Did Obama Tap Donald Trump's Phones?

Well, I didn't see that one coming.  I had promised myself a quiet weekend away from social media.  No Facebook, Twitter, or blogging for a few days.  I need some time to digest some of this stuff and the internet won't miss me for a few days.  In fact, most of the internet would probably appreciate a break from me.

Saturday morning I skipped over the social media and looked at a few news sites just to get the headlines.  I saw the story about Donald Trump's accusation that Barack Obama had tapped his phone lines at Trump Tower and had to find out more about it.  After about an hour of going through more news sites, Facebook, and Twitter, I decided to write a post with my take on the whole situation, so here it is.

First, I think the idea that Barack Obama ordered phone tapping at Trump Tower is ridiculous.  That type of surveillance requires a court order, not an order from the President.  If a President ordered such a thing, it would not only be illegal, but would also assume that the President has control over more than just the Executive branch of government.  He would also need to control the Judicial branch.  That is our system of checks and balances.  It protects us from one person from becoming a dictator.  Barack Obama simply could not have ordered phone tapping under any circumstance.  Donald Trump needs to go back to fifth grade and learn about checks and balances.  It is a real thing and it also applies to him, although he would certainly argue otherwise.

That being said, it might surprise you that I believe the phone tapping Donald Trump is describing may well have happened, but not for the reasons he wants us to believe.  You have probably heard all about the alleged connection between Trump and the Russian government and I'm not going to discuss that mess here.  You can look it up for yourself.  The more we learn about this, the more it sounds like it may have been going on for a long time.  It sounds like the Judicial branch had already been examining Trump's Russian connections.  A FISA court approved a warrant for this surveillance in October, which would have been too late in the election process to do Trump's political opponents any good.

So what did these allegations do for Donald Trump?  I think the intention was to divert Americans' attention away from the Russian situation, but I think it will have the opposite effect.  I think that if the FBI or NSA was interested enough to look into Trump's ties with the Russians and the wire tapping was done as part of that process, then it will lend credibility to the view that a Russian connection actually exists.  If it doesn't indicate any Russian ties, then the information gathered by the wire tapping should not hurt Trump at all and he shouldn't be worried about it.

For now, though, I think it has refocused America's attention on getting to the truth and I think that's going to be a difficult and painful process, especially with the Trump administration's willingness to boldly and shamelessly lie to the American public and then act like they have done nothing wrong when they are caught doing it.

There, so much for a relaxing weekend.