Republicans have repeatedly accused Barack Obama's Administration of illegally and baselessly spying on former President Donald Trump. Now, a journalistic investigation carried out by Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi and Alex Gutentag has reopened the debate on the case. The report cites several sources who claim that the Intelligence Community, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), illegally mobilized foreign intelligence agencies to attack the former president's advisors long before the summer of 2016.
Journalists, known for revealing details of cases such as that of the Twitter Files, explained in an article published in Substack that the Obama Administration asked 'Fives Eyes' - the intelligence alliance made up of five countries: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States - to monitor Trump's associates and advisers and share information with US agencies.
"After Public and Racket had been told that President Barack Obama’s CIA Director, John Brennan, had identified 26 Trump associates for the ‘Five Eyes' to target, a source confirmed that the IC had identified them as people to ‘bump, make contact with, or manipulate.' They were targets of our own IC and law enforcement — targets for collection and misinformation," the journalists explained in the report.
"The information is supported by testimony in the public record"
"The new information fills many gaps in our understanding of the Russia collusion hoax and is supported by testimony already in the public record," the journalistic work added.
Likewise, the journalists detailed that unknown information about the FBI investigation of the Trump campaign "are in a 10-inch binder that Trump ordered to be declassified at the very end of his term, sources told Public and Racket." From there, explains The Washington Times, would come the decision to raid former President Trump's residence in Mar-a-Lago.
The report "contradicts the FBI’s explanation that it began spying on Mr. Trump’s campaign in July 2016. The agency has said it started the investigation only after receiving unsolicited information from foreign allies who had discovered, incidentally, that Mr. Trump’s advisers were working with Russians to damage Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign," The Washington Times recalls.
"If the top-secret documents exist proving these charges, they are potentially proof that multiple US intelligence officials broke laws against spying and election interference," says the report published in Public Substack.
