Sunday, March 5, 2017

FBI Director Comey Wants The Justice Depart To Reject President Trump's Wiretapping Claims


New York Times: Comey Asks Justice Dept. to Reject Trump’s Wiretapping Claim

WASHINGTON — The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, asked the Justice Department this weekend to publicly reject President Trump’s assertion that President Barack Obama ordered the tapping of Mr. Trump’s phones, senior American officials said on Sunday. Mr. Comey has argued that the highly charged claim is false and must be corrected, they said, but the department has not released any such statement.

Mr. Comey, who made the request on Saturday after Mr. Trump leveled his allegation on Twitter, has been working to get the Justice Department to knock down the claim because it falsely insinuates that the F.B.I. broke the law, the officials said.

A spokesman for the F.B.I. declined to comment. Sarah Isgur Flores, the spokeswoman for the Justice Department, also declined to comment.

Mr. Comey’s request is a remarkable rebuke of a sitting president, putting the nation’s top law enforcement official in the position of questioning Mr. Trump’s truthfulness. The confrontation between the two is the most serious consequence of Mr. Trump’s weekend Twitter outburst, and it underscores the dangers of what the president and his aides have unleashed by accusing the former president of a conspiracy to undermine Mr. Trump’s young administration.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: F.B.I. director James B. Comey certainly knows how to make enemies. Many Democrats blamed him for why Hillary Clinton lost the election .... and now the Republicans are having their turn at accusing him of turning against President Trump. But what I do not understand about his request to the Justice Department to reject President Trump's wiretapping claim is that he does not have to ask them since the FBI has the jurisdiction to request a FISA warrant. If he wants to put the matter to rest .... just make the public denial himself instead of asking the Department of Justice to do it on the FBI's behalf. But waht makes this case even more confusing is that we do know that there were two requests for a FISA warrant on then candidate Trump. One was in June 2016 when the Obama administration filed a request to monitor communications involving Donald Trump and several advisers (which was denied), and the second request was in October when the Obama administration submitted a new and narrow request to the FISA court that was focused on a computer server in Trump Tower with suspected of links to Russian banks. That request was approved .... but no evidence was found. Interesting .... those wiretaps continued for a while (probably for national security reasons) .... which in itself is incredibly disturbing because one can now claim that the Obama administration was monitoring an opposing presidential campaign by using the high-tech surveillance powers of the federal government and its intelligence services. If I was to hazard a guess .... it is this FISA warrant and the continuation of it (even though no evidence was found) that got President Trump upset Saturday morning. This FISA warrant also contradicts FBI Director Comey's claim that there are no wiretaps on President Trump .... because there clearly was one .... albeit not directly at him. The final nail in the coffin .... we learned before the inauguration that multiple federal agencies were involved in monitoring several associates of the Trump campaign suspected of Russian ties .... a surveillance operation that I can only assume was approved by the FISA court.

More News On Reports That The FBI Director Comey Wants The Justice Depart To Reject President Trump's Wiretapping Claims

FBI Director Comey asked Justice officials to refute Trump’s unproven wiretapping claim -- Washington Post
Trump wiretap charge flummoxes law enforcement officials as FBI head reportedly asks DOJ to reject claim -- FOX news
FBI asked Justice Department to refute Trump's wiretapping claim -- CNN
Donald Trump: White House seeks congressional help on 'wire-tap' claim, FBI disputes it -- ABC News Online

7 comments:

Jay Farquharson said...

https://www.justsecurity.org/38347/tapping-trump/

"In short, both Breitbart and Trump have advanced claims far more dramatic than anything the public evidence can support. That said, intelligence monitoring—whether direct or indirect—of persons connected with a presidential campaign inherently carries a high risk of abuse, and as Congress moves to launch its own inquiries into the Trump campaign’s Russian ties, it would be entirely appropriate to further scrutinize both the FBI’s initial surveillance and applications and the surveillance that was ultimately conducted for any signs of impropriety. In the meantime, it might behoove the Commander in Chief to refrain from issuing serious and inflammatory accusations based wholly on “intelligence” gleaned from Breitbart News."

War News Updates Editor said...

Jay .... the problem that I have with those who are claiming that President Trump is using sources like Breitbart for his intel is that he has something that is infinitely far more powerful than Breitbart News .... and that is the power of the U.S. government and all of its agencies. He is after-all the President .... and he will get what he wants straight from the horses mouth. In short ..... he does not need Breitbart/infowars/and talk radio for his information anymore .... and for one simple reason .... he is now in charge of the executive branch of the U.S. government. If Breitbart has any power or influence .... it is to help President Trump to focus on a specific issue .... where he then just picks up the phone to get the answer. But something tells me that he is probably not even reading Breitbart news anymore .... after-all .... why bother reading up on the news when you are the one who is making it.

Jay Farquharson said...

So far, according to leaks, Trump has spent 3 hours 15 minutes attending Nat Sec meetings. Bannon, 52 hours.

Trump regularly cites fake news sites and neo-nazi twitter feeds.

As we have seen so far, Mr. Presidenting is Hard, and his Administration don't have a clue how Government works,

No surprise there.

Trump went from "being Presidential" by reading off a teleprompter , ( lasted a day) to shooting himself in the foot with twitter.

Dick Cheney shot a guy in the face, managed the news cycle, even got the guy he shot in the face to apologize for letting Dick shoot him in the face.

Trump is exactly what he appears to be. A Reality TV "Star" who inherited a massive fortune and has managed to turn it into a much smaller fortune through outright fraud and shady dealings.

Jay Farquharson said...

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/bannon.jpg

fred said...

Dear Mr editor
as noted, Trump does not feel much of a need to listen to intel ...he said this himself...and he does rely on questionable media for what he takes as truth. You credit him with insights etc because he is after all the president. It is becoming clear that he is vindictive,angry, self absorbed and thus blaming others, always, when things do not go his way or as he wants. Rebember: as president, he has the authority to make intel on what he claims public! he has not done this.

Anonymous said...

Ha ha, keep that tape recorder on. You have no problem buying all the bullshit about golden shower and hookers with no evidence at all.

Anonymous said...

Buhu loser