Bizarre, International, Politics, Uncategorized

Shaken Not Scripted: Spicer Repeats Allegation That British Intelligence Spied On Trump For Obama . . . Administration Reportedly Apologizes [UPDATED]

sean_spicerDie_another_Day_-_UK_cinema_posterYesterday’s press conference by White House Spokesman Sean Spicer seemed uncomfortably close to a Saturday Night Live parody as Spicer spared with CNN and other news outlets over President Trump’s wiretapping allegations.  I actually was sympathetic with Spicer on one point:  the media continues to take a literal meaning of Trump’s reference to “wiretap.”  Some after the first tweet, I stated on CNN that I did not believe that Trump was speaking literally and that he likely meant “surveillance.”  I have written and litigated in the field of surveillance over the course of decades and the use of “wiretap” to mean surveillance is a common, if inartful, practice  — particularly among older Americans.  That does not mean that Trump’s allegation of surveillance is true or supportable.  That should be the focus, not this recurring rhetorical point.  However, there has been a truly shocking lack of discipline among high-ranking Trump staffers in their public comments, including comments that have undermined the immigration orders.  A good example of that ongoing problem is the suggestion that British intelligence surveilled Trump for Obama. This allegation had no place in a White House briefing and led to a reported embarrassing apology from the Administration to the British and a promise not to repeat it. It appears that there was no James Bond contract to surveil and the Administration is again shaken not stirred scripted. [UPDATE: CNN is reporting late Friday that Sean Spicer has denied that any apology has been made to Britain.  For its part, Fox News reportedly is saying that it has no support for the allegation raised by Judge Napolitano]

The United States and Great Britain  are members of the Five Eyes alliance – a joint intelligence co-operation agreement of the United States, England, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. The agreement expressly states that it cannot be used to circumvent national laws.  In other words, GCHQ could not engage in the alleged surveillance without not just breaking U.S. law but the agreement.

Spicer  repeated a conspiracy theory that the secretive Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) were used into avoid any “American fingerprints” — an allegation that the British immediately called “totally untrue and quite frankly absurd.”  Other British leaders called the allegation “shameful.”

Spicer attributed the theory to Andrew Napolitano.  On March 14th, Judge Napolitano made the following statement:

Three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command. He didn’t use the NSA, he didn’t use the CIA, he didn’t use the FBI and he didn’t use the Department of Justice.

He used GCHQ. What is that? It’s the initials for the British intelligence-finding agency. So, simply by having two people saying to them president needs transcripts of conversations involving candidate Trump’s conversations, involving president-elect Trump, he’s able to get it and there’s no American fingerprints on this. Putting the published accounts and common-sense together, this leads to a lot.

At the White House, Spicer said:

“Three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command.  He didn’t use the NSA. He didn’t use the CIA. He didn’t use the FBI, and he didn’t use Department of Justice.

“He used GCHQ. What is that? It’s the initials for the British spying agency.

“They showed simply by having two saying to them the President needs transcripts of conversations involving candidate Trump’s conversations involving President-elect Trump, he’s able to get and there is no American fingerprints on this.”

The subsequent apology reportedly came from both Spicer and the U.S. government.  This is obviously embarrassing not just for Spicer but the country as a whole.  It reveals a continued free-lancing and improvisational character of Administration officials in their public comments. That is particularly serious when it involves the White House spokesman who is supposed to maintain a coherent and well-supported position for the Administration.

The Administration cannot simply careen in this fashion from controversy to controversy. Once again, the valid point (concerning the use of “wiretap”) was lost in the firestorm created by the reference to the conspiracy theory.

 

 

124 thoughts on “Shaken Not Scripted: Spicer Repeats Allegation That British Intelligence Spied On Trump For Obama . . . Administration Reportedly Apologizes [UPDATED]”

  3. @JWBurdic, March 21, 2017 at 10:43 am
    “These absurd, obscene ad hominem attacks and lies about Israel and its security services demean this list serve, IMHO, and demonstrate a frozen, pre-conceptive mentality unaccustomed to, or fearful of, any kind of logical or rational thinking. (Hopefully not a lawyer, right, left or middle.)”

    Is your evidence-free, accusatory, “hopeful” generalization above reflective of what you mean by “logical or rational thinking”?

  5. @Ralph Adamo, March 17, 2017 at 10:44 pm
    “AntiPatriot (sic), if you really believe that Israel was behind the 911 crimes, then EXPLAIN why Israel WARNED U.S. Intelligence about the pending attacks prior to 911, as did several other nations including Britain, Russia, Egypt, Germany, and Jordan. Notably, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan did NOT warn the U.S.”

    Its warning agencies of the US Government (USG) about the impending attacks which occurred on 9/11/2001 hardly rules out the possibility that the Israeli government (IG) was complicit in those attacks. As a matter of fact, issuing general warnings of the kind you describe is quite legitimately susceptible to being interpreted as more of the long-standing anti-Arab propaganda issuing from the IG, as well as quite possibly being an effort to divert away from itself the attention of the USG’s intelligence and defense agencies.

    Although my personal jury is still out on the question, what follows below is some evidence (among a great deal of other evidence regarding the possible complicity of the IG that I consider much more salient than any warnings it may have issued. I’ve provided only one link, to the article below, but it contains many other links to other sources. The following is verbatim:

    All 9/11 Airports Serviced by
    One Israeli Owned Company

    It’s one of those times when an innocuous comment in an unrelated news report triggers a revelation.
    In the article at [link] there is the following paragraph:

    “To make the situation worse, a private security company called ICTS, owned by an Israeli, Ezra Harel, and registered in the Netherlands, was employed at Charles de Gaulle airport to screen passengers boarding US planes. Most of its personnel are ex-Shin Bet officers. The company covers security at Boston’s Logan airport, where the American Airlines plane came down after flight attendants and passengers overpowered Reid.”

    The point of the article was that ICTS knew shoe bomber Richard Reid was dangerous, but allowed him on board a flight from Tel Aviv to Paris. Maybe they did and maybe they didn’t. But the idea that an Israeli owned company had inside access to the airport used to launch an abortive terror attack brought to mind the strange message Odigo Systems, another Israeli owned company with offices near the World Trade Towers, received that warned of the impending attacks before the hijacked planes had even left the ground.

    Then there was the story of crotch-bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was allowed to board Northwest flight 253 from Amsterdam on Christmas Day 2009. And again, gate security that allowed him to pass was ICTS!

    So, I went back to another story that had surfaced briefly, reported at [link in article] about how at least one hijacker had smuggled a GUN aboard one of the hijacked planes. Even prior to 9-11, getting a gun on board a passenger plane represented a serious lapse of security. I wondered why this story of a gun was being concealed behind talk of box cutters and screwdrivers.
    Then I went back to the first article and its mention that ICTS handled security at Logan International Airport, from which two of the 9-11 hijacked planes had departed.

    Sure enough, a visit to ICTS’ own web site at [link in article] confirms that ICTS is in fact an Israeli owned company, and that it sells services to every airport from which the hijacked planes operated, including security, sometimes through wholly owned subsidiaries like Huntleigh USA Corporation.

    It has been suggested that the incredible feat of hijacking four aircraft without a single arrest at the gate would require the resources of a nation-state. This is even more true with the revelation that at least one gun had managed to be aboard a hijacked plane. One company had automatic inside access to all of the airports from which hijacked planes departed on 9-11, and to the airports used by Richard Reid, the shoe bomber. An Israeli company. One that Mossad agents could easily find employment with without the management knowing who they were or what their purpose really was.

    But one thing is clear. By virtue of the Odigo warning, someone knew enough about the planned attacks to warn Odigo before the planes had even departed the airport gates, yet they did not call the Israeli security company at the airports which could have stopped the flights from leaving.

    Think about that one for a while.

    http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/ICTS.html

    1. These absurd, obscene ad hominem attacks and lies about Israel and its security services demean this list serve, IMHO, and demonstrate a frozen, pre-conceptive mentality unaccustomed to, or fearful of, any kind of logical or rational thinking. (Hopefully not a lawyer, right, left or middle.)

  6. @Ralph Adamo, March 17, 2017 at 10:44 pm
    “AntiPatriot (sic), if you really believe that Israel was behind the 911 crimes, then EXPLAIN why Israel WARNED U.S. Intelligence about the pending attacks prior to 911, as did several other nations including Britain, Russia, Egypt, Germany, and Jordan. Notably, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan did NOT warn the U.S.”

    Its warning agencies of the US Government (USG) about the impending attacks which occurred on 9/11/2001 hardly rules out the possibility that the Israeli government (IG) was complicit in those attacks. As a matter of fact, issuing general warnings of the kind you describe is quite legitimately susceptible to being interpreted as more of the long-standing anti-Arab propaganda issuing from the IG, as well as quite possibly being an effort to divert away from itself any suspicion of the intelligence and defense agencies of the USG.

    Although my personal jury is still out on the question, here’s some evidence (among a great deal of other evidence) linked to below regarding the possible complicity of the IG that I consider much more salient than any warnings it may have issued. I’ve provided only one link, to the article below, but it contains many other links to other sources. The following is verbatim:

    All 9/11 Airports Serviced by
    One Israeli Owned Company

    It’s one of those times when an innocuous comment in an unrelated news report triggers a revelation.
    In the article at http://afrocubaweb.com/news/israelispying.htm there is the following paragraph:

    “To make the situation worse, a private security company called ICTS, owned by an Israeli, Ezra Harel, and registered in the Netherlands, was employed at Charles de Gaulle airport to screen passengers boarding US planes. Most of its personnel are ex-Shin Bet officers. The company covers security at Boston’s Logan airport, where the American Airlines plane came down after flight attendants and passengers overpowered Reid.”

    The point of the article was that ICTS knew shoe bomber Richard Reid was dangerous, but allowed him on board a flight from Tel Aviv to Paris. Maybe they did and maybe they didn’t. But the idea that an Israeli owned company had inside access to the airport used to launch an abortive terror attack brought to mind the strange message Odigo Systems, another Israeli owned company with offices near the World Trade Towers, received that warned of the impending attacks before the hijacked planes had even left the ground.

    Then there was the story of crotch-bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was allowed to board Northwest flight 253 from Amsterdam on Christmas Day 2009. And again, gate security that allowed him to pass was ICTS!

    So, I went back to another story that had surfaced briefly, reported at http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26626 about how at least one hijacker had smuggled a GUN aboard one of the hijacked planes. Even prior to 9-11, getting a gun on board a passenger plane represented a serious lapse of security. I wondered why this story of a gun was being concealed behind talk of box cutters and screwdrivers. Then I went back to the first article and its mention that ICTS handled security at Logan International Airport, from which two of the 9-11 hijacked planes had departed.

    Sure enough, a visit to ICTS’ own web site at http://www.icts-int.com/ confirms that ICTS is in fact an Israeli owned company, and that it sells services to every airport from which the hijacked planes operated, including security, sometimes through wholly owned subsidiaries like Huntleigh USA Corporation.

    It has been suggested that the incredible feat of hijacking four aircraft without a single arrest at the gate would require the resources of a nation-state. This is even more true with the revelation that at least one gun had managed to be aboard a hijacked plane. One company had automatic inside access to all of the airports from which hijacked planes departed on 9-11, and to the airports used by Richard Reid, the shoe bomber. An Israeli company. One that Mossad agents could easily find employment with without the management knowing who they were or what their purpose really was.

    But one thing is clear. By virtue of the Odigo warning, someone knew enough about the planned attacks to warn Odigo before the planes had even departed the airport gates, yet they did not call the Israeli security company at the airports which could have stopped the flights from leaving.

    Think about that one for a while.
    http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/ICTS.html

  9. Man… you people spend too much time indoors, talking only to each other… it’s affecting your world view…

    Every time I stop by and read the threads, it’s like one endless, non-stop, paranoid fantasy…

    “The left…” “The left…” “The left…” “The left…” “The left…” “The left…” “The left…” “The left…” “The left…”

    “The left…” “The left…” “The left…” “The left…” “The left…” “The left…” “The left…” “The left…” “The left…”

    “The left…” “The left…” “The left…” “The left…” “The left…” “The left…” “The left…” “The left…” “The left..

    Over and over and over and over again… SAD!

    There’s a real world out there, folks… green grass… blue skies…

    YOU. NEED. TO. GET. OUT. MORE.

    Seriously…

    1. Then why are you here commenting? Shouldn’t you be outside?

      Here’s the thing….it IS the LEFT, the LEFT, the LEFT….that is the PROBLEM, the PROBLEM, the PROBLEM…..

  10. A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims… but accomplices — George Orwell

    Anyone who supports the Republicans, Democrats, Israel & the Mainstream Media are accomplices to murder and have blood on their hands. They are Zionist Nazi Terrorists.
    Congress, Justice Department, FBI & Court System are corrupt cowards else they would have indicted the Bush / Obama administrations & Israel for 9/11 and War Crimes years ago.
    Now they should indict Trump for War Crimes & 9/11 Cover-up as well.
    Nuremberg on the Potomac is long overdue.

    http://buenavistamall.com/bushobamatrump2.jpg

          1. I’m quite sure that you are nothing but a blessing for your unfortunate family. I pity them. I thought that my relatives were some kind of special. You take the cake.

  11. Surprisingly, Donna Brazile admitted she gave the questions to Clinton.

    The truth will come out about this eventually as well.

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