When Trump Drops a New Lie It's Usually a Lulu and His Base Follows Suit

Academy Award Nomination for Lie of 21st Century 

Trump's loyal base sees only one end of the story

(And, it's ugly; not petty at all)

As the late great Paul Harvey used to say: Now the rest of the story from The Hill – FISA legal snooping all over again …

For some of Trump’s staunchest allies, reports that former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was under Federal surveillance are nothing short of vindication of the president’s widely-dismissed claims that former President Obama “tapped my wires *at Trump Tower” as Trump has stated numerous times.

Although surveillance experts from both sides of the aisle say the Obama tapped me claims mischaracterize reports about the court order on Manafort, that hasn’t stopped Trump allies from saying the president was right all along.

Longtime Trump advisor and nutcase, Roger Stone, gleefully circulated a segment from Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News in which the host says “all those patronizing assurances that nobody is spying on political campaigns were false, and it looks like Trump's tweet may have been right.”

My Insert: A simple BS at this point will suffice for this crazy red-meat whack crowd like Stone and other Alex Jones nitwits across GOP-Rightwing la-la land.

When Trump made his claim in March, it was rejected by members of both parties.

The DOJ also later stated that it had no evidence to back them up.

While there have been some conflicts in the reports on surveillance of Manafort by both CNN and The Wall Street Journal, they have been consistent in stating that officials obtained a lawful order from a clandestine court (*FISA court) to target Trump’s former campaign chief as part of the counterintelligence probe into Russian interference in the election.

CNN reports that the order allowed officials to place a wiretap on Manafort, while The Journal reports that it covered only stored communications and did not allow officials to intercept his phone communications in live time.

But in either case, experts say, the reporting provides no justification for Trump’s claim that Obama had his “wires tapped” in Trump Tower.

“No — no — absolutely none,” said David Shedd, a Heritage Foundation fellow who was Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Policy 

* FISA extended until 2020, as cited below in S. 1035 – A BILL

Purpose: To extend authority relating to roving surveillance, access to business records, and individual terrorists as agents of foreign powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978, and for other purposes.

To extend authority relating to roving surveillance, access to business records, and individual terrorists as agents of foreign powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. Extensions of authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978.

(a) Roving surveillance and access to business records.—Section 102(b)(1) of the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 (50 U.S.C. 1805 note) is amended by striking “June 1, 2015” and inserting “December 31, 2020.”

(b) Individual terrorists as agents of foreign powers.—Section 6001(b)(1) of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (50 U.S.C. 1801 note) is amended by striking “June 1, 2015” and inserting “December 31, 2020.”