Donald Trump Keeps Kicking the Beehive

Now everyone can speak on the record:

If I were to try to document all the evidence that the intelligence community sought to surveil associates of Trump during the campaign, it would make this too long of a post, so I’ll try to do that in a follow-up piece. For now, I’ll just point you to reporting done by Louise Mencsh at Heat Street, Paul Wood at the BBC, and Julian Borger at the Guardian, all of which supports the idea that there was a FISA court warrant issued in October to look at connections between the Russians and members or associates of the Trump campaign.

...Whether or not a FISA Court warrant was issued in mid-October or not may be relevant to what Trump has claimed, both as to whether surveillance occurred and whether it was illegal. But the broader question of surveillance during the campaign shouldn’t be in question. What, after all, do you call a task force that “included six agencies or departments of government” that was set up (in April or shortly thereafter) to look into allegations of collusion?

It’s obvious that collusion is suspected and even believed as an article of faith within a broad segment of the intelligence community, and they’ve been leaking like a sieve about it for months because they’re desperate to keep the investigation alive. But, until Trump invited this congressional investigation, none of these folks had permission or the ability to speak on the record or to testify as to what they know or suspect.