After what was reportedly a furious President Trump headed to his 4th or 5th golf vacation in six weeks without his major staff members, he woke up Saturday morning and blasted President Obama with the tweeted claim that he (President Trump) had just discovered he had been wiretapped at Trump Tower by former President Obama.

The question of why is this possibly the silliest or the most easily proven of his many weird claims is as important as the claim itself?

FISA

First, the President of the United States can’t simply order anyone inside the United States wiretapped.

It is possible, although extremely unlikely, for him to direct the CIA to wiretap someone overseas, but it is illegal for the CIA to conduct any domestic surveillance such as a wiretap or even any conduct any intelligence operations or counterintelligence operations inside the United States. It would be unusual because the FBI would do it on their own.

Wiretapping inside the U.S. is the sole responsibility of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is now controlled by President Trump. So, why didn’t the President just wake up his Attorney General Jeff Sessions and ask him instead of relying on a right-wing conspiracy theorist’s story?

Trump has said he doesn’t trust all of the U.S. intelligence agencies (which also work for him) but is it possible he doesn’t trust his own pick for Attorney General? If not, is it because he was just upset he hadn’t been told Jeff Sessions had numerous contacts with Russians, or just because he hadn't wanted Sessions to recuse himself from the ability to protect Trump surrogates during the FBI investigation of Russian interference?

Since 1978 the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has mandated that any counter-intelligence type of wiretap by the FBI must go through a secret panel of federal judges informally known as the FISA court. So President Trump has shown a total lack of understanding of the legal limits on his office and also perhaps doesn't realize he is the top authority in the country when it comes to declassifying any top secret information or documents.

FISA wiretaps are secret but in the same five minutes it took him to tweet an unsubstantiated claim President Trump could have picked up his phone and instructed the FBI to release any FISA warrants or applications for warrants to the public.

In other words, while he is calling for a congressional investigation, all he really needs is the FBI’s phone number which a Google search would show is 202-324-3000. There you are Mr. President, just dial that number and clear this all up one way or another in five minutes. With just one phone call you, the president can either prove in a minute that President Obama committed a very serious crime by wiretapping a presidential candidate, or have the comfort of knowing he was not wiretapped.

If Obama wiretapped you, then make the call, direct his prosecution, and let’s get on with the business of fixing the roads and bringing back coal jobs. No need to send a thank you tweet Mr. President.

How did Jeff Sessions get involved

CNN is reporting that the White House is in complete turmoil over the fact that Jeff Sessions’ recusal from any Trump-Russia involved investigations. While President Trump was saying Sessions had done nothing wrong.

Other sources are saying that President Trump is furious with his own staff over the leaks and lack of real accomplishments of the sort which President Obama had almost immediately achieved such as saving the automobile industry) as opposed to President Trump meeting a few company heads and signing a few executive orders.

Of course, the White House staff is spending much of its time responding to President Trump’s tweet storms so just when they would have time in a day to work on other things when the President keeps lighting new fires every day or two.

Bottom line, If President Trump was wiretapped it had to be by the FBI through a classified FISA court warrant - The President can declassify anything.
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