Democracy Has Prevailed.

March 6, 2017

Trump's FISA Court Problem

More than a few years ago I learned about something called the law of the excluded middle (in symbolic logic, it's
p ∨ ~p

And that means for any proposition (p), it is either true or it's negation (that's the ~ negating the "p") is true.  It can't be both, it can't be neither and it can't be anything in the middle.  This middle is, as they say, excluded.

So when Trump tweeted:
(We'll ignore the "McCarthy" part as it's not pertinent to this exercise.)

The proposition that Obama had his "wires tapped" is either true or it isn't.

First off, a president can't legally order a wire tap.  So if Trump is saying that President Obama did so and did so illegally (even though there's no evidence to that fact), he's opening himself up to a libel/defamation charge.  Either that, or he's spouting even more non-truths that he believes to be true.  The Congress needs to investigate his dishonesty or his competence.

If it was a legal wiretap, then as the NYTimes writes:
If it was a criminal wiretap, it would mean that the Justice Department had gathered sufficient evidence to convince a federal judge that someone using the phone number or email address probably committed a serious crime. If it was a national security wiretap, it would mean a federal judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court had a basis to believe the target was probably an agent of a foreign power, like Russia.
And let's remember that the members of the FISA Court are appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, at this point the exactly not at all liberal John Roberts.  And if they're holdovers from the previous Chief Justice, that would be the even less liberal William Rehnquist.

So which is it?  Trump's dishonesty?  His mental competence?  Or that there is evidence that he committed a crime?

For the record:
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on Sunday denied any suggestion that Trump Tower communications were wiretapped before the election.

For the part of the national security apparatus that he oversaw, "there was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president, the president-elect at the time, or as a candidate, or against his campaign," Clapper told Chuck Todd in an exclusive interview on Sunday's "Meet The Press."
So it looks like we're left with dishonesty/mental competence.

1 comment:

Social Justice NPC Anti-Paladin™ said...

Pardon me if I find James Clapper to not be truthful. And the FISA court just a rubber stamp for the IC.

https://twitter.com/TomBevanRCP/status/838450284066131968
[James Clapper] lied to Congress under oath, but of course he's telling the truth to Chuck Todd.
https://twitter.com/hale_razor/status/838533433135513600
"Having James Clapper vouch for domestic spying practices is like relying on Susan Rice as your expert on spontaneous protests."
https://twitter.com/gabrielmalor/status/838089409589309440
"The IRS targeting was some rogue office in Ohio. Nothing was ordered by the administration. They said."
"AG Holder didn't order Fast and Furious and knew nothing about it. They said."