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Trump offering zero evidence accuses Obama of “Nixon/Watergate” wiretapping him (UPDATE 1)

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Donald Trump’s Saturday morning tweets have become notorious for being over-the-top, angry and lashing out — and largely without substance. And today he held to his record: in a series of tweets he accused Barack Obama of wiretapping him during the campaign in a “Nixon/Watergate” like operation. He offered not one shred of proof, which suggests the tweets were sent out with the Trump m.o. that the best defense is a good offense or that he knows more bad info is about to come out. Here are the tweets that have led some to call Trump unhinged and (of course) caused Fox News’ unofficial Trump p.r. person Sean Hannity to (naturally) ask what Obama knew and when did he know it.

Obama’s spokesman was quick to respond. BBC:

President Donald Trump’s accusation that his predecessor ordered his phones to be tapped is “simply false”, Barack Obama’s spokesman has said.
Kevin Lewis said that “neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any US citizen”.

However, the context is important. The Tweets come after a week when an increasing number of Trump advisors are being revealed as having met with Russia’s ambassador, who many reports say is also a recruiter for Russian spies. Other reports suggest intelligence services picked up people associated with Trump meeting with Russian officials during the 2016 Presidential campaign — one in which Russians hacked into DNC emails, fed materials to Wikileaks, and mounted a massive fake news campaign against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Here are the tweets accusing Obama that may make it harder now for some GOPers to resist calls for a Special Prosecutor or commission to look into Trump campaign/Russian government ties:




There could be several reasons why Trump is doing these tweets at this time:

  • To deflect from the growing scandal about his campaign and increasing allegatinos and reports that people connected to his campaign were in touch with Russian officials and intelligence. Apparently Russian’s ambassador is not memorable because several Trump officials can’t remember much about their conversations with him or forgot to disclose they met him. This has now been identified as a Trump tactic: in the middle of negative news make a strong allegation or start a controversy that changes the media subject and sucks up all the political oxygen. If so, the long-range story is too big to be impacted by this. His only benefit will be to lose more independent voter support.
  • He knows more information will be coming out in the press. Shortly after his election he blasted the FBI and intelligence services in tweets, virtually saying put up or shut up. We may be in the middle of the IC, via the press, putting up.
  • Trying to (again) rally his political base against a hated enemy. He has (still) been railing against Hillary Clinton the past few weeks so perhaps this is a shift back to Obama.
  • He’s trying to engage GOPers in Congress and the conservative entertainment complex to back him, using Obama as the evil force, to discredit information that is likely to come out. Expect Rush, Sean, Fox & Friend start to talk about an Obama conspiracy against Trump. Expect the intelligence community to combat that with facts leaked to news organizations, who are investing big bucks now in investigative reporting.

    • Here’s some reaction on Twitter and from the media:













    UPDATE 1:


















    THIS POST IS BEING WRITTEN AS YOU READ IT AND WILL BE UPDATED FOR SEVERAL HOURS WITH REACTION. REFRESH TMV OFTEN TO SEE THE LATEST (or if you read this on a site go to www.themoderatevoice.com and see the latest). When the post is completed, this paragraph will vanish.