Fox Forced to Fix Fake News

Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano is being kept off the air indefinitely amid the controversy over his unverified claims that British intelligence wiretapped Trump Tower at the behest of former President Obama.

[...]

The former New Jersey Superior Court Judge, citing unnamed sources, said that the British foreign surveillance agency, the Government Communications Headquarters, “most likely” provided Obama with transcripts of Trump’s recorded calls.

“By bypassing all American intelligence services, Obama would have had access to what he wanted with no Obama administration fingerprints,” Napolitano wrote in a column on FoxNews.com.

[...]

White House press secretary Sean Spicer cited Napolitano’s charge last week when asked why President Trump continues to stand by his initial claim.

[...]

[A sharp] rebuttal [by the British spy agency] did not stop President Trump from citing Napolitano as a source again when he was asked about the wiretapping claims at a Friday news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“You shouldn’t be talking to me; you should be talking to Fox News,” said Trump, who described Napolitano as “a very talented lawyer.”

[...]

Napolitano said on one program that "Fox News has spoken to intelligence community members who believe that surveillance did occur, that it was done by British intelligence.”

Fox News, however, did no such thing, forcing its anchors to walk back Napolitano’s statement.

[...]

People familiar with the situation who could speak only on the condition of anonymity said Napolitano is not expected to be on Fox News Channel any time in the near future. Napolitano was not available for comment.

  La Times

I bet.

Still Spicey

The claim that GCHQ helped former president Barack Obama wiretap Trump during the 2016 election drew a rare denial by British intelligence officials after the White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, repeated it on Thursday.

Spicer quoted a claim by the Fox News analyst Andrew Napolitano that three intelligence sources confirmed to him that the Obama administration used GCHQ to spy on Trump so there would be “no American fingerprints on this”.

[...]

[O]n Friday, the prime minister’s spokesman said the White House had told the British ambassador and the UK’s national security adviser that Spicer had been instructed not to repeat them.

  Guardian

The White House cannot speak. Who in the White House said that?

“We’ve received assurances these allegations won’t be repeated.

“We have a close relationship which allows us to raise concerns when they arise, as was true in this case. This shows the administration doesn’t give the allegations any credence.”

Except for the small detail that the White House Press Secretary quoted them at a press conference.

Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former chair of parliament’s intelligence and security committee, demanded the White House withdraw the allegations and not merely say they would not be repeated. He said Spicer never had evidence for the allegations and made them only because he was desperate to justify Trump’s claim.

He told BBC radio: “That’s just foolish and very dangerous stuff and President Trump better get a grip not only on his own press officer but on the kind of encouragement being given in the White House that makes a press officer make these stupid allegations in the first place.

“You don’t just quote from a Fox News report if you are the president’s official spokesman unless you have taken the trouble to find out if that report is justified.”

If the President himself can tweet Fox News reports, then surely his official spokesman can repeat them.

Now we're pissing off Britain. Anybody left?

The prime minister’s spokesman said: “I would add, just as a matter of fact, with the Five Eyes pact, we cannot use each other’s capabilities to circumvent laws. It’s a situation that simply wouldn’t arise.”

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. That's a good one, dude.

UPDATE 3/18:  Apparently an apology was made.

The subsequent apology reportedly came from both Spicer and the U.S. government. This is obviously embarrassing not just for Spicer but the country as a whole. It reveals a continued free-lancing and improvisational character of Administration officials in their public comments. That is particularly serious when it involves the White House spokesman who is supposed to maintain a coherent and well-supported position for the Administration.

The Administration cannot simply careen in this fashion from controversy to controversy.

  Jonathan Turley

Wanna bet?

Regarding T-Rump's Tweet About Being Wiretapped by Obama

March 6

Q Is the President going to clarify what he meant when he accused President Obama and White House officials of doing wiretaps? Is that what he meant, or did he mean that he thinks there were wiretaps that the FBI authorized? And does he want to kind of, like, amend his previous statement?

MR. SPICER: I think the statement that we issued yesterday where -- President Donald J. Trump is requesting as part of the investigation of Russian activity that congressional intelligence committees exercise their oversight authority to determine whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016. Neither the White House nor the President will comment further until such oversight is continued.  [ed: emphasis mine]

  Whitehouse.gov

March 15

President Trump discussed his tweeted accusation that President Obama ordered "wires" at Trump Tower tapped during last year's presidential campaign in an exclusive interview with Fox News' "Tucker Carlson Tonight" Wednesday.

Trump told host Tucker Carlson that the administration "will be submitting things" to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence "very soon." The president added that he "will be, perhaps speaking about this next week" and predicted that "you’re going to find some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next 2 weeks."

  Fox

Here's a partial transcript from Bradd Jaffy:

What does that mean? He doesn't "want to do anything that's going to violate any strength of the agencies." What does that mean? "We have enough problems." SO...he doesn't want to bother them with this? It must not be "a very serious situation." Not even "potentially" if he doesn't want to bother the proper agencies with it.

Oh, and since we were wondering...

When Carlson asked whether any of the president's tweets were moderated by his staff, Trump responded, "Sure ... A lot of times, my staff comes to me and they say, 'Can you do a tweet on this or that because it's not being shown correctly.'"

  Fox

Does he know what the word "moderate" means?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Spicer Statement on T-Rump Twit

In other words, he's stirred up the crazies, and that's all he wanted to do.

Over-under on whether or not the President will comment further?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Misunderstanding T-Rump

IF IN FACT Trump Tower was wiretapped during the 2016 presidential campaign, as President Trump claimed in several tweets Saturday morning, he can do much more than say so on twitter: Presidents have the power to declassify anything at any time, so Trump could immediately make public any government records of such surveillance.

  The Intercept

This is not the point. He doesn't have any proof or anything like it. He's just spreading rumor to ramp up his base and deflect the shit that he swims in. His mode of operation is to stoke fires and spread lies. I think that may be written in one of his books, if not in so many words.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Response to T-Rump's Claim Obama Tapped His Phone

Obama's former deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, used Twitter to challenge Trump's claims.

"No president can order a wiretap," Rhodes, who continues to serve as a foreign-policy adviser to Obama post-presidency, said in one tweet. "Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you."

  ABC

Ouch!

In response to Trump's suggestion that a good lawyer could make the case that Obama tapped his phones, Rhodes tweeted, "No. They couldn't. Only a liar could do that."

[...]

A spokesman for former President Obama issued a strong denial to President Trump's unsubstantiated accusation that the former commander-in-chief wiretapped Trump Tower phones during the election campaign.

"A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice," Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis said in a statement Saturday. "As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false."

Lindsay Graham says he's going to "get to the bottom of this."

UPDATE 3/5/17:

The Guardian‘s report alleges that initial applications submitted over the summer, naming “four members of the Trump team suspected of irregular contacts with Russian officials,” were rejected by the FISC. But according to the BBC, a narrower order naming only the Russian banks as direct targets was ultimately approved by the FISC in October. While the BBC report suggests that the surveillance was meant to ferret out “transfers of money,” the Mensch article asserts that a “warrant was granted to look at the full content of emails and other related documents that may concern US persons.”

[...]

It’s worth noting here that, contra Trump’s claim on Twitter, none of the articles in question claim that phones were tapped. Indeed, it’s not even entirely clear that the order the FISC finally issued in October was a full-blown electronic surveillance warrant requiring a probable cause showing. If the FBI was primarily interested in obtaining financial transaction records, corporate documents, and (depending on both the facts and the FISC’s interpretation of the FISA statute) perhaps even some stored e-mail communications, that information might well have been obtainable pursuant to a §215 “business records” order, which imposes only the much weaker requirement that the records sought be “relevant to an authorized investigation.”

[...]

Thanks to the Patriot Act, however, FISA authorities may be used in investigations that have a “significant” foreign intelligence purpose, even if the “primary” purpose is criminal prosecution—a change from the prior standard imposed by the courts, which had required that foreign intelligence be the “primary” purpose of surveillance under the aegis of FISA, precisely to prevent authorities from evading the stricter requirements imposed by Title III, the statute that covers wiretapping for domestic criminal investigations.

[...]

[T]here’s nothing here to suggest either the direct involvement of President Obama nor any clear indication of a violation of the law.

[...]

Neither is there any evidence that authorization was sought to collect on “the Trump campaign” per se.

[...]

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.

  Just Security

And now the Rooster himself has the top government position.

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.

Yeah, that's not gonna happen.

Oh Holy Shit

via GIPHY

Actually, no. That's not McCarthyism. That's fucked up. But if true, it probably wasn't illegal. Which is how we in America, including your Royal Roosterness, rationalize our morals.



Gee, I don't know. Turned down earlier? How about later, when the court was told you were in cahoots with the Russians? When the FBI, CIA and NSA were monitoring possible hacking and collusion? Was it turned down then?



I'm sure you have a good lawyer. Go for it.



Well, that would be closer than McCarthyism.

"Very sacred election process." The one you weren't prepared to accept if you lost.

Haha. If he's talking about his tweet, then yes, perhaps he had the right label after all.

I'm waiting for him to provide the evidence.  Either that, or he will come back and say that's what he heard.

And where would he have heard it?  Why, über right Breitbart, of course.

Radio host Mark Levin used his Thursday evening show to outline the known steps taken by President Barack Obama’s administration in its last months to undermine Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and, later, his new administration.

Levin called Obama’s effort “police state” tactics, and suggested that Obama’s actions, rather than conspiracy theories about alleged Russian interference in the presidential election to help Trump, should be the target of congressional investigation.

Drawing on sources including the New York Times and the Washington Post, Levin described the case against Obama so far, based on what is already publicly known.

[...]

In summary: the Obama administration sought, and eventually obtained, authorization to eavesdrop on the Trump campaign; continued monitoring the Trump team even when no evidence of wrongdoing was found; then relaxed the NSA rules to allow evidence to be shared widely within the government, virtually ensuring that the information, including the conversations of private citizens, would be leaked to the media.

Levin called the effort a “silent coup” by the Obama administration and demanded that it be investigated.

  Breitbart

I've got news for you. Anybody who's anybody is being spied on by the NSA, the FBI and/or the CIA. It didn't begin with Obama, and it didn't end with him, either.

And how much he hates Barack Obama.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  There has been a response.