Trump’s spy novel
With the ticking time bomb in the White House intent on using the Department of Justice as a political assault weapon, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein did the savvy thing — and asked a DOJ inspector general to expand an existing inquiry to look into the appropriateness of investigative techniques the agency employed in 2016.
If that modest-by-design inquiry is handled professionally, it is almost certain to deflate President Trump’s obscene claims that his predecessor ordered up chilling surveillance on the Republican’s campaign during the 2016 presidential election.
That’s a parallel-universe conspiracy theory concocted by Trump and his most paranoid defenders to distract from what Special Counsel Robert Mueller has found and continues to find, if not to give Trump a pretext to try to remove him.
The President has been hawking such hysterical theories for well over a year now. Last March, throwing rotten spaghetti against the wall, he claimed “that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory,” likening any Obama-era investigation to “Nixon/Watergate.”
Now comes the suggestion that the FBI surveilled Trump at Obama’s orders by planting a spy in his campaign.
The facts are these. During the Obama presidency, the FBI had received — and not only from the so-called Russia dossier — credible claims of suspicious contacts between Trump campaign advisers and Russia.
In pursuing those allegations, which it was duty-bound to do, it proceeded, by all accounts, by the book, with court permission every step of the way.
Its probe began as a counterintelligence investigation — which is to say, it was pursuing highly sensitive allegations in order to identify and track foreign intelligence officers and their networks, not to mount a criminal case against anyone in Trump World.
One of the steps it took in this regard was to engage the services of a source, who met with three Trump advisers to gather information.
Trump, a bull in a china shop of delicate details, now translates those responsible techniques into “one FBI representative implanted, for political purposes, into my campaign for President.” And he, the man ultimately responsible for the safety of those who take great risks to work with federal law enforcement, presses to expose the informant, clearly to discredit if not destroy him.
A special counsel patiently gathers evidence to learn the full story of Russian interference in the 2016 election. A President who fears the findings foams at the mouth.
Pray Rosenstein, caught in the middle, continues to stand on the side of justice.