There was no “Russian intervention” in the 2016 U.S. elections – there was illegal surveillance of American citizens.
A new political scandal is unfolding in the U.S. – “ObamaGate”. The name was invented by President Trump himself, after his friend, a popular host of Fox News channel Tucker Carlson, accused the 44th US President Barack Obama in a live broadcast on May 12, that he forced the U.S. intelligence agencies to launch an investigation into Trump’s campaign headquarters for the 2016 presidential election.
Carlson said that Barack Obama appealed to the head of the FBI James Komi and demanded: “Continue to secretly investigate my main political rival, this is the only way I can act against him”. Komi’s answer was brief: “Yes, sir.”
On the same day, Trump tweeted a video of Carlson’s “OBAMAGATE!”. Then, speaking to journalists, Trump accused Obama of committing “the biggest political crime in American history”, although he did not say what the crime was. Trump promised that new ObamaGate details would appear in the media in the coming weeks, and then, he added, “you will understand what is going on.
Most U.S. media link Trump`s ObamaGate initiative to the case of General Michael Flynn, former National Security Adviser to the President and former head of military intelligence at the Pentagon, who was previously under investigation when investigating “Russia`s interference” in the U.S. elections. The investigation, called “Rashagate”, was launched because of Michael Flynn’s telephone conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak, in 2016 and ended up with the clear conclusion that there was no “collusion” between Moscow and Trump; under strong pressure from investigators, former advisor Trump made a deal with the investigation but later changed his mind. And on May 7, 2020, the US Department of Justice dropped the charges against Flynn. Attorney General William Barr said that the investigation was not justified, and Flynn’s plea of “guilt” should be ignored.
As the Wall Street Journal writes, the FBI has not received evidence of “collusion” of advisor Trump with Moscow, but caught Flynn on the inaccuracy and forced him to make a deal. According to WSJ, Michael Flynn admitted his guilt under pressure; FBI agents threatened him and his son.
The charge that was dropped by Obama Carlson and picked up by Trump did not come up empty. Fox News recalled the “mysterious letter” of Obama’s National Security Adviser Susan Rice, which she e-mailed herself on Trump’s inauguration day, January 20, 2017. The letter confirmed the fact of the meeting of Obama mentioned by Carlson on January 5, 2017 with FBI Director James Comy, CIA Director John Brennan, National Intelligence Director James Clapper and Susan Rice.
The letter “documents Obama’s instructions on how law enforcement agencies should investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential race.
That’s what Trump blames Obama for.
Acting Director of the U.S. National Intelligence Richard Granell visited the Department of Justice, where he presented a list of senior officials in the Obama administration who demanded to disclose the name of the man who spoke to Ambassador Kisliak by phone. The list includes James Clapper, John Brennan, James Komi, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Tefft and Joe Biden.
After the release of the “Grenell list” Trump said: “These people should go to prison for this. That’s what Obama is all about. That’s what Biden is all about. These people were corrupt, everything was corrupt, and we caught them.”
The immediate reason for Obamagate was Barack Obama’s reaction to the decision of U.S. Attorney General William Barr to drop the charges against Michael Flynn. Obama expressed concern about the decision, saying that “the rule of law is in jeopardy. In America, Barack Obama and his wife Michelle are still popular. Earlier, Joe Biden said that if he won, he would be happy to see Michelle Obama as Vice President. So Trump had to react very quickly to Obama’s statement. He did so – there was enough evidence that the Obama team had been engaged in political espionage for many years.
A recently declassified Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) ruling found that “the National Security Agency under former President Obama regularly violated U.S. privacy protections by viewing foreign intercepts… Illegal wiretapping was widespread and posed a very serious problem for the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution [on privacy]. FISC has established that the NSA under the Obama administration has conducted extensive and illegal surveillance of American citizens”.
A total of 42,500 illegal wiretaps were conducted. Since December 2015, 17 Republican Party presidential candidates have been under surveillance, and since March 2016, “the main target of the wiretap was Donald Trump.
On May 13, lawyer Michael Flynn Sydney Powell joined the war against Obama. He published an “Open Letter” in which he thoroughly, legally meticulously disproved Obama’s claim that the DOJ’s decision to drop the charges against his client (Flynn) jeopardizes the “rule of law”. Powell writes that General Flynn “was not warned, was not under oath, had no lawyer, and his statements … were falsified by the FBI.
Addressing Obama, Powell said: “The only criminals were your pets from the FBI, the White House, the intelligence community and the Department of Justice.
The Senate Legal Committee began a “wide-ranging study” of the Flynn case, although it rejected a request by Donald Trump to invite Barack Obama to testify in the Senate. “If Vice President Biden and President Obama’s immediate entourage listened to the personal phone calls of Senior Adviser Trump, it was a serious abuse of power,” said Republican Senator Rand Paul.
Whatever the outcome of the Senate investigation, it is impossible to refute the documented evidence of the Obama team’s illegal surveillance of U.S. citizens.