On Saturday, March 4, Donald Trump tweeted from his personal Twitter account that the Obama Administration had authorized intelligence agencies to wiretap Trump Tower before the election. Two days later, FBI Director James Comey has asked the Department of Justice to ignore Trump’s accusation.
Comey is parroting the mainstream media, which is proclaiming that Trump is unhinged, that he has no evidence, and that he has broken presidential norms.
It’s important to keep in mind that the President did not tweet the accusation from his POTUS account, but from his personal account- meaning that he is expressing an opinion as a private citizen.
Also, the media has been reporting openly on information obtained using wiretaps of Trump’s campaign team for over six months. The New York Times, as recently as January, reported that information had been secretly obtained using electronic means from the Trump team in pursuit of evidence of Russian dealings.
It is a matter of public record that the FBI sought two FISA Court warrants to wiretap Trump Tower, one of which was approved in October. The second FISA request was based on information that could only be obtained illegally by wiretapping and was sought to obtain even broader snooping powers.
With all this on the public record, it is blatantly deceptive for the media and Trump’s political opponents- including Comey- to say that Trump’s claim is baseless.
Based on mainstream reporting alone, Donald Trump has plenty of reason to believe that he has been wiretapped and that Obama permitted it to go on. But Trump says he has more than just the reports in the NYT, the Guardian, and other liberal mainstream outlets. He says he has anonymous sources, who confirmed to him in confidence that his home was hacked by five US intelligence agencies before the completion of the election.
The media and opponents have gone on the attack, saying Trump must reveal his sources, or he has no evidence. But this falls flat in the face of the recent Russian hacking accusations, all of which were based on anonymous sources within the CIA who- we were told- had to be protected.
This controversy has been called “Deep State Gate” by Breitbart, the conservative British news outlet which Trump has said first set off his suspicions.
It is a name that contains a term which many Americans may find incredible- the existence of the Deep State. The Deep State is something that Washington Insiders and whistleblowers have been warning us about for a long time.
But only now, when the surveillance state appears to have been caught spying on a presidential candidate, does it begin to become a household name. Interestingly, American main stream media outlets who lend any credence to the controversy are calling it, ‘Towergate,’ placing the focus on Trump Tower, rather than where it belongs, on the surveillance state.
The Deep State is any and all unelected individuals working in or around government, who wield power over the laws and can affect the lives of the public, access public money, start rumors, bribe or otherwise influence elected officials- essentially steering the ship of state while bypassing the democratic process and doing so in secret.
It may include anyone who has ties to government officials, those who may have bribed an elected representative of the people, military or intel officers working in secret projects, or foreign powers who have paid for influence within the US political system.
Now that the mere idea of the Deep State is becoming a part of the broader conversation, those who would work in secret against the will of the people have a new problem.
On March 7, 2017, WikiLeaks released a massive document called Vault 7. This document which contains thousands of files describing complex systems by which the CIA can hack into smartphones, computers, and any device regulated by electronics which can connect to the web. This document lays out in plain detail many of the ways intelligence agencies are able to spy on Americans.
Vault 7 contains over 7000 pages and is only part one of the total leak. This release has been planned for some time now, but it is believed that it has been released early as a response to the main stream media, pundits, politicians, and intel agencies denying Trump’s wiretapping accusation.
Vault 7, it is hoped, will reveal exactly why James Comey has tried to put the DoJ off investigating Trump’s claims, how far the spying has gone already, and how far it may go in the future if the intelligence agencies are not reigned in.
~ Liberty Planet