https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2017/04/12/trump-was-right-obama-got-fisa-warrant-to-spy-on-trump-team/Trump Was Right! Obama Got FISA Warrant to Spy on Trump Team
Apr 12, 2017
RUSH: Well, if this were a sane world and if this were a normal day, do you know what the big news of the day would be? That Donald Trump nailed it, that Donald Trump was exactly right, that the Obama administration was in fact spying on them — and indeed, requested and got a FISA warrant. Do you realize how many people have been trying to deny that? “There weren’t any FISA warrants. The administration wasn’t snooping on anybody! That’s just made up! That’s paranoia. Obama, our savior, wouldn’t do that.”
Yet now we know that there was a FISA warrant. The Obama administration was surveilling some guy named Carter Page. They found nothing, but they were looking to. They wanted to. Carter Page had done some business in Russia some time ago, and they were desperate. Obama and his team were desperate to prove that there was some kind of collusion between Russia and Trump. Now that’s kind of out the window with what’s happened in Syria. But you won’t find that news today. Well, in the Washington Post. But normally you would hear other people pick it up. CNN? Noooo. You know what they’re talking about in an effort to not cover any of this?
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I cannot tell you how big this is. This validates what Trump was saying about his campaign being surveilled. And it’s also the first time anything like this has ever happened. The Washington Post has the story and they’ve got so much detail I wonder if they’ve actually been leaked the actual warrant application. You know, FISA warrants are secret as grand jury testimony, but somebody’s leaked this stuff to the Washington Post.
Brief review of this FISA business. There were reports there was a FISA warrant requested in June 2016 that was denied. So they went back in October, requested it again, that was granted. Then there have been total, utter denials, no FISA warrants. Then we got the news yesterday that, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, there was one.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: On this FISA story — FISA warrant story — in the Washington Post. The Washington Post says that the FISA the warrant being approved on granted shows that there must have been some collusion between the Russians and Trump. And I’m here to tell you, ladies and gentlemen — do not doubt me — that is BS. What happened was the Obama administration wanted to find collusion between Trump and Russia all last summer. They were hoping to find some collusion. There were rumblings about it.
You know, the media was talking about and other Democrats. They used the power of the federal government to get a FISA warrant. Do you know that FISA warrants are almost always granted? I mean, I think the percentage of FISA requests turned down is like .03%. I mean, it’s almost automatic. You ask for a warrant from the FISA court, and it’s granted all the time. I think contrary to the warrant indicating there must have been some collusion, what the warrant being sought means is that Obama wanted to search for some.
That the administration… Somebody in the administration. Obama, you… I’m not gonna name names. He’s at the top of the executive branch, so we’ll throw him in there. They wanted to find some. There wasn’t any evidence of Russia collusion! All they had was these three guys: Roger Stone bragging about this and that; then they had Carter Page (who had done business in Russia long ago); and Paul Manafort, who had business in Ukraine. They were hoping! All of this was on the come. They were hoping that after they got a FISA warrant, they could find some collusion.
There isn’t any evidence in all of these months and even with the issuance of this warrant. There has yet to be a shred of evidence produced that there was any collusion whatsoever. So the granting of this warrant, in my humble opinion, was expressly so they could look for some, not because they thought they had some. A FISA warrant is much different than a traditional search warrant. You know, you’ve paid enough attention and you know that if the police want a search warrant for your house, they have to go to a judge and present at least a semblance of a reason that there is evidence to be found of your guilt.
A FISA warrant is nowhere near that standard, because it’s foreign intelligence, surveillance, and national security and all that. It’s a much wider berth. That’s why they’re almost never turned down. Now, all of this time… All of this time, folks… I want to remind you, how many times just in the last six weeks have we focused on the FISA warrant aspect of this story? And every time that that entered front and center in the news, there were a number of media outlets and Democrats pooh-poohed it.
“No, there wasn’t any FISA warrant! Comey alluded to the fact there weren’t any FISA warrants here.” Whenever it came up, it was always just pooh-poohed. It was always bumped out of the way. “No, no! You’re being paranoid. We didn’t do any of that. There wasn’t any investigation like that. You’re being silly.” When Trump accused Obama of “tapping the wires” at Trump Tower? “Oh, there’s no spying! Don’t be silly. You’re being paranoid!” It was Louise Mensch at some rag called Heat Street (or I forget the place she works). She’s a-five-star Never Trumper. She’s Brit.
She ran the story last October that there were two FISA warrants. Everybody said, “There’s no evidence of that! There’s no proof of that. You don’t know that. That didn’t happen,” blah, blah, blah. And all of this time — all of this time that they’ve been denying it — it’s out there. There’s a FISA warrant! It was issued to surveil Carter Page, who wasn’t with the Trump campaign very long anyway. He was with it in the early stages.
They were fishing. The guy had done business. He had invested in Gazprom, a Russian energy company. So they were hoping. They wanted — they were desperately hoping — that with the warrant they could find something. It’s not that the warrant was granted ’cause they knew — ’cause if they know, we would know. If they had evidence of collusion, they would be plastering it all over everywhere. So the principals in this — for weeks now and months — have been denying that anybody in the regime sought a FISA warrant.
Now the Washington Post runs this story: “FBI…” That’s the executive branch. Somebody asked the FBI to go get the warrant. As I’ve pointed out countless times, the White House does not do investigations. The White House does not investigate national security things or crimes. The White House is a consumer of the intelligence that’s produced and gathered by the FBI, the NSA, and the CIA. So if the FBI requested a FISA warrant, the odds are somebody asked them to. We don’t know for sure. Somebody does, though. Somebody knows.
So the Washington Post is attempting to say that the existence of the warrant means that they had evidence of collusion. They don’t, or we would know it. Whoever colluded would have been outed by now. We would already be proceeding to impeachment. They’ve got nothing. They never have had anything. “The FBI obtained a secret court order last summer…” And remember, all during the recent discussion of this, all of the denials — and not only just denials. There were people trying to ridicule and make fun of the people who said there were FISA warrants that were granted.
If they were in the media — if they were, like, here in talk radio — they were lambasted and criticized for being irresponsible. “No evidence of FISA warrants,” and all this time there was one. Why were we told for so many months that all of these reporters about FISA warrants were untrue? I’ve been trying to remember last night and this morning. Didn’t the FBI director, Comey, testify that there was no surveillance on the Trump campaign, or was he talking about Trump Tower? I don’t remember if he said there were no warrants obtained or not.
This was congressional testimony. We saw it on TV. I just can’t… I don’t remember the specifics, but we are going to find out. The Washington Post says, “The FBI and the Justice Department obtained the warrant targeting Carter Page’s communications after convincing a [FISA] judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, in this case Russia…” Well, let’s see the evidence. I’m telling you, there wasn’t any evidence. They got this warrant to snoop. They were hoping that they would find evidence.
All last summer, folks. I mean Trump gets the nomination in July, and all this time, they are still — every one of these people — convinced Hillary’s gonna win in a landslide. We’ve got this new book on the Clinton campaign, and you talk about a dog-and-pony show and the Keystone Cops? This book, the excerpts that I’ve seen of it and read this morning make it crystal clear. This campaign was one of the most inept and incompetent in recent memory, filled with infighting and lack of trust. Bill Clinton trying to take over various aspects of it. Hillary having no energy. Hillary having no impetus, providing no leadership.
‘Cause they all thought it was a cakewalk!
So even while they thought it was gonna be a cakewalk/landslide win, they still are out there trying to find some kind of dirt, collusion, Trump campaign. So let’s see the evidence. What increase would possibly be being protected now? You know, the headline of this story? “Obama Administration Spied on Trump Campaign.” That’s the news. The media wants you to think the news is that the Trump campaign is really looking now like there was collusion because we got a FISA warrant to investigate it. That’s not the news. The news is the Obama administration — counter to everything the Democrats and the media were saying — was in fact spying on the Trump campaign.
