OBAMA, TRUMP, AND THE EASTER BUNNY

In these tweets early Saturday (3/4), President Trump declared nuclear war on former President Obama.

“Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower,” the president said. “This is Nixon/Watergate.

It isn’t true, and he deserved it, said “senior intelligence officials” and Democrats. CNN and MSNBC anchors who breathlessly reported both didn’t seem to notice these claims are mutually contradictory.

Louise Mensch of HeatStreet reported last October a FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) warrant had been issued for a server in Trump Tower. The Guardian reported it Jan. 11. Former U.S. Attorney Andy McCarthy commented on it that day.

If President Trump did just learn about the FISA warrant, it probably was from Bret Baier’s interview with House Speaker Paul Ryan Friday. But Don Surber suspects the prez was sandbagging the Lying Swine again.

“Trump tweets, media leaps, truth comes out and Trump wins,” Surber said.

The facts, as reported in the stories mentioned above, are:

*In April or May last year, the FBI conducted a preliminary investigation of a link between a server in Trump Tower and Russian banks, decided there wasn’t probable cause for a wiretap.

*In June, the Justice Department asked the FISA court for a warrant on national security grounds. (The government doesn’t need as much probable cause to get a FISA warrant.) The FISA court said no. This happens less than 1 percent of the time.

*Justice came back with a scaled down request for a FISA warrant in October. This one was granted. According to the New York Times, investigators found the suspect computer in Trump Tower was just sending spam.

“The investigators who spoke to the paper could know that only if they had access to the computer or the Russian bank,” noted New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin. “And if it was only spam,” why would the investigation remain active?”

Mr. Obama didn’t know about the FISA warrant, said spokesmen Kevin Lewis and Ben Rhodes.

Do you think the FBI would eavesdrop on the Trump campaign without informing the president? Do you believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny?

“Senior intelligence officials” denied a FISA warrant was issued. But the carefully parsed non-denial denials of Lewis and Rhodes tacitly assume one was. For journalists slow on the uptake, Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau spelled it out.

“Mainstream” journalists are indignant anyone could think a president who sicced the IRS onto the Tea Party, bugged the phones of AP reporters, and seized the telephone records of the parents of Fox News State Department correspondent James Rosen might weaponize U.S. intelligence agencies against a political opponent.

A dossier compiled by “a former British intelligence operative, whose past work U.S. intelligence officials consider credible” indicates Trump has been compromised by the Russians, CNN broadcast Jan. 10.

Allegedly written by former MI-6 officer Christopher Steele, the dossier was initially paid for by the Jeb Bush campaign, then by the Clinton campaign. Buzzfeed published the 35-page dossier Jan. 11.

Some of it is written in American English, some in British English. The dossier is fraught with spelling and grammatical errors, which suggest the author’s native language isn’t English.

The dossier “follows the KGB (now FSB) practice of writing intelligence reports, in particular the practice of capitalizing all names for easy reference,” noted Paul Roderick Gregory in Forbes.

It is rich in lurid innuendo, but contains few “facts” which can be checked. One is the claim Trump lawyer Michael Cohen met with Russians in Prague. Cohen has never been to Prague. He was in Los Angeles on the day in question.

The dossier is a “complete fraud,” former intelligence officials say. Even Newsweek condemned it.

A day after Buzzfeed published the dossier, Mr. Steele went into hiding. Former KGB officer Oleg Erovinkin, who some think was Mr. Steele’s prime source, was found dead in his car. He did not die of natural causes.

After tossing his grenade, President Trump tweeted about Arnold Schwarzenegger flopping as host of “The Apprentice,” then went off to play golf.

Was he recklessly popping off again? I doubt the president had “just learned” about the wiretap.

Admiral Mike Rogers, director of the National Security Agency, travelled to New York Nov. 17 to meet with President-elect Trump.

The next day, the Washington Post reported Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper wanted to fire Rogers.

“In a move apparently unprecedented for a military officer, Rogers, without notifying superiors, traveled to New York to meet with Trump,” the Post said. “That caused consternation at senior levels of the administration…”

Could it be Rogers was unhappy about eavesdropping on Mr. Trump, went to New York to tell him about it?

Admiral Rogers is still director of NSA. Robert Hannigan no longer is director of its British counterpart. That’s another clue President Trump knew what was going on well before last weekend.

Hannigan, head of GCHQ, resigned suddenly Jan. 23, to spend more time with his family. Hannigan may have resigned because he didn’t want to share intelligence with the Trump administration, speculated The Guardian.

That makes no sense, said former CIA officer Philip Giraldi. When it comes to signals intelligence, the “bilateral flow of information is predominantly from Washington to London, making the relationship more valuable to Britain than to the U.S., no matter who is president.”

President Trump found out Hannigan had helped smear him, and demanded he be fired, or Prime Minister Theresa May canned Hannigan on her own to preserve good relations with the new president, Mr. Giraldi and former CIA officer Larry Johnson think.

The only lawbreakers we know of for sure are the leakers. But President Obama could be in serious legal jeopardy, said criminal defense attorney Robert Barnes.

The only “foreign intelligence information” allowed to be used as a basis for surveillance is info needed to protect the U.S. against “grave, hostile” attack, sabotage or international terror.

It’s illegal to commit perjury to obtain a FISA warrant, and it’s illegal to disseminate and disclose FISA information.  Team Obama may have committed the first two offenses, Mr. Barnes thinks. According to the New York Times, among others, Obama himself ordered the third.

“FISA strictly segregates its surveilled information into two categories: highly confidential information of the most serious of crimes involving foreign acts of war; or, if not that then information that should never have been gathered, should be immediately deleted, and never outsourced or disseminated,” Mr. Barnes said.

When surveillance did not yield evidence that fit the first category, there was a legal duty to destroy it. Obama’s team did just the opposite.

This is “Watergate on steroids,” Mr. Barnes said. “Watergate would never have happened if Nixon felt like he could just ask the FBI or NSA to tape the calls.”

 If Don Surber (and I) are right, the next few months will be fascinating.

The White House should declassify the FISA warrant.

The Justice Department should go after leakers and FISA abusers. Attorney General Sessions’ recusal won’t hamper an investigation. Career prosecutor Dana Boente has a stellar reputation.

“Obama himself appeared scared of Boente, as he removed Boente from the successor to Sessions position,” Mr. Barnes said. “Trump restored Boente to that role earlier this month. Democrats may get the investigation they wanted, but it may be their own that end up named in a criminal indictment.”

Don’t expect Obama to be indicted. Fish that big never fry. But if former Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes and former CIA Director John Brennan do some jail time, I won’t be surprised.

Congress should investigate Russian meddling in our election. But foremost on the agenda should be FISA abuse. Republicans have a majority. It’s time we had our own Watergate Committee.

Buckle your seatbelts. A wild ride is starting.

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret, and was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force during the Reagan Administration.  Until his retirement in January 2017, he was the national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.