Why Were Foreign Intelligence Agencies Spying on Trump?
By Brian C. Joondeph
April 18, 2017
Last month, Fox News regular Judge Andrew Napolitano claimed that President Obama and his cronies used British intelligence to spy on then candidate Donald Trump. That certainly caused a stir among the higher-ups at Fox News. A week later the outspoken judge was suspended from Fox.
More specifically, Judge Napolitano accused the Obama administration of doing an end run around the U.S. intelligence community, using GCHQ, the British spy agency, to do its dirty work. GCHQ has unfettered access to the NSA database. Meaning that the Brits could request transcripts of conversations between the Trump campaign and any foreign players, then pass those transcripts on to the Obama inner circle. Leaving President Obama, Susan Rice, and others with deniability and no fingerprints on this domestic spying scheme.
The Fakestream Media was outraged. Even Fox News’ own truth-detector Shepard Smith was having none of his colleague’s claims, saying, "Fox News knows of no evidence of any kind that the now-president of the United States was surveilled at any time in any way. Full stop."
As it turns out, Shep’s full stop was only a speed bump. Judge Napolitano was right after all, as reported in of all places, CNN.
British and other European intelligence agencies intercepted communications between associates of Donald Trump and Russian officials and other Russian individuals during the campaign and passed on those communications to their US counterparts US congressional and law enforcement and US and European intelligence sources tell CNN.
It goes beyond the Brits, extending to the “Five Eyes” agreement which also includes Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, which all share intelligence collection and dissemination. What it looks like is that four of our allies were spying on the Trump campaign, either at the direct request or implied desire of the Obama administration.
The Guardian goes further, reporting that Germany, Estonia, Poland, France, and the Netherlands also spied on Trump and shared their findings with Obama.
How ironic that the media and the left are obsessing over Russian interference in our electoral process, and despite over a year of investigations, turned up no evidence of Trump-Russian collusion. Yet here are many supposed allies, spying on American citizens in effort to influence a U.S. election, likely at the request of President Obama or his administration, as a means of circumventing the legal prohibition of American intelligence agencies spying on its own citizens.
Perhaps legal, as when parsing words in the manner of Bill Clinton, but certainly an abuse of power. The question is why?
It’s no surprise that the smart set in the Five Eyes countries were against Donald Trump and hoped he would lose the election. As one of many examples, an editorial in the New Zealand Herald, the NY Times of the Southern Hemisphere, opined, “It was unimaginable that such a dangerous buffoon could defeat a qualified, whip-smart, sane candidate.”
It was indeed unimaginable that Trump would win the election. The Fakestream Media in the U.S., through their rigged polls and myopic worldview, were all convinced that Hillary Clinton would win. In a landslide. Whether the Huffington Post, Real Clear Politics, wunderkind Nate Silver, or the network news polls, all were predicting a Clinton landslide win, giving her a 90 plus percent chance of victory. At least up until about 9 P.M. on election night.
Undoubtedly the foreign media, including the spying countries mentioned above, saw and believed U.S. reporting that Clinton would cruise to an easy electoral victory. The Obama administration certainly did, which is why they ignored supposed Russian hacking. At least until voters punched back on election day.
Why spy on Donald Trump, the buffoon, the unqualified, stupid, insane candidate who had no chance of winning the election? There was no need to influence the election since it was over, a predetermined and certain outcome of Madame President. Let me suggest a reason.
Foreign governments contributed generously to the Clinton Foundation. Such as Qatar’s $1 million contribution in honor of Bill Clinton’s birthday. Fine for Qatar but perhaps unseemly for Canada, UK, Australia, France, New Zealand, or the Dutch to make such a contribution. Suppose they made a different type of “contribution” to the Clintons? No quid pro quo but an effort to get on the good side of Madam President’s upcoming administration.
If Trump was destined to lose the election, as everyone expected, what good would Trump campaign conversation transcripts be to Hillary Clinton? Trump would slink back to reality TV and beauty pageants, irrelevant to the reign of Queen Hillary. What if foreign country snooping went well beyond Trump?
Despite much of the GOP establishment actively campaigning against their party’s nominee, there would undoubtedly be interesting conversations among Republican members of Congress and the Trump campaign, or between #NeverTrumpers discussing the campaign.
Who knows the extent of this snooping? How many conversations were vacuumed up, not to help the Clinton campaign, but instead as useful tidbits to use as needed during the upcoming Clinton administration?
What if conversations of Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, or John McCain were captured by NSA, accessed by GCHQ, shared with Five Eyes and other countries, then passed on to the new Clinton administration to be leaked to the Washington Post at an opportune moment? Great leverage against Republican legislators to do Madam President’s bidding, whether a Supreme Court nominee or a controversial piece of legislation.
Outrageous? Remember Filegate? This is the same Clinton administration that, “had been regularly pulling the files from the F.B.I. on hundreds of Republicans -- ostensibly for security clearance, but including hundreds of former Reagan and Bush appointees never being considered for jobs.”
What Judge Napolitano’s revelation, now confirmed, suggests that foreign allies might have been making contributions to Hillary Clinton, not in cash, but in something far more valuable: information. Perhaps obtained legally but clearly not ethically or honorably. They were “betting on the come” currying favor with the expected Clinton administration, offering up something money can’t buy. Information.
Worthy of investigation. But not likely as the Fakestream Media prefers to chase the leprechauns of Trump-Russia collusion, even in the face of Trump sending 59 Tomahawk missiles into Putin’s adopted client state of Syria. Donald and Vlad as BFFs. Full stop.
