Mr. Trump repeatedly referred to the article as proof for his claim.
This is misleading. Neither the print nor online version of the article supports Mr. Trump’s accusation that Mr. Obama ordered surveillance on him.
The Times reported that there were intercepted conversations involving Mr. Trump’s associates, but it did not report that they or Mr. Trump were the subject of wiretap orders. To date, The Times has not found evidence of that.
Mr. Trump’s initial accusations specifically targeted Mr. Obama, whom The Times article does not mention. The independent fact-checking website PolitiFact rated Mr. Trump’s assertion False, and The Washington Post awarded the claim Four Pinocchios, its lowest rating, twice.
“
The bald assertion that Obama had Trump wiretapped is nowhere supported by the story. That is fiction,” said Jay Rosen, a media critic and professor of journalism at New York University.
When asked if The Times article could give Mr. Trump a false impression that Mr. Obama wiretapped him, Mr. Rosen said, “It does not. No one reading it in good faith would say that.’’
American intelligence agencies typically monitor the communications of foreign officials of allied and hostile countries, and so they routinely sweep up any conversations between American citizens and those officials — called “incidental collection.”
For example, it is routine for F.B.I. counterintelligence officials to keep the Russian ambassador under surveillance. Therefore, when Michael T. Flynn, Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, spoke on the phone with the Russian ambassador during the presidential transition, the government intercepted that conversation because it was wiretapping the ambassador.
Mr. Trump claimed he used the word “wiretapping” as a broad definition of surveillance.
This is misleading. Mr. Trump did put the word in quotes in two of his tweets,
but explicitly accused Mr. Obama of wiretapping his phones.
“I’d bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter in an early-morning post on March 4.
Ten minutes later, he doubled down, writing, “How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”
Fact Check: Trump Misleads on Times
He is such a
DUMB-ASS POS, that doesn't have enough brains to know that the stupid crap he says is
"ON THE RECORD", so when he later denies it, he just shows the world what a
"LYING-LOONY" he is!
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
