Questions

The trained hamsters in the mainstream media continue to escalate their "outrage" over Donald Trump's as yet unsubstantiated accusation that the Obama administration obtained a court-ordered wiretap. BTW, they, of course, interpret Trump's ridiculous tweets literally, making the argument that evidence must now show that Obama himself signed the order.; otherwise, Trump lied! That is misleading and disingenuous.. Obama didn't have the power to order the taps (if they did occur). But his administration? That's a different story.

There are so many variables in this story, it's extremely difficult to process. For example, when past agency heads say "there was no tap on Trump headquarters," be careful. There could have been a tap on a specific network switch that processed communications traffic that flowed in and out of Trump campaign headquarters. When Democrats claim that if there was a FISA order to tap, it must have been justified because evidence was presented. Again, be careful. It is entirely possible that an administration-friendly judge approved the request on flimsy evidence.

Given all of these variables, it's very important to move cautiously. There may be nothing to this except Trump's bluster or this may be  scandal that makes Watergate look tame by comparison. But as Glen Reynold of Instapundit states:

With Obama’s record of promiscuous spying and politicized bureaucracy, it’s entirely believable that he was spying on Trump. But just because it’s believable doesn’t prove that it happened. To determine that, we probably need a special prosecutor — whose brief, honestly, should be expanded to cover all political spying in the Obama Administration, not just spying on Trump.

And there's still another odd element to all of this. Donald Trump is the President. He could demand information from the Intelligence services and get any records from the Justice Department that might shed light on this issue. He should do this, and the fact that he hasn't yet done it is troubling. However, even if he does, it's entirely possible that records have gone missing (think: the IRS scandal) and the bureaucracy (seeded with Obama loyalists) will work to subvert his request (think: recent leaks of recorded phone calls that ultimately forced Michael Flynn to resign).

It's very important to note that Obama's people are being rather equivocal about all of this. Kevin Lewis, an Obama spokesperson said in a prepared comment: "Neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U. S. citizen." Hmmm. Of course he didn't order a wiretap—he can't. But did his administration ask for one? That's the big question.

Roger Simon poses a few others [bullets mine]:

• Would an attorney general (in this case Loretta Lynch) normally inform the White House of a decision to go to a FISA court for approval of the tapping of a political presidential opponent?
• Did Ms. Lynch so inform the White House?
• Was there any discussion of this decision between the WH and the DOJ?
• Why did the Justice Department decide to go back to the FISA court in October for a second try at approval?
• Whose idea was that?
• Did they did have additional information? What was that?
• Was Trump's name included in the brief the first time but omitted in the second? Why?
• If none of this happened, who made it up and why? That makes no sense, considering how easy it would be to disprove. Unless, of course, although it's not supposed to happen, the NSA just regularly taps everything and everybody, including presidential candidates, the president elect, and the president himself
• But why then on Jan 12 of this year, again according to the New York Times, did the Obama administration suddenly broadly extend the powers of the NSA?

Since the election of Donald Trump, the Dems and their trained hamsters in the media seem oh-so-interested in investigating stuff, even when there is no evidence to support an investigation (think: the Russian hysteria). Fine.

So if there is "no evidence" to substantiate Trump's wire tap claim, as they contend, that shouldn't be an obstacle. Maybe the NYT, WaPo and CNN should create their own reportorial task force to investigate Simon's rather reasonable questions. But that's about as likely to occur as snow in Miami.