US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7044

On March 05 2017 09:01 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Isn't Trump the one who is outraged wrt the wiretaps? I mean yeah, people think it's dumb how he compares it to watergate, and even dumber how he follows up uncovering the watergate 2 by tweeting about the apprentice, but I'm mostly just seeing 'what the hell kinda nonsense is he babbling about this time', not 'outrage' - except from by Trump himself.

Canada is enforcing its border laws and is willing to put more resources in place to deal with the influx of asylum-seekers from the US, federal public safety minister Ralph Goodale said Saturday.

Goodale visited Emerson, Manitoba, a small town on the US border north of Minnesota and North Dakota that has seen some 200 illicit crossings so far this year.

The number of such border-crossings has jumped in recent months, following the Trump administration’s plans to limit immigration and step up deportations. The Manitoba government has said the influx has created more demand for housing and other support services.

Migrants have been crossing through fields and ditches because, under the Canada-United States Safe Third Country Agreement, they are turned back at official border crossings if they have already made refugee claims in the US.

If they get on to Canadian soil before being apprehended, they are allowed to stay in Canada and go through the normal refugee-claim process.

“We all need to work together,” Goodale told reporters on Saturday. “We have to have good communication with one another. This is a set of issues that span national, provincial and local responsibilities.”

Goodale announced funding of $22,000 (CA$30,000) to cover extra costs borne by Emerson-Franklin’s volunteer fire department and other agencies in the community, saying more resources will become available.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canada Border Services Agency have shifted some resources in southern Manitoba to the Emerson area. The border services agency recently set up a trailer to help process the border-crossers.

Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel has called on the Canadian government to ensure migrants who sneak across the border are charged with crossing illegally, but Goodale said such migrants cannot be charged if they make a refugee claim, at least until the claim is dealt with.

“Charges in relation to the crossing of the border cannot be laid until after the case of the particular individual under immigration rules has been finally disposed of,” Goodale said.

He also said the government was examining requests for more aid from refugee support agencies, but did not provide specifics.

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.

What Trump is saying seems to be a garbled version of previous reporting by the BBC, among other news outlets.

According to a report in the BBC, citing unnamed sources, a joint government task force was formed in spring of 2016 to look into an intelligence report from a foreign government that Russian money was somehow coming into the U.S. presidential race. In June the Department of Justice, part of the task force, asked the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court for a warrant to intercept electronic communications by two Russian banks (presumably involving communications with Americans, or else no warrant would be needed).

However, the BBC’s report says, the FISA court turned the application down, something it almost never does. The Justice Department then asked again in July with a more narrowly drawn request, which was again turned down. Justice then made a third request for a warrant on October 15, which was granted.

None of this involves wiretapping Trump Tower. However, it is possible that Trump picked that up from a Breitbart article that in turn relied on a Heat Street piece that claimed the warrant was issued because of evidence of links between a “private server in Donald Trump’s Trump Tower” and a Russian bank. In fact, the server in question, set up by a marketing company hired by Trump, was physically located in Philadelphia.

Barack Obama’s spokesman responded to Trump’s tweets by saying that “neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen.” Notably, this statement does not deny that someone in the Obama administration ordered surveillance of Trump Tower, simply that the White House did not – which isn’t meaningful, since in a properly functioning executive branch the Justice Department would make that decision on its own without White House interference.

So what does all this mean?

The most likely explanation is that there was never any wiretapping of Trump Tower – or as Trump put it in another tweet, “my phones” — but the FISA court did allow surveillance of the Philadelphia server and the Justice Department ultimately decided there was nothing to it.

Or perhaps the Justice Department decided there was something to it and is still investigating it.

Or perhaps there were FISA court warrants but for surveillance of people around Trump that had nothing to do with the Philadelphia server and the Russian bank.

Or perhaps Trump never read the Breitbart article but instead learned there was significant surveillance of Trump Tower in the way you’d expect a president would, from the massive intelligence apparatus he commands.

Or perhaps Trump has simply gotten all of this wrong.

Whatever the case, Trump has the power to clarify it and everything else about the Russia story right now by declassifying whatever surveillance records exist of contacts between people in his orbit and Russia. If he and his associates did nothing wrong, he has every incentive to do so as soon as possible.

The White House press office did not immediately respond to requests to comment on whether Trump will use his declassification power regarding his tweeted claims. It’s previously ignored repeated questions about whether he will use it regarding the general issue of contacts between Russia and his campaign.

On March 05 2017 16:52 LegalLord wrote:
Times like this I wonder what a Clinton presidency would have been like.

On March 05 2017 17:38 zeo wrote:

You wouldn't be typing this post because there would be a nuclear war going on.

On March 05 2017 17:56 Blisse wrote:

It's amazing how delusional you guys are. Just a constant stream of absurd unsubstantiated crap over and over again.

On March 05 2017 17:38 zeo wrote:

You wouldn't be typing this post because there would be a nuclear war going on.

If Obama did wiretap Trump then it should be the Democrats crucifying him, not the Trump administration. Though I'm not surprised seeing how the NSA acted during his regime. For the record Nixon should have gone to jail too.

On March 05 2017 18:19 Gorsameth wrote:

Yes Hillary the war hawk.

Meanwhile Trump has threatened to invade Mexico, is stepping up the language to attack Iran and announced 54 billion dollars of extra funds for the military.

But remember, Hillary is the war hawk.

On March 05 2017 18:27 zeo wrote:

Except Trump hasn't done anything yet while Clinton and Obama started wars in the Middle East that have claimed over 600,000 lives.

Oh no, sharp rhetoric! Trump isn't going to be getting a Nobel Peace Prize is he? Needs to bomb 8 more countries first