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Coincidental Incidentals

Murky waters continue to cloud as information related to simultaneous investigations in the legislature are exposed. There is an ongoing investigation regarding possible Trump collusion with the Russians to influence the election and an investigation into the Obama administration’s monitoring of Trump up to a year before he became the president-elect. Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Devin Nunes, recently unveiled the bombshells that not only was Trump right about being monitored at Trump Tower but that fishy business was done in these murky waters to carry out the task.

With what raises many suspicions, it was revealed that Obama’s former National Security Adviser, Susan Rice, was given reports that there was monitoring of Russian foreign officials staying in Trump Tower. It is fairly standard to monitor foreign agents but Rice saw the intelligence reports stamped from Trump Tower and asked for names to be given to her of the Americans connected to any of the surveilled conversations, an unmasking is what it is referred to in the news cycles. In the first place, it was highly criticized that the former administration would do any surveillance on Trump. Explaining it away, it was said that the Obama administration did not spy on Trump, his family, friends and colleagues as the main targets but merely as incidental cases of bugging in an attempt to gather intel from the foreign officials that were in close proximity. When it comes to national security, it is allowable to listen in on American citizens under the assumption that there is a person of interest on the other end of the line. However, the American citizens are always to retain complete anonymity except under exceptional circumstances.

With recent events, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that even good, perfectly legal contact between the Trump campaign and Russian representatives could be malignantly painted. A whiff that these interactions took place to some news outlets would surely be enough to suggest Russia “hacking” the election by antsy journalists. And with previous collusion between the Democrats and CNN, who’s to say this information couldn’t have been handed down again to push a false narrative or anchor the view in the eye’s of the people that the Trump presidency was illegitimate. Perhaps it was necessary to get the names connected to the Trump campaign to frame this sort of story though there is still no evidence Trump had any nefarious dealings with the Russians. This week, Democrat Adam Schiff of the House Intelligence Committee went on record saying that the investigation has revealed no evidence of collusion between Trump and the Russians. Regardless, there is more information to what exactly went down with the so-called incidental surveillance and it is more upsetting.

Two whistleblowers reported that Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the National Security Council's senior director for intelligence, was reviewing the system involving incidental wiretapping and saw the multiple times Rice had the names extracted. It raised a red flag to him. He then took this information to the White House General Counsel's office where he was stopped in his tracks. The senior director for intelligence of the National Security Council was told to stand down and not investigate the matter any further.

Michael Burns is the Finance Chair for the Valley County Republicans Central Committee.

 

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