Quote:Did they get a FISA warrant?   Trump can release those details if he wants.  He's in charge of the executive branch.  If the executive branch requested a FISA warrant, Trump can show it to us right now. 

 

What was their legal justification for it?   A FISA warrant requires a permit from the special FISA court. 

 

Maybe that's why the Trump people are walking this whole allegation backwards.  They're having second thoughts about what might come out in an investigation. 

 

Here's what Trump tweeted:

 

"Is it legal for a sitting President to be "wire tapping" a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!"

 

If there was a FISA warrant, the answer is, yes, it was legal.  But then the question becomes, what was alleged that caused the FISA court to okay the warrant?   The answer to that question may be why the Trump people are trying to make this story go away. 

 

Read this:

 

https://www.wired.com/2017/03/feds-wiret...ama-worry/

 

"Trump’s wiretap claims, then, carry presumably inadvertent implications. First, based on previous reporting and the nature of FISA courts, any wiretaps within Trump Tower would be legal. And they would stem from overwhelming evidence that the Trump campaign, or someone within it, has unsavory ties to Russia or another foreign power. Otherwise, it’s unlikely those wiretaps would exist at all.

"If federal authorities did have cause to listen in on Trump Tower, though, and they provided enough evidence for a FISA court to approve the snooping, Obama is not the one who ought to worry."

 

I don't think the issue is just the legality of the "wiretapping" or surveillance, but also the ethical ramifications. We need to know who authorized it and why it was authorized.

 

Was the legal justification for authorizing surveillance actually enough to satisfy the requirements of the law? We may find out that it wasn't, but even if it was, there is likely to be a grey ethical area of uncertainty.

 

The distribution of an American citizen's (Flynn) audio acquired through foreign surveillance throughout the IC without proper scrubbing is definitely a violation which lead to an illegal leak. The surveillance (or hacking) of Trump's server to detect foreign involvement also seems extremely suspect, especially considering how this surveillance activity was almost immediately known by Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, and other Democrats.

 

Everything about this is super shady and really throws a wrench into the credibility of future elections. If anyone can be surveyed for simply interacting with a foreign entity (many of which do on a daily basis because it is their job), and the IC is no longer scrubbing US citizen's information, then everyone is at risk. I hope this doesn't go away and we get some closure.

---