For over a year now, Donald Trump, along with his pet parrot, Sean Hannity, has been trying to suggest that somehow Trump was illegally surveilled during the 2016 campaign by former President Obama. Their “proof” is that a FISA warrant was issued for surveillance of communications devices used by former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who is poised to spend the rest of his life in prison for tax fraud and money laundering.
What Trump and his defenders fail to explain (you know how facts get in the way of a good conspiracy theory), is that the warrant was issued legally by a judge at the request of federal law enforcement because Manafort was making numerous calls and sending texts and emails to Russian nationals during the campaign and became the subject of an investigation as a result. All legal, all signed off on by the proper authorities, and all necessary to determine if Manafort was a spy.
But here’s a much bigger problem for Trump and his attorneys: There’s a very high probability that Trump is also on those tapes that were made by the FBI. After all, Manafort was the head of the campaign, so it’s safe to say he probably had extensive communications with the candidate. And if a single word of what they said was about Russia or how the Kremlin might want to help Trump win, then Special Counsel Robert Mueller now has those tapes.
One thing we do know for certain: In the closing days of the campaign, Trump was urged to make extra appearances in the key battleground state of Michigan, which we now know was where the Russians did much of their behind the scenes work by spreading lies on social media and attempting to hack into voter records. Were those added stops in Michigan done at the suggestion of Manafort in consultation with the Russians? If so, Trump’s guilty of conspiracy and attempting to influence an election with the help of a foreign government.
Tapes don’t lie. Donald Trump knows that, and it’s why he’s trying so hard to avoid an interview with Mueller. But the time will come when Trump and his co-conspirators can no longer hide. And on that day, the world will know the American president betrayed his own country.