Trump team communications captured by intelligence community surveillance, Nunes says

Republican congressional investigators expect a potential “smoking gun” establishing that the Obama administration spied on the Trump transition team, and possibly the president-elect himself, will be produced to the House Intelligence Committee this week, a source told Fox News.

Classified intelligence showing incidental collection of Trump team communications, purportedly seen by committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., and described by him in vague terms at a bombshell Wednesday afternoon news conference, came from multiple sources, Capitol Hill sources told Fox News. The intelligence corroborated information about surveillance of the Trump team that was known to Nunes, sources said, even before President Trump accused his predecessor of having wiretappedhim in a series of now-infamous tweets posted on March 4.

The intelligence is said to leave no doubt the Obama administration, in its closing days, was using the cover of legitimate surveillance on foreign targets to spy on President-elect Trump, according to sources.

The key to that conclusion is the unmasking of selected U.S. persons whose names appeared in the intelligence, the sources said, adding that the paper trail leaves no other plausible purpose for the unmasking other than to damage the incoming Trump administration.

The FBI hasn’t been responsive to the House Intelligence Committee’s request for documents, but the National Security Agency is expected to produce documents to the committee by Friday. The NSA document production is expected to produce more intelligence than Nunes has so far seen or described – including what one source described as a potential “smoking gun” establishing the spying.

Some time will be needed to properly assess the materials, with the likely result being that congressional investigators and attorneys won’t have a solid handle on the contents of the documents – and their implications – until next week.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...stration-spied-on-trump-team-source-says.html
 
Jarod said:
The "Deep State" is the Conservatives newest excuse for any bad thing that happens while they are in charge...

Something bad comes out about one of their guys... Deep State.
Their bills don't pass... Deep State.
They don't deliver on a campaign promise.. Deep State.

They have a majority in all three branches of the Federal Government so they have to invent a whipping boy, skate goat.
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FYI: The Obama Administration was "in charge" over the past 8 years up to the date, Jan. 21,2017. ALL THE SPYING WAS CONDUCTED WHILE OBAMA WAS THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF...not Mr. Trump.

Tis the problem with fascist democrats....they attempt to defend the indefensible by "hoping" others are not well informed. :rolleyes: The true fascists demanded a congressional investigation to use as a stalling tactic and on DAY ONE...the evidence found points to the obvious corruption of the Obama Administration in using federal agencies as political tools, THE CIA, THE NSA, THE FBI, and the IRS.....and that evidence is moot because the POTUS was informed of the existing evidence before CONGRESS? Really? In the Trump administration the buck stops with the president but under the last administration the president is not in charge of anything to include the federal police agencies like the NSA, the CIA, the FBI....or the IRS/Treasury investigative agencies...so he gets a pass due to supposed IGNORANCE....the CLINTON DEFENSE?

There is one truth in your statement that's obvious. Fascist Democrats are clearly ignorant as hell in relation to the rule of law and facts in evidence.

The point being? There is no DEFENSE for the release of any information on Trump or his team....its illegal and unconstitutional as defined in the US RULE OF LAW recorded under the 4th Amendment of the United States Constitution. Why? A mule is never used to push a plow.....when the information was released THAT WAS THE CRIME as no one to include Mr. Trump acting as President/Commander in Chief is GUILTY before DUE PROCESS can run its course.

The democrats pronounced GUILT void of any criminal evidence...and continue to suggest the spying was legal...which is moot, its not the spying....its the release of personal information obtained in the intercepted communications that was released into the public domain.....That's a crime and punishable with a 5 year prison sentence.

Example: Its not "illegal" to own a pit bull....but its illegal as hell to train that pit bull to attack on command and then release that animal into the public....with the excuse, I DID NOT TELL THAT DOG to attack and kill that child....NO...YOU JUST OPENED THE GATE AND YELLED...GO GET'EM. The animal just did what it was trained to do....by YOU.
 
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Cypress said:
"Deep State" is a made up term that no message board wingnut ever used until they Breitbart and the broader wingnutosphere ordered them to start using it.

Kinda like wingnuts used to be overwhelmingly anti-Kremlin, pro-Urkaine, and anti-Putin....right up until a few months ago when discovered they liked the feeling of Trump's cock up their ass.
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Whether or not there is a Deep State is kind of pointless now, since an actual crime was committed by someone in the IC.

A serious crime, that warrants an investigation. Granted, there may be no Deep State but the crime is Deep State-ish, for whatever it's worth. But again, the only thing congress should interested in is getting to the bottom of it.

Let's see who was involved.
 
The facts: Trump was correct, there was covert spying on him and his team...regardless of its legality Mr. Trump was correct. Fact: Whoever released that information was working for Barrack Obama at the time it was intercepted and Obama opened the door for these trained attack bulldogs that he placed into power with no consensus from the people whatsoever (his appointees)....how did he open the door? By executive fiat in "amending" EO number 12333. Yet he denies any culpability whatsoever? Really? He opened door for these bulldogs to be released into the public domain with no congressional oversight.....He might as well have said, "Sic balls boy's".

Indeed...its time, time for a full out "independent investigation" with Subpoena's forthcoming on everyone involved. Its time to place Obama's ass in the hot seat UNDER OATH. Let's make history. The only president in US history to be sent to federal prison for 5years.
 
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Ralph said:
The facts: Trump was correct, there was covert spying on him and his team...regardless of its legality Mr. Trump was correct. Fact: Whoever released that information was working for Barrack Obama at the time it was intercepted and Obama opened the door for these trained attack bulldogs that he placed into power with no consensus from the people whatsoever (his appointees)....how did he open the door? By executive fiat in "amending" EO number 12333. Yet he denies any culpability whatsoever? Really? He opened door for these bulldogs to be released into the public domain with no congressional oversight.....He might as well have said, "Sic balls boy's".

Indeed...its time, time for a full out "independent investigation" with Subpoena's forthcoming on everyone involved. Its time to place Obama's ass in the hot seat UNDER OATH. Let's make history. The only president in US history to be sent to federal prison for 5years.
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Trump, as usual lol, misstated the facts. But whether there was an actual literal wiretap actually literally directly ordered by Obama was made irrelevant by Nunes.

Comey didn't lie, because no one literally directly ordered anyone to wiretap or order surveillance on Trump or his campaign.

But Comey can still be an insidious kind of liar.
 
unes apologized to members of the committee at a closed-door meeting Thursday for having described the documents to Trump before sharing them with the panel. Democrats said, however, that he had not yet shown them any of the new evidence.

In a statement to reporters Wednesday and later at the White House, Nunes said that he had learned of “dozens” of classified reports that recounted communications between members of Trump’s transition team — and possibly the then-president-elect himself — and individuals who were legally targeted for government eavesdropping for counter-intelligence.

He said that the reports were widely shared within the U.S. government and that the identities of at least some Trump associates had been included in the reports, despite rules requiring that the names of Americans picked up by communications intercepts be kept confidential unless criminal activity is discussed or disclosure of the name is necessary to understand the intelligence.

Numerous transition officials could have communicated with foreign ambassadors or others in the United States who were under court-authorized surveillance for counter-intelligence purposes. If so, they could have inadvertently, but legally, been monitored by U.S. intelligence.

White House Chief of Staff Reince Preibus, White House aide Stephen Miller, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Trump’s adult children all played formal roles in Trump’s transition, along with many other Trump associates and former government officials. Nunes himself was a member of the transition executive committee.

It’s also possible that Trump transition officials were mentioned in U.S. intelligence reports even if no phone conversations, email or other communications involving those officials were actually intercepted by U.S. intelligence.

Foreign officials under surveillance might have mentioned the names of Trump aides or claimed to have had conversations with them. A claim of that sort might have been considered important enough to be included in an intelligence report, a former intelligence official said.

Senior intelligence officials can decide to include names or other identifying information of Americans in classified foreign intelligence reports if they believe that doing so is important for understanding the intelligence, or if it shows clear evidence of a potential crime.

This process, known as unmasking, could have happened with the Trump transition team. It’s unclear whether any names of Trump transition officials were unmasked in the documents Nunes referred to or whether their identities were masked, but obvious from how they were described.
 
one of the strangest turns in the story of Russia and the Trump campaign has been the recent outrage from Democrats over politicization of the investigation.

This all centers on Chairman Devin Nunes, the Republican who is leading the House Intelligence Committee's investigation. He was an adviser to the Trump presidential transition. The White House asked him last month to talk to a reporter to rebut news stories that alleged Trump associates had many contacts with Russian intelligence officers. On Wednesday, Nunes briefed the president about new information he had regarding dozens of widely disseminated intelligence reports on the Trump transition. He did this before he briefed his committee's Democrats.

All of this has prompted an outbreak of high dudgeon from the party of Clinton. Representative Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the committee, says Nunes must choose whether he wants to lead a credible investigation or be a surrogate of the Trump White House. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says Nunes is a "stooge."

Nunes on Thursday gave a half apology for all of this to the minority members of his committee. He told me: "The bottom line is I know it hurt some people's feelings, but I had a judgment call to make and I did what I felt was right. The commitment remains to keep the committee bipartisan." He added, "I appreciate their concerns, but I had to do what I had to do." Translation: The chairman loves your passion, Democrats.

So why would Nunes brief President Donald Trump before Schiff? The answer is that the entire Russia-Trump investigation by Congress from the beginning has been a partisan fight. Leaks about who may be a target of the probe, press conferences on "what we know so far," pushback from the White House and other Republicans -- it's all evidence that the Trump-Russia probe is a political football.

So both parties have tried to spin the investigation for partisan advantage. Take the latest from Schiff. He told MSNBC on Wednesday that there is now "more than circumstantial evidence" of collusion between Russia and Trump associates, whatever that means. If this investigation was really about finding the facts wherever they lead, then what purpose does it serve to offer such a judgment in an inquiry that is likely to twist and turn if it follows the pattern of past counter-intelligence probes? Investigators have an interest in closely guarding their findings until they are ready to present their conclusion. To be sure, Nunes in this respect is no better. He has assured the press that there is zero evidence of collusion at this point, which places him ahead of his own probe.

In reality neither the House nor the Senate committee is equipped to find out what really happened. They don't have the staff or expertise to hunt for spies or monitor the communications of suspected collaborators with Russia. The FBI and the intelligence community are in such a position. The job of the House and Senate panels is to perform oversight of the intelligence community that is doing the investigation.

In this respect, Nunes is doing his job. There has been a longstanding concern that communications picked up incidentally of U.S. citizens can be shared widely within the national security state, effectively short circuiting the strict rules for obtaining a wiretap from a court. The intelligence community is supposed to expunge the identities and identifying traits of U.S. citizens if not pertinent for foreign intelligence collection. But the track record is mixed.

Nunes and Schiff worked closely on this issue last year following an explosive Wall Street Journal story about how the identities of members of Congress and Jewish organizations were not properly masked in taps on the communications of the Israeli prime minister and his top aides. The two of them worked out a new protocol that would inform the chairman and ranking members as well as other congressional leaders when such incidental collection was picked up.

Something like this appears to have happened with regard to Trump advisers after the election and before Trump's inauguration. As Nunes told reporters Wednesday, the collection of the information appears to be legal. Dozens of reports were generated, including details of communications about and between Trump transition officials, and they were widely disseminated inside the intelligence community. Nunes said none of these intelligence reports were about Russia.

That in and of itself is not necessarily a scandal. As Tim Edgar, who served in President Barack Obama's first term as director of privacy and civil liberties at the White House, told me, the names of U.S. persons can sometimes appropriately be unmasked. "If he is saying there was a bunch of information overheard in intelligence reports and it wasn't necessary for their names to be included for foreign intelligence purposes, that is a violation of intelligence oversight rules designed to protect the constitutional rights of Americans," he said. "That is the purpose of the House Intelligence Committee."

How this story will turn out depends on what the FBI eventually digs up on Trump and Russia. It could be that there was a very good reason to distribute intelligence picked up by government eavesdroppers about the Trump transition team, if it turns out there was real coordination between Trump's associates and Russia on interfering in the election. What other ties exist?

But it's also possible that all of this is just smoke and no fire, to borrow the phrase of former acting CIA director and Hillary Clinton campaign surrogate Michael Morell. In that case, it's very troubling that Obama's intelligence bureaucracy appears to have been distributing intelligence reports about his successor's team. We won't know unless Democrats and Republicans follow those facts wherever they lead.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/arti...fense-of-devin-nunes-s-intelligence-oversight
 
Darth Omar said:
Trump, as usual lol, misstated the facts. But whether there was an actual literal wiretap actually literally directly ordered by Obama was made irrelevant by Nunes.

Comey didn't lie, because no one literally directly ordered anyone to wiretap or order surveillance on Trump or his campaign.

But Comey can still be an insidious kind of liar.
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But...again....its not the intercepted messages and their legality....its the breach of the 4th amendment concerning search and seizure, even the president is protected under the constitution as there is no evidence of probable cause in the release of those intercepted messages into the public domain. A crime that carries a prison sentence. Therefore no investigation is complete until the source of the leaks is discovered, and punished under the RULE of LAW. This is a serious matter....everyone Obama appointed with access to this classified information should be subject to subpoena and punished to the full extinct of the law when proven to be guilty of using US law enforcement agencies as political tools.
 
So, turns out that Nunes had a whole lot of nuthin'.

And he only came out w/ that nuthin' because Trump was taking a lot of "heat."

I guess Trump isn't "right" anymore, eh righties? Bad week.
 
Thing1 said:
So, turns out that Nunes had a whole lot of nuthin'.

And he only came out w/ that nuthin' because Trump was taking a lot of "heat."

I guess Trump isn't "right" anymore, eh righties? Bad week.
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incorrect. He has to have the documents to know for sure, but there were a LOT of unmasked reports generated
for simple "incidental collection"
I think that's why Comey is being called in -to explain why this non-Russian investigation is being investigated. :rolleyes:

Don't forget the widely disseminated unmasked reports generated and leaked by the IC -again not having to do with Russia
 
Thing1 said:
So, turns out that Nunes had a whole lot of nuthin'.

And he only came out w/ that nuthin' because Trump was taking a lot of "heat."

I guess Trump isn't "right" anymore, eh righties? Bad week.
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You ever find any actual evidence of a Trump-Russian collusion lol?
 
anatta said:
incorrect. He has to have the documents to know for sure, but there were a LOT of unmasked reports generated
for simple "incidental collection"
I think that's why Comey is being called in -to explain why this non-Russian investigation is being investigated. :rolleyes:

Don't forget the widely disseminated unmasked reports generated and leaked by the IC -again not having to do with Russia
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Did you hear him earlier?

Whole lotta nuthin'. But you guys clung to it, because it was the only life preserver in sight.

And the idea that he came out like he did because Trump was taking a lot of "heat" is unreal. One can only imagine if a Democrat was leading an investigation on Obama a few years back, and said something like that.
 
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