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President Trump has accused former President Obama of... something:
In a string of tweets posted early Saturday morning, President Trump let loose a barrage of accusations at his predecessor. He alleged that former President Obama had his "wires tapped" in Trump Tower before Election Day last year, accusing Obama of "McCarthyism" and being a "bad (or sick) guy."
Trump, who is under significant scrutiny for his administration's contacts with Russia before he took office, offered no evidence to support his claims Saturday morning. Neither the White House nor Obama's office has responded immediately to NPR's requests for comment.
[...] Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017Is it legal for a sitting President to be "wire tapping" a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017I'd bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017
Also at WaPo, NYT, Reuters, Fox News, BBC, and Snopes, which hints that it may be related to this story.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday March 05 2017, @08:39AM (33 children)
When I got a bad school report card and I wanted to turn my parents' attention away from it, I'd make up an outrageous story and make a lot of noise about it.
Well, same thing. Mr. Trump clearly has something to hide.
However, my parent didn't really buy my BS and didn't forget to ask me about my school results. The US populace though... when all this wiretapping hullaballoo blows over, I'm not too sure.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 05 2017, @08:54AM (16 children)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Sunday March 05 2017, @09:17AM (15 children)
It worth noting that is the burden of the party who made the allegation to produce the proof the alleged wiretapping actually took place.**
If the allegation is false, the justifications for the wiretapping will be... umm... "obscured" by the very non-existence of the alleged fact. And will remain forever so, any attempt to "bring them to light" will be a simple exercise of delusion (or fiction literature)
---
** or... am I out of today's-post-truth-world order for holding such heretic thoughts?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @10:12AM (7 children)
The lack of evidence is damning proof there's a consipiricy between the FBI, the ex-President, the Justice Dept and the intelligence services. It's going to take a LOT draining to clean up this swamp. We can only hope and pray Trump will remain strong enough to save us. Amen.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday March 05 2017, @10:24AM (6 children)
Ah, you've got me cornered, I can't answer to that.
This is why I'm scared shitless. [soylentnews.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 3, Funny) by khallow on Sunday March 05 2017, @01:55PM (5 children)
This is why I'm scared shitless.
Trump improves digestion! Is there anything he can't do?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @04:13PM
My digestion is just fine, thank you. I don't need or want any help.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @08:04PM
Yes. He doesn't seem to be able act coherent and rational.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Sunday March 05 2017, @10:32PM (1 child)
Trump improves digestion! Is there anything he can't do?
Trump knows digestion! That's how he can improve it! You can say he is digestion...
(Score: 1) by Demena on Monday March 06 2017, @12:57AM
Or the product of it.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday March 06 2017, @05:51PM
Is there anything he can't do?
Nominate a cabinet. [marketwatch.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 05 2017, @01:53PM (3 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @07:17PM (2 children)
An obvious point here is that absence of evidence would be grounds for a politically humiliating libel suit by Obama.
He must be waiting for Trump to deliver on his promise to open up those federal libel laws.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 06 2017, @12:26AM (1 child)
He must be waiting for Trump to deliver on his promise to open up those federal libel laws.
Sure, he is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @10:05AM
You make a post like that and nobody can tell WTF you mean.
Are you joking around because you know that Trump made that idiotic promise?
Or are you denying that Trump made that promise?
Frankly I think its the later because you are so damn ignorant of what trump has done and said and so confident in your ignorance.
But maybe I'm wrong, maybe you are a funny guy.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/02/donald-trump-libel-laws-219866 [politico.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Whoever on Sunday March 05 2017, @04:48PM (2 children)
It's worth noting that the government lawyers have made this argument many times, while withholding the proof, in order to deny people their constitutional rights.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @05:41PM
Its also worth pointing out that Trump is the government.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday March 06 2017, @05:56PM
It's worth noting that the government lawyers have made this argument many times, while withholding the proof, in order to deny people their constitutional rights.
Man, of only the President of the United States had some sort of authority over the Executive Branch he might be able to see that proof. Too bad, huh?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @11:45AM (4 children)
That's what Trump wants to hide, god damn traitor.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @03:38PM (3 children)
Here is a 30 second clip of Paul Manafort (Trump's campaign manager at the time) totally blowing it when asked if Trump has financial connections to russia. [youtube.com]
Even before the election there was a lot of evidence that Trump was bailed out of bankruptcy by dirty russian money which he laundered for them:
The shadowy Russian émigré touting Trump [ft.com]
— US election raises ghosts of cold war-era spy games
Dirty money: Trump and the Kazakh connection [ft.com]
— FT probe finds evidence a Trump venture has links to alleged laundering network
US election: Trump’s Russian riddle [ft.com]
— The Republican nominee became the face of Bayrock, a developer with roots in the Soviet Union
Former Mafia-linked figure describes association with Trump [washingtonpost.com]
The Curious World of Donald Trump’s Private Russian Connections [the-american-interest.com]
— Did the American people really know they were putting such a “well-connected” guy in the White House?
In 2008, Trump's son said this: [washingtonpost.com]
“Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia”
More recently:
Wilbur Ross Comes to D.C. With an Unexamined History of Russian Connections [dcreport.org]
— Trump’s Choice for Commerce Secretary Holds a Top Post With a Mysterious, Russian-Controlled Cyprus Bank
TLDR version [thedailybeast.com]
———————————————————
Putin's goal [vox.com] has been to weaken the US, NATO and EU because they are all challenges to his vision of Russia (US as an example of democracy versus his autocracy, NATO as a military threat to Russian dominance in eastern Europe and the EU as an example of successful free markets versus oligarch dominance right next door).
He also blamed Clinton for perceived meddling in his election. [politico.com]
If you want this AC's opinion - Putin made a deal with Trump, he would wipe clean his debts to russia in exchange for two things:
Neither Putin nor Trump expected to actually win. Trump was happy to take the free money to run what he thought would be the greatest PR campaign for his personal brand ever. And because neither side actually expected he would win they were kind of sloppy about covering their tracks because nobody investigates you for losing an election.
So when he did win, Trump's team freaked out. And that's why Flynn and Sessions and Trump himself keep lying about there being absolutely no contacts with Russia. Its the "deny everything" approach even when denying some utterly normal contacts with russia because its really hard to tell a self-consistent complex lie, so people just default to denying everything. Sessions testimony during the senate confirmation was really weird [90 second video]. [youtube.com] Franken asks him "What would you do if some on Trump's team did have connections to russia? " and Sessions responds with "I have no connections to Russia" - it sounds like he knew about others with russia connections and wanted to isolate himself from them. But the really damning thing is that in the standard written follow-up to a confirmation testimony he had the opportunity to clarify and did not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @04:16PM (2 children)
Looked quickly at your links and you seem to have missed this one which I found by following the SN link at the end of OP to
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/10 [slate.com] /was_a_server_registered_to_the_trump_organization_communicating_with_russia.html
This is the "Alfa Bank" story.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @04:32PM (1 child)
I left that one out because its much less solid, as the follow-up by the same reporter indicates. [slate.com]
I think it is important to note in these days of the media being accused of being misleading, it was the same reporter who gathered together and summarized all the criticisms of his original reporting and that follow-up article was linked at the head of the original article for anyone stumbling across it. That's what journalistic standards in action look like.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @03:24AM
Perhaps a little "less solid", but the author ends by basically standing by his initial story. The trail must be pretty stale by now...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Sunday March 05 2017, @03:12PM (10 children)
When you think about Trump and his history, what he has to hide is actually not that hard to figure out. And it's only tangentially about Russia, and not at all about Putin.
What he is hiding is that he's beyond broke. Indeed, I suspect his personal finances are effectively a Ponzi scheme, that is he pays off his loans by taking out other loans, and if any of his creditors knew this for certain his entire lifestyle would collapse. The equivalent idea for ordinary schlubs like me or you would be maxing out credit cards and solving your problem by paying off the balance with your other credit cards in the hopes that nobody notices the overall trend.
The foreign involvement in all this is pretty simple: The banks in New York figured out that Trump was a terrible lending risk and refused to lend to him (not surprising, given all his bankruptcies). Trump solved that problem by borrowing from foreign banks who hadn't figured him out yet when he took out the loans. The foreign banks, wanting to get their ROI, then would have wanted Trump to win the presidency figuring that in a reasonably corrupt country Trump could figure out a way to pay off his debts using the public treasury. Which means it's quite possible that those banks funded efforts to help him / hurt his opponent without Trump knowing about it, solely because they want their money back.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @03:48PM
Yup, that sounds more mundane and reasonable. And Russia has him blackmailed over a barrel...
All hail the conman in chief!
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Sunday March 05 2017, @04:53PM (1 child)
How can this be? I mean, he is such a great businessman, he told me so, and he was the boss on "The Apprentice"!!!
It's interesting that, in the UK, the boss on "The Apprentice" is someone who has a legitimate claim to be a great businessman: he started with very little, yet has made himself very wealthy.
But, more seriously, I have always suspected that the reason he has not disclosed his taxes is that it would reveal that he is not as wealthy as he portrays himself to be.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday March 05 2017, @06:19PM
I will never forget the great laugh I had when shortly after the bottom fell out of the junk bond market I walked past a book store and saw a stack of "The Art of the Deal" out front marked 75% off.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 05 2017, @05:10PM (5 children)
The first read, your post sounds akin to the progressive butthurt posts. But, the second read, it does make more sense. I have no idea how much Trump is really worth. But, we do know that Trump can win and lose mountains of money in a short period of time.
Yeah, if he is broke, and the banks in Russia have figured that out, then your scenario would make sense. Bankers do tend to cover their own asses.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @05:44PM (3 children)
Didja here that thexalon?
Runaway has determined that you are not butthurt!
That's a great honor, a yuge, yuge honor!
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 05 2017, @07:00PM (2 children)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxGgnI6kCrs [youtube.com]
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @07:14PM (1 child)
Do you think *anyone* is going to bother clicking on that?
Your narcissism is boundless.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @08:01AM
When Runaway1956 posts a youtube url, I never click on it, because I am not at all interested in animal husbandry and crimes against nature. I am quite sure the Mr. Runaway is happy that Trump is President, and no doubt like many has presumed that many things once verboten are now quite kosher, like carnal knowledge of domestic livestock. But this is only a residuum of the South. Thank Goodness Abe Lincoln was a Vampire Slayer.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Sunday March 05 2017, @10:31PM
It also leads to a conclusion I think we might be able to agree on: Citizens should watch what happens to government money as closely as possible, because it probably isn't going where you think.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @07:13PM
Isn't this exactly what people have been saying the US gov has been doing?