No evidence yet of Obama’s wiretaps

Conservative pundits have touted the revelation that President Donald Trump or his associates might have been incidentally ensnared in American surveillance of foreign agents. These critics say the surveillance revelation supports Trump’s scandalous and unsubstantiated claim that former President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower.

Republican U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, shared the information about the surveillance with Trump, who in a meeting with reporters was asked if he felt vindicated by the revelation (“Nunes doesn’t plan to step away from Russia probe,” Associated Press article, Tuesday’s Dispatch. com).

Trump said he did, somewhat.

Asking Trump whether he felt vindicated by the revelation reflected a lapdog mindset because the question was loaded in favor of a positive response. The inquiry would have been more objective if the reporter had simply asked Trump his response to the revelation. In any event, however Trump came to express his sense of vindication, journalists, in keeping with their watchdog role, should have challenged him on that point.

Two relevant facts stand out.

One, Trump said the alleged Obama wiretapping of Trump Tower was, in effect, illegal when he compared it with the illegalities of President Richard Nixon and Watergate. Nunes said the surveillance referenced in the revelation was legal.

Two, Nunes says the targets of the surveillance were foreign agents and not American citizens, who, again, were inadvertently mentioned in the surveillance.

These two facts undermine, not support, Trump’s specific accusation that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower. There is no known evidence for that. Indeed, a few days after Nunes, a member of Trump’s transition team, publicly revealed that Trump or his associates may have been caught up in the surveillance of foreign agents, Nunes reiterated his view that he was not aware of any evidence that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower.

Trace Regan Delaware