Tag Archives: Trump Tower

By all means, let’s investigate this wiretap malarkey

I just answered “yes” to one of those “online polls” posted on MSN.com’s home page.

The question was this: Should there be an investigation of Trump’s allegation of wiretapping by the Obama administration?

Why “yes”? Why endorse the idea of a probe?

It’s simple. I don’t believe for an instant, a nanosecond, that President Obama was in any way responsible for any kind of wiretap of Trump Tower. I believe that Donald J. Trump made it up. He fabricated an allegation to divert attention from other matters plaguing his administration.

This is the president’s modus operandi, as he’s demonstrated time and again since announcing his candidacy in the summer of 2015. The heat gets too warm under his backside, he fires off a tweet making an outrageous declaration.

He did so again this past weekend with that ridiculous tweet accusing President Obama — with zero evidence — of “ordering” a wiretap, which of course he cannot do legally. Someone, according to Trump, tapped his Trump Tower offices looking for evidence that his campaign had inappropriate or illegal contact with the Russian government, which intelligence authorities have concluded sought to influence the 2016 election, to help Trump get elected.

I realize a congressional investigation — which Trump is seeking — would be costly. I also realize it would divert members of Congress from the myriad other tasks that await them, and for which the public already is paying them good money to address.

You know, things like the budget, national defense, public education — not to mention the many individual concerns that can be found that are unique to each of 435 congressional districts and in each of the 50 states.

If such a probe is done in a bipartisan manner, then I truly believe it would expose Trump to be the fraudulent, petulant liar many millions of us believe him to be.

Not that it would dampen Trumpkins’ enthusiasm for their guy.

Just get it on the record.

Trump is about to get an earful from U.S. spooks

My fondest wish at this very moment is to be a fly on the wall at the Trump Tower office where the president-elect of the United States is going to hear from the intelligence he has disparaged about what they know about Russian efforts to hack into our electoral process.

Donald Trump is playing host Friday to the director of national intelligence, the Defense Intelligence Agency director, the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency. They’re going to tell them what they know about Russian efforts to influence the presidential election we just endured.

Will the president-elect disparage these intelligence professionals to their faces? Will he tell them they don’t know what they’re talking about? Will he stand by the assertions of the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, who’s been hiding in a foreign embassy to avoid prosecution on criminal charges?

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/six-big-take-aways-from-the-extraordinary-congressional-hearing-on-russian-hacking/ar-BBxWytL?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

DNI Jim Clapper said there’s a line between honest skepticism and “disparagement.” Indeed, Trump has disparaged the intelligence community’s ability to do its job, which is to provide national security information that presidents need to protect Americans from foreign adversaries.

Clapper was one of the intelligence honchos who spoke today to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee about the Russian hacking story. It was an amazing hearing. It produced pointed questions about the doubts that Trump has cast on the intelligence community. It also produced amazing answers from the intelligence pros about whether they would believe Julian Assange’s assertions dismissing Russian involvement in these hacking efforts.

The hearing today was a preliminary event, a setup for the main event set for Friday at Trump Tower.

I need serious help as I seek to turn into that fly on the wall. Oh, to listen to what the spooks tell Trump the evidence they have about Russian hackers.