The House Intelligence committee which has access to all the top level intel on this subject has issued a joint statement.
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I do not believe that to be correct.
How can we be sure the entire intelligence committee isn't lying?
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The concern about lying should be directed at the intel community, not the Congressional committee. I recall Clapper lying to Congress not too long ago. We've also seen felony level leaks coming frtom the intel community lately.
Damn, Spicy said Obama called a British spy service to wiretap Trump. At least he said Fox News said it. He uses Fox News as a source and doesn't ask his own people?
This guy's a lunatic!
Homer, this is a very very poor description. I didn't hear Spicer speak, but I know enough about it to know what you posted is inaccurate.
I'll explain:
1. We know, we don't think we know, we know that our intel community is "wire tapping"
everyone. We know because of Snowden's leaks published by wikileaks. Clapper initially denied it in his Congressional testimony and had to later admit his testimony was inaccurate.
2 The data is stored in the NSA's facility in Utah. US intel agencies are not
supposed to access that data on a US citizen without a court order (some in the intel community have said that is not always the case, but we'll ignore that for now).
3. The GCHQ, a British top level intel agency has been given the right to access our intel data held at the Utah facility. Being a non-US agency the GCHQ is not bound by the rules (or Constitution) our US intel agencies are subject to. (A loophole and a method of acquiring private without leaving fingerprints.)
So, what has been reported, and what Spicer is referring to, are reports that several sources (3 independent sources IIRC) in the intel community have claimed that the British GCHQ went into the Utah database, accessed Trump's info and leaked it thereby circumventing the process.
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I don't know what, if anything, Trump has, but I'd keep "my powder dry" for while on this one. I'd wait to see what he has. If the Congressional committees all come back saying there's nothing and Trump actually has something, there's going to be a shit storm of epic proportions.
Many say Trump should use his exec authority to find out if he's been 'wire tapped'. But if he actually has something, I think this is a much more clever way of going about it. He's setting up 'traps'.
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I think everyone's rage is misdirected. Instead, we should be angry about:
1. Wholesale data harvesting of American's private info in direct violation of the 4th. (See Snowden's leaks. IIRC, he claims a paper from a WH lawyer in Nov 2011 re-interpreted policy expanding data collection to all US citizens.).
2. Allowing a foreign gov (British GCHQ) acess to the private data of US citizens. Outrageous if true.
3. The leak of Flynn's convo with the Russian ambassador. You all slammed Trump for not properly vetting Flynn before the appointment. Yet as part of the process Flynn was vetted by the FBI before being confirmed. So, the FBI missed it too, right? How is it this wasn't uncovered by the FBI? Who later leaked it and why?
Things aren't kosher in our intel community now.
Fern