Spygate

For a detailed presentation, see Obamagate timeline, Barack Hussein Obama, Barack Obama Controversies#Wiretapping the 2016 election and List of names in the Obamagate scandal.

The Obamagate controversy refers to several scandals during President Barack Obama tenure, notably the misuse of government agencies, media manipulation, illegal wiretaping, and domestic spying on American citizens to harass political opponents and critics. By the election year of 2016, Obama officials vastly expanded the use of the foreign intelligence gathering apparatus as a weapon against domestic political opponents. In 2013, there were 9,600 FISA search queries involving 195 Americans. But in 2016, there are 30,355 searches of 5,288 Americans.

With the release of DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz's first installment report, it became abundantly clear the Obama intelligence community attempted to whitewash crimes Hillary Clinton was accused of and to meddle in the outcome of America's democratic processes.

Mark Levin originally brought it to public attention, spotlighting in his radio broadcast mainstream media reports which cited the Obama administration's use of government agencies to spy on its political opposition — namely Donald Trump, his aides, and then U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions, who is presently the Attorney General of the United States.

Constitutional significance

National security expert Chris Farrell characterized the Obamagate scandal as "a titanic struggle for America's future," and former NSC staffer Michael Doran observes what is at stake is "a core principle of our democracy: that elected representatives control the government, and not vice versa."

Farrell warns if "Communications Intelligence is used as a partisan political weapon without people going to jail, we will have crossed the point of no return for institutional corruption in our government, our intelligence services and law enforcement."

Farrell summarizes the evidence collected by the US House Intelligence Committee chairman which has been confirmed in writing, and to the press, that the Obama Administration conducted the following activities against President-Elect Trump and his team between November 2016 and January 2017 . . .

• On numerous occasions, the Intelligence Community “incidentally” collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition.

• Details about U.S. persons associated with the incoming Trump administration—details with little or no apparent foreign intelligence value—were widely disseminated throughout the government, and apparently leaked to Obama administration allies in the media. Those leaks are felonies.
• Names of Trump transition team members were “unmasked” – their identities revealed and circulated – again, more felonies.
• None of this surveillance was related to Russia or any investigation of Russian activities or of the Trump team.

"This is illegal domestic political espionage on a scale never before imagined. It is, however, totally consistent with the Obama Administration’s weaponizing of the IRS, as well as other unlawful manipulations of government programs to fund the operations of political allies and non-governmental organizations," such as ACORN, Farrell concludes.

Unmasking

“Unmasking” is the process of identifying individuals whose communications were caught in the dragnet of intelligence gathering. While conducting investigations into terrorism and other related crimes, intelligence analysts incidentally capture conversations about parties not subject to the search warrant. The identities of individuals who are not under investigation are kept confidential, for legal and moral reasons.

During the months of November and December 2016, and January 2017, members of the Trump campaign and transition team had their identities unmasked in surveillance transcripts on foreign dignitaries and information was gathered and disseminated within the government by the Obama administration under the guise of foreign intelligence surveillance, then selectively leaked to the media to give an unsubstantiated impression that a political opponent was illegitimate.

Dozens of times in 2016, those intelligence reports identified Americans who were directly intercepted talking to foreign sources or were the subject of conversations between two or more monitored foreign figures. Sometimes the Americans’ names were officially unmasked; other times they were so specifically described in the reports that their identities were readily discernible. Among those cleared to request and consume unmasked NSA-based intelligence reports about U.S. citizens were Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice, his CIA Director John Brennan and his Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Some intercepted communications from November to January involved Trump transition figures or foreign figures' perceptions of the incoming president and his administration. Intercepts involving congressional figures also have been unmasked occasionally for some time.

The unmasking and public disclosure of an American citizen's identity which was acquired during surveillance of a foreign diplomat is a criminal act punishable by ten years in prison. Only 20 persons in the Intelligence Community have the ability to unmask a US citizen's identity in transcripts of conversations gathered in a surveillance on a foreign diplomat. One person whose privacy and civil rights were violated was Michael Flynn, a private citizen at the time of the wiretapping. However, Flynn was National Security Advisor to the President of the United States at the time his name was feloniously leaked to the press and public by Obama appointees.

Law enforcement and intelligence agencies have exonerated Flynn of any wrongdoing, however the leaking of his name coupled with fake news stories reported by the Washington Post and New York is strong evidence Flynn was the target of an illegal domestic spying operation intended to influence United States political processes, public opinion, policies, or media.

In Obamagate, a marked pattern has emerged in using the foreign intelligence apparatus of the United States to harass domestic opponents. This has occurred under the guise of US foreign policy - showing favoritism to China while impugning advocates for peace with Russia. Beginning with the Chinagate scandal and the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), Progressives have slowly taken control of the Military-industrial complex now centered in Silicon Valley. Russophobia is the focus of their demonizing efforts because of Russia's stand against gay marriage and the homosexual agenda.

Wiretaping

Liza Goitein of the Brennan Center for Justice explains the legal avenues under which the Obama administration pursued wiretaps on American citizens:

• If the government has probable cause to believe that the American is involved in criminal activity, the government can obtain a traditional warrant for electronic surveillance (generally called a “Title III order”) from a magistrate judge.
• If, instead, the government has probable cause to believe that an American—or any non-citizen who is located inside the United States—is an agent of a foreign power, it can obtain an order from the so-called “FISA Court” (known as a “Title I FISA order”) to conduct surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes.

• Americans’ communications may also be acquired indirectly. Under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (“FISA”), if the target of surveillance is a foreigner overseas, the government, acting inside the United States, can acquire all of the target’s communications, including all of his communications with Americans, without any individualized court order. The FISA Court must approve the broad contours of the program, but it does not sign off on targeting decisions. There are even fewer constraints on foreign intelligence surveillance conducted overseas under Executive Order 12333.
• Under both Section 702 and Executive Order 12333, various rules require the government to redact or delete any information about Americans (minimization procedures or masking) “incidentally” acquired during the warrantless surveillance. However, there are several exceptions. For instance, information about Americans that is necessary to understand foreign intelligence or that is evidence of a crime may be kept and shared. Moreover, once the government has collected the communications, it may search them for information about Americans, which (in the case of information obtained under Section 702) can be used in ordinary criminal cases as well as national security investigations.

See also

• Obamagate timeline 2009-2015
• Obamagate timeline 2016 election year
• Russiagate timeline 2017
• Russiagate timeline 2018
• Barack Obama Controversies
• Barack Hussein Obama's unlawful acts
• Obama's second term agenda
• Operation Fast and Furious
• Crisis in Ukraine
• Deep state coup
• Ben Rhodes
• Jim Sciutto
• Business Plot
• Burr Conspiracy

External links

• Investigate Obamagate, The American Spectator
• Why Trump's Tweet Could Be Trouble For Obama, Investors Business Daily
• #OBAMAGATE: Exposing the Obama deep state by Daniel Greenfield