Birth of a conspiracy theory: How Trump's wiretap claim got started

[spanone]

the Birther-in-Chief knows all about conspiracy theories...

An incendiary idea first put forward by right-wing radio host Mark Levin is now burning across Washington, fanned by President Trump's tweets and a huge number of supportive commentators and websites -- even though the facts don't back up the conclusion.

Breitbart News has given the conspiracy theory a name: "DeepStateGate." Others are going with "ObamaGate." And Fox News host Sean Hannity is asking: "What did OBAMA know and when did he know it???"

Levin's original idea, advanced on Thursday, was that former President Barack Obama and his allies have mounted a "silent coup" against Trump using "police state" tactics. Levin cherry-picked news stories that supported his thesis and omitted information that cut against it.

The next day, Rush Limbaugh echoed Levin's "silent coup" language, and Breitbart columnist Joel Pollak published an "expanded version of that case."

http://money.cnn.com/2017/03/06/media/mark-levin-joel-pollak-breitbart-trump-obama/index.html

[bullimiami]

1. Back up one step where the original idea was formed in the WH and planted to Levin.

They need to get Levin under oath and find out where the idea came from.

[rusty fender]

2. This same theory

has been talked about for weeks by Clyde Lewis on Ground Zero radio. I don't know if he originated this ct, but this guy is "way out there." Every two or three days he was predicting an alien invasion. He also talks a lot about "predictive programming."

I listen to snippets of his show for entertainment purposes only

[jmg257]

3. Great - more "fake news"...

Levin and Pollak's opinion pieces relied heavily on anonymously sourced reports from the BBC, The Guardian and the new Murdoch-owned conservative outlet Heat Street about requests under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act from June and October 2016.

Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler said these are "sketchy, anonymously sourced reports." CNN has not been able to confirm them. But those reports, alleging efforts by the FBI to monitor Trump associates with suspected ties to Russia, became the basis of the conspiracy theory.