Mick Hartley

Politics and Culture

recent posts

email me

A crackpot conspiracy theorist

In contrast to the prevarication and dithering that greeted Trump's claim that Obama got the security services to tap his phone, GCHQ over here, when the finger was pointed at them by Judge Andrew Napolitano, lost no time in describing the allegations as rubbish. Which, as Michael Totten notes, is what the FBI should have done from the start:

Comey’s response, while serious and polite and respectful, is a vestige, an anachronism from an earlier era. “With respect to the president’s tweets,” he said in his testimony, “I have no information that supports those tweets. We have looked carefully inside the FBI.”

He looked carefully inside the FBI? Really? He was under oath, so he probably did, and if so, what a mistake. GCHQ didn’t look inside its own agency carefully, I assure you—it didn’t have time—any more than NASA would look seriously inside its own organization if Vladimir Putin accused it of fomenting international terrorism.

Important men and women with dignified jobs have better things to do than go on a snipe hunt.

The FBI shouldn’t have spent more than five minutes “investigating” Trump’s ludicrous claim that Obama wiretapped his phone for the same reason that they never investigated Trump’s equally ludicrous claim that Obama was born in Kenya. Despite what Trump has said on the subject, law enforcement will not waste its time looking into whether or not Senator Ted Cruz’s father participated in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, nor will the Federal Election Commission bother proving or disproving the president’s boast that he won the popular vote because three million people voted illegally for Hillary Clinton. The American Medical Association certainly won’t look into Trump’s claim that vaccines cause autism. It was thoroughly debunked years before the president disgraced himself by repeating it.

Serious people can’t take the president of the United States seriously. He is a compulsive liar and a crackpot conspiracy theorist and must be treated accordingly without delay.

 

Posted in

2 responses to “A crackpot conspiracy theorist”

  1. Dom Avatar
    Dom

    And we have 4 years of this nonsense. And 8 years looks more likely, since the DNC can’t get its act together.

    Like

    Reply
  2. tolkein Avatar
    tolkein

    I’m sorry, but it does appear that Trump was wiretapped. At least, the New York Times, relying on sources (and we know that the NYT always corroborates and has teams of fact checkers)reported online 19th January, and in print on 20th January that “Wiretapped data used in Inquiry into Trump Aides”. The heading was changed later to “Intercepted Russian Communications part of Inquiry into Trump Associates”.
    It does rather read as though Trump was wiretapped. Oh, I know, it was only the Russians that were targeted and incidentally some Trump associates were picked up. That’s much better, isn’t it? And, how do we know about these people, one of whom, at least, Michael Flynn, was named? If he wasn’t the target and his name was picked up accidentally, then, according to US law, his name should not have been leaked. I understand the law is quite strict on this. Civil liberties lawyers are normally right on this if some progressive was to be named – Glenn Greenwald, where are you when you’re needed? -but as it’s a Trumpie, that’s OK isn’t it, because he shouldn’t be President, and if the Russians (who truly are nasty) hadn’t leaked the DNC emails Clinton would be President, because the Americans would not have found out stuff about Clinton that made her less electable. Have I got this right? And this justifies leaking and law breaking?
    I wish that there was a different President of the US. But a choice between Clinton and Trump? Thank heavens I didn’t have to choose.

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment