and Senate, and prompted the ranking Democrat on the panel to redouble his push for an independent investigator to take over the Russia probe.
.. Mr. Nunes, who offered little public evidence for his disclosures other than reports provided by sources he declined to name, said the surveillance of the incoming president’s team appeared to be due to what is called “incidental” collection, meaning that Trump transition officials whose information was intercepted weren’t the intended targets. He added it was “possible” the president himself had some of his communication intercepted, though he declined to elaborate on what sort of information the intelligence agencies collected and how it was collected.