slate - "Investigate Obama, Don't Investigate Us" - It's a Game Trump Can't Win
“There Is No Question That Something Happened”
How the Trump camp's argument for investigating Obama could be turned against them.
By William Saletan
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/03/how_trump_s_wiretap_allegation_strategy_could_backfire.html
Donald Trump’s White House has two spins for any investigation about Russia. One is “something there.” The other is “nothing there.” Lately, Trump and his aides have switched back and forth between these spins, hoping you won’t notice. It’s a cynical trick, and it could be turned against them.
On March 1, the New York Times reported that the Obama administration, in its final days, had stashed away intelligence about links between Trump and Russia. Trump’s spokesman, Sean Spicer, told the Times that the whole Trump-Russia story was “a false narrative.” “There continues to be no there there,” said Spicer.
That’s the nothing spin: Either there’s clear evidence of collaboration between the Russian government and the Trump campaign, or there’s nothing. Either the wildest version of the allegation is true—Trump’s lawyer shaking hands with Vladimir Putin in a Prague café—or the whole thing is a “false narrative.” The point of this binary framework is to discredit and abort any investigation. If you can’t prove collusion, shut it down.
The something spin works the other way. It came in handy three days after the Times story, when Trump accused President Obama of “tapping my phones” in Trump Tower. Trump offered no evidence. Obama, FBI Director James Comey, and James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, made clear that the charge was bunk. It looked like a big nothing. But hold on, said Spicer. “There’s no question that something happened,” he told reporters. “The question is, is it surveillance, is it a wiretap, or whatever. But there’s been enough reporting that strongly suggests that something occurred. And I think that that’s why [Trump] wants Congress to look into this.”
SNIP - much more to read at the link above.
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