I confess that I don’t know if the national security state wiretapped Donald Trump or not. But guess what: Neither do all those people in the mainstream press who are indignant — absolutely indignant — that anyone, especially the president of the United States — would suggest such a thing.
On what basis do they arrive at absolute certainty that Trump’s enemies in the national-security establishment didn’t wiretap him?
On the basis that leading figures in the national-security branch of the federal government have said that they didn’t wiretap him.
Is that ridiculous, or what?
After all, these people lie, don’t they? They especially lie when they believe that the lie is in the interest of national security. Equally important, they all know that unlike people in the private sector, like Martha Stewart, if they are caught lying or perjuring themselves, nothing is going to happen to them anyway.
Let’s assume that they really did wiretap Trump. What are the chances that they’re going to declare, “We confess! We really did wiretap our political enemy because we were helping our candidate Hillary Clinton to become president”?
The chances of such disclosure are nonexistent. If asked whether they wiretapped Trump, they would, without any doubt whatsoever, lie about having done so.
Consider the now-famous case of James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence. That is a high position within the national-security establishment.
Clapper was summoned to testify under oath to Congress. He was asked: “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?”
Clapper denied it, under oath. He said, “No, sir. Not wittingly.”
It was a flat-out, unmitigated lie, under oath. Clapper knew full well that the NSA had been collecting data on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans as well as people all over the world.
Clapper obviously believed that “national security” entitled him to lie to Congress. What he never anticipated was that he would be busted. When whistleblower Edward Snowden released the NSA records documenting the secret mass surveillance of Americans, Clapper must have winced, knowing that people would now discover that he was an official liar.
But he need not have been concerned about any consequences. He was never summoned before a federal grand jury to explain his false statement under oath. He was never indicted for perjury. In an implicit acknowledgement of the power of the national-security branch of the federal government, the Justice Department didn’t try to lay a finger on Clapper.
So, the national-security establishment’s fervent denials that they wiretapped Trump are meaningless. If they did it, they would deny it, just as Clapper falsely denied that data was being secretly collected on millions of Americans. And if it later turns out that they did wiretap Trump, the liars and the wiretappers know that nothing would be done to them.
Of course, Clapper isn’t the only national-security state official who has lied. Among others, there was Richard Helms, the director of the CIA. That’s another high position within the national-security establishment.
Helms was asked, under oath, whether the U.S. national-security state had secretly meddled in Chile’s national presidential election. Helms flatly said no. But he was lying. He was committing perjury. He felt that “national security” entitled him to lie about U.S. meddling in another country’s presidential election. He also believed he’d never get caught.
But he was caught. He was busted. People discovered that he was just another official liar within the U.S. government.
Helms wasn’t as fortunate as Clapper but he was given a sweetheart deal nonetheless. Rather than convicting him of a felony, which he was surely guilty of, the Justice Department let him plead to a misdemeanor with no jail time and a moderate fine.
Now get this: When Helms returned to CIA headquarters after his sentencing, there was a CIA rally in support of him. The other CIA officials glorified him and thanked him for his service. They even passed a hat around to collect the money for his fine. To them, Helms was a hero and a patriot precisely because he had protected nefarious secrets of the CIA by lying to Congress under oath.
Then there is what I call the Inconceivable Doctrine, whereby those in the mainstream press convince themselves that it is just inconceivable that the national-security establishment would ever wiretap Trump or any other anti-establishment person.
Let’s see now. They wiretap millions or hundreds of millions of Americans. They wiretap presidents and other officials of other countries. They wiretapped Martin Luther King and then blackmailed him to induce him to commit suicide. They wiretap people all over the world.
But we are expected to believe that they would never wiretap a man who was threatening to defeat their candidate, Hillary Clinton, and become president? Yeah, right! And I’ve got a nice sophisticated surveillance system in the Florida Everglades I’d like to sell to you.
The fact is that the national-security establishment would wiretap anyone and everyone and their mother, with or without a warrant, if they felt that national security depended on it. And when asked about it, they would lie about it, just as Clapper and Helms did. And if they were ever caught lying, they know that nothing would happen to them anyway, given the overwhelming power of the national-security establishment within the federal governmental structure.
There is only one way to ensure that people aren’t getting wiretapped anymore: Dismantle this old Cold War-era totalitarian-like dinosaur known as the national-security establishment and restore a limited-government, constitutional republic to our land.