The Enablers of Obama’s Wiretapping Scandal

As the news of the potential wiretapping of the Trump campaign has finally found its way into the headlines and the never-ending leaks emanating from the Obama Administration holdovers continue to be exploited, whatever national chaos and retribution that may ensue rests not only on the shoulders of the perpetrators but on enablers in a sycophantic mainstream media and a feckless Republican Party. Since 1989 and the election of George H.W. Bush, the vast majority of Republicans elected to national office have chosen to worship the twin gods of civility and compromise rather than vigorously defend and promote liberty, free enterprise and limited government. Meanwhile, their political adversaries, the Democratic Party and the Left (now one and the same) had no such compunctions as they were determined to achieve their ends regardless of the means. Among the means were endless intimidation, extortion and ridicule of the Republicans in Congress or either of the two George Bushes. All this without fear of retaliation or even the slightest hint of a vigorous defense or response.

In conjunction with their accomplices in the mainstream media, Democrats quickly ascertained that any outrageous accusation on their part, such as that Republicans are determined to starve children, would eventuate in the near complete surrender of any opposition to their proposed policies -- all of which are now embedded in American society. Further, rather than support their colleagues in the Party who were oftentimes the victims of specious and malicious accusations, the spineless elites in the Republican Party sacrificed their members on the altar of civility and faux integrity. Having experienced so much success with these tactics, it is little wonder that after nearly three decades the Democrats’ overconfidence could be their potential long-term downfall. That eventual bridge too far may well be the wiretapping of the Trump campaign by the Obama Administration and the putting in place of the apparatus for the subsequent leaking of hitherto confidential information by the Obama holdovers in an effort to delay, marginalize, or destroy the Trump Administration. Apparently, Barack Obama and his minions were supremely confident that Hillary Clinton would win. Or if by any remote chance she did not, the assumption seemingly was that Trump and the Republicans would be their usual spineless selves and succumb to the customary intimidation tactics and would never retaliate once in office. Additionally, the Democrats could count on the mainstream media never exposing their treachery. Despite all their voluminous opposition research and Trump’s own words, the Obama-Clinton cabal, brimming with overconfidence, refused to accept the reality that he was not a prototypical Republican or someone easily extorted. Any cursory review of his business career and tactics would have disabused them of that mindset. Had Obama not been so arrogant, he would have realized if his administration pushed for the wiretapping of his political rival in a contested election campaign that Hillary had better damn well win or Trump could and would retaliate once in office. As the President of the United States can declassify and make public anything he so chooses, Obama’s allies in the media would not be able to sweep the potential scandal under the rug. That hypothetical eventuality may have come to pass as President Trump has decided to use the power of his office to expose the potential duplicity and unscrupulous behavior of the Obama Administration in the wiretapping of his campaign. A story first reported last November in an expose by the website Heat Street and followed up by The Guardian (UK) in January. There is another component in this intrigue that is part and parcel of the overall Obama deviousness. On January 12, 2017, a week before Trump was inaugurated, in a dramatic reversal of a longstanding policy, Obama issued an executive order allowing the NSA to share with 16 other agencies, filled with Obama holdovers, vast amount of data gathered on private American citizens. Data collected without warrants, court orders or congressional authorizations. Thus, assuring that innumerable leaks, such as those surrounding General Mike Flynn and others in the Trump Administration, could occur. The wiretapping and the deliberate strategy to undermine one’s successor are perhaps the most egregious political actions by any president in American history, far surpassing Watergate or the Teapot Dome scandals. In fact, they are tactics that would have been applauded by some of the despots of the past century. Complicit in this skullduggery is the mainstream media. For the past forty years, they have been virtually unquestioning in their dealings with the Democrats while vilifying the Republicans at every turn. They became, in essence, the Praetorian Guard for the Democratic Party, allowing its members to get away with virtually anything. The latest example is the mainstream media’s willfully choosing to ignore the wiretapping reports already in the alternative and foreign media while gleefully accepting the leaks in their collusion with the Democratic Party elites. There is little doubt that the media in this nation is now more polarized than ever. As its traditional income sources evaporate, the mainstream media is increasingly dependent on web traffic for advertising revenue. Therefore, the incentive is either to produce and promote sensationalism or publish stories tailored for a specific audience regardless of the overall veracity in reporting. Jonah Goldberg at National Review recently explored this phenomenon (as he noted the following at the Washington Post): (Ben Domenech) told me the Post has a giant screen on the wall of the newsroom that displays in real-time their web traffic. Ben noted that nearly all the most read stories were anti-Trump. He asked whether we can rely on the press to be objective when market incentives are for Trump-bashing all the time. The media in the United States is now split between the anti-Trump and pro-Trump venues. During the previous 8 years, the mainstream media was almost exclusively pro-Obama primarily because of ideology and today they are almost exclusively anti-Trump primarily because of revenue. As a counterweight, there is now a significant pro-Trump media, chiefly on the internet, which also relies on web traffic for their livelihood. The schism is now a fait accompli and will not be reversed anytime soon. Unfortunately, the anti-Trump media is still dominant but seemingly hellbent on losing that status, as they have tossed to the wind many years ago any pretense of objectivity. Barack Obama and his henchmen would not have been emboldened in their ostensible machinations to undermine an election and then a presidency if it were not for the fecklessness of the Republican Party and the blind eye as well as the tacit support of the mainstream media.