There is another inspector general report coming out, folks. And it should make Team Obama very nervous because there could be some bad, bad things in it concerning their spying activities during the 2016 election. That’s is related to the alleged FISA abuses that occurred during the election. But then, there’s Spygate—remember that? It’s the case where the FBI allegedly had tried to use an informant to spy on four reported Trump officials, Michael Flynn, Carter Page, Sam Clovis, and George Papadopoulos. Of course, the liberal media wouldn’t call this spying, though some reporters had to admit, on face value, the whole probe looked politically motivated. It was all based on this Russian collusion myth, though you don’t dare call it spying. It was the typical ‘they weren’t spying, but also…they were spying’ linguistic gymnastics that were deployed. So, was spying going on and did the Obama White House know about it? If this was going on, of course, Barry knew. And it seems voters agree with this position as well (via Rasmussen):
Most voters now suspect President Obama or his top people knew that intelligence agencies were spying on the Trump campaign, but they don’t expect anyone to be punished for breaking the law.
Thirty-six percent (36%) say it’s unlikely Obama or his top aides were aware of the spying, with 18% who say it’s Not At All Likely.
[…]
The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on April 14-15, 2019 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.
Oh, and of course, the media is very, very defensive about the alleged source the FBI tried to use for said spy operation: Stefan Halper. Yet, Intercept editor Glenn Greenwald noted that the mainstream media had left so many obvious breadcrumbs that they might as well have just blurted out his name. The Daily Caller put a name to the face months before everyone one else followed suit. All of this could have been put together through public sources, and it was (via NYT 5/18):
Puh-lease. Facts:
— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) May 21, 2018
DOJ/FBI blew their source, by leaking every detail to friendly media to spin. NYT and WaPo stories cite "gov" sources--not Congress. And Daily Caller had that name out months ago, before news of spying.
https://t.co/amtIzZpgVc
President Trump accused the F.B.I. on Friday, without evidence, of sending a spy to secretly infiltrate his 2016 campaign “for political purposes” even before the bureau had any inkling of the “phony Russia hoax.”
In fact, F.B.I. agents sent an informant to talk to two campaign advisers only after they received evidence that the pair had suspicious contacts linked to Russia during the campaign. The informant, an American academic who teaches in Britain, made contact late that summer with one campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, according to people familiar with the matter. He also met repeatedly in the ensuing months with the other aide, Carter Page, who was also under F.B.I. scrutiny for his ties to Russia.
[…]
F.B.I. agents were seeking more details about what Mr. Papadopoulos knew about the hacked Democratic emails, and one month after their Russia investigation began, Mr. Papadopoulos received a curious message. The academic inquired about his interest in writing a research paper on a disputed gas field in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, a subject of Mr. Papadopoulos’s expertise.
The informant offered a $3,000 honorarium for the paper and a paid trip to London, where the two could meet and discuss the research project.
“I understand that this is rather sudden but thought that given your expertise it might be of interest to you,” the informant wrote in a message to Mr. Papadopoulos, sent on Sept. 2, 2016.
Mr. Papadopoulos accepted the offer and arrived in London two weeks later, where he met for several days with the academic and one of his assistants, a young woman.
Over drinks and dinner one evening at a high-end London hotel, the F.B.I. informant raised the subject of the hacked Democratic National Committee emails that had spilled into public view earlier that summer, according to a person familiar with the conversation. The source noted how helpful they had been to the Trump campaign, and asked Mr. Papadopoulos whether he knew anything about Russian attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election.
It’s not spying, it’s just someone trying to allegedly infiltrate a campaign under false pretenses and gather information, covertly, for the FBI. We’re going to play this game again soon. But first things first, the report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation will be released Thursday morning. This is the official report, all 400 or so pages of it. And once again the Democrats are going to eat it on the collusion myth.