Talk:Trump Tower wiretapping allegations

Please explain revert

Hey @TheTimesAreAChanging: please explain. Nweil (talk) 23:16, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

As Muboshgu and I already stated, it is inappropriate for you to add off-topic material to this article just because it contains a reference to "Trump Tower," but has no discernible relation to Trump's thoroughly debunked and nonsensical allegation "that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory." Unless very solid reliable sources make the connection, this content is a clear violation of WP:SYNTH as well as needlessly confusing for readers.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 03:31, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

I can tell by your response that you have an axe to grind here per WP:TENDENTIOUS, @TheTimesAreAChanging:, but let me give this a shot. This article describes the origin of this topic as "suspected activity between the server [in Trump Tower] and two banks, SVB Bank and Alfa Bank". The New York Times source I attached to my edit is perfectly in line: "suspicions about possible covert communications between Russia’s Alfa Bank and Mr. Trump’s company". So to satisfy your concerns, I'll phrase my edit as a continuation of earlier items in the article. Nweil (talk) 06:24, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

@Nweil: FYI, TTAC has an extensive familiarity with the sources and the range of narratives relating to national security issues, so the personal accusation is quite unwarranted, excuse the pun. NWeil, I am having a hard time understanding what you are hoping to contribute with your edits. They seem to be unbalancing the narrative by introducing somewhat random snippets, extended UNDUE quotations, etc. What are you trying to accomplish with your edits here? What's the overview? Thanks. SPECIFICO talk 12:25, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

Once again, explain reverts

@SPECIFICO: This definitely does not feel in the spirit of WP:ROWN and that further editing on your part would be a much better option. However, willing to discuss any issues you or anyone else has with my edits here. Please help me understand what the issue is, in detail, so I can address. Nweil (talk) 15:01, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Please don't make personal remarks on the article talk page. I have rarely edited this page, if ever. SPECIFICO talk 15:13, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

You reverted my edits on this article this morning. Nweil (talk) 15:20, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

I believe that SPECIFICO may have confused the WP:ROWN link above with the more widely-cited WP:OWN. The latter, a policy, is clearly inapplicable to these circumstances. The former, an essay, does not persuade me that SPECIFICO's rollback to the last stable version of this article is anything other than fully justified.

Given that your edits have now been reverted by three separate users, Nweil, perhaps you should reconsider your approach, rather than suggesting that everyone else is at fault. Your original edit was a straightforward violation of WP:SYNTH and was reverted accordingly. In your subsequent revisions, you have selectively used a Washington Post debunking of a right-wing conspiracy theory related to the trial of Michael Sussmann, who was unanimously acquitted, to make the connection that your original edit left to innuendo. Nevertheless, you have failed to establish WP:WEIGHT for inclusion, let alone at the detail/length of your proposed revision, which places considerably more emphasis on the conspiracy theory than the debunking. Moreover, your edits dramatically muddied the waters with unencyclopedic (e.g., "[t]hese explosive revelations") and WP:WEASEL language: e.g., "the claims were labeled conspiracy theories by CNN and The Los Angeles Times" (unnecessary attribution, as no reliable sources dispute the label); "[a]nonymous sources claimed to CNN" (completely unnecessary in context, and the unnamed sources are known to CNN); "there has been discussion of how literal to take the wiretapping allegations" (unnecessary, overly broad editorial statement in wikivoice); and my personal favorite "The Washington Post blogger Glenn Kessler claimed that an anonymous White House spokesperson told him" (demoting The Washington Post's Pulitzer Prize-winning fact checker Glenn Kessler to a mere "blogger" and introducing unsourced doubt that a Trump administration spokesman "provided a list of five articles" to Kessler, which is far from an extraordinary claim). Additionally, as SPECIFICO noted in her edit summary, Maddow covering a New York Times article that was misrepresented two months later to provide threadbare "support" for Trump's tweets is not itself relevant to the "Origin" section of this article, especially without a secondary source. In sum, Nweil (and speaking from experience), if I were you then I would carefully review WP:TENDENTIOUS and WP:PROFRINGE before continuing down this path in the American Politics topic area, which is subject to discretionary sanctions.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 18:07, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your specific recommendations. I will take those to heart and re-submit my edits accordingly. Nweil (talk) 18:12, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

It seems like one area where we disagree, Specifico is that you want zero focus on the tweets themselves and how they impacted people, relationships, and the public discourse. You want all the focus on the content of the tweets, as if they were a white house press release. They were not, they are part of Trump's viral moments. And that's why this event was included in the list of Social media use by Donald Trump and in fact one of the only items in the list to have it's own separate page. Nweil (talk) 20:05, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

@SPECIFICO: Regarding the sentence which reads: The claims were labeled conspiracy theories by CNN and The Los Angeles Times.. Its unclear what claims or theory this sentence refers to. And the CNN source used to support it is calling the wiretap tweets as the conspiracy theory. This seems to be referring to something else? What is it? Nweil (talk) 18:12, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Regarding the Andrew McCarthy article, its commentary, not any sort original research. In fact, he mostly seems to be trying to give some technical response to David French's post which was basically a round up of the BBC and Guardian articles and expressing dismay. McCarthy was trying to caution circumspection based on his legal background. The way that it is currently included in the article is misleading. Nweil (talk) 18:24, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

It is unclear what you are trying to achieve with your edits. If you wish to pursue them, please give a succinct and specific summary as to why you think they are improvements and accurate reflections of the best RS narratives available. SPECIFICO talk 20:49, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

My edits are integrating RS that have been released approximately 2018 through the present. The vast majority of this article and sources were published in the weeks directly after the event. It has not evolved with better RS with hindsight. You seem married to the WP:BNS heavy version of this article. Nweil (talk) 21:12, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Undiscussed revert of long-standing version

TheTimesAreAChanging decided to reject an April 27 version of mine with this edit summary:

"I disagree with these drafting changes by User:Valjean, as they are not directly supported by the PolitiFact citation and serve to distance Trump from the conspiracy theories that he himself amplified and sometimes originated. In any case, exactly what prompted these bizarre tweets cannot be stated with certainty."

It seems to ignore my original edit summary which showed I was not depending on the PolitiFact reference:

"Context is needed: conspiracy theories and source of his information established by sources above; better flow by removing duplicate name and honorific; "claims" is justified here"

I'd like to hear more explanation about why this change was necessary. PolitiFact does in fact state that multiple RS pointed to Breitbart as the original "inspiration" for Trump's remarks: "Before we get into those, it’s worth noting that many news outlets have suggested Trump’s remark was inspired by a March 3 post on Breitbart News."[1]

My version stated: "He did not reveal he had received his information from Breitbart News."

The new version states: "He did not say where he had obtained the information."

The new version is true, but leaves out the fact that RS have told us that Trump received his information from Breitbart's March 3 article and tweeted about that info on March 4. That information is good and should be kept. The "Origins" section contains detailed explanations and sourcing to show that Trump got it from Breitbart:

"The Breitbart article was subsequently circulated among White House staffers, and was reportedly given to Trump on the following day, together with his morning newspapers and printouts.

Why leave out that information? My version in the "Initial claim" section carried on the flow of the story from the previous section. The new version breaks that flow. It doesn't seem like an improvement to me and is actually less informative. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:27, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

The Breitbart connection is contradicted by other RS. It should not be stated as a fact. Nweil (talk) 20:37, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

You used, and then deleted, this ref:

They're both business insider, I copied the wrong one. Nweil (talk) 20:54, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Note that the other sources refer to Trump's later claims, and he is rarely a RS. The timing works for Breitbart but not for the other sources. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:50, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Fire and Fury is not sourced to Trump. Nweil (talk) 20:54, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

At best we could use them to say that Trump later claimed he got his views from mainstream sources and did not mention Breitbart as his source. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:58, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Do you have a page number and quote from Wolff? I have the book. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:00, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

pp. 157-160 discuss it and end with mentioning Breitbart. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:06, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

excerpt from book: "a sudden effort to find something that might be (true), and a frantic White House dished up a Breitbart article." So Breitbart wasnt the origin as our wikipedia article claims it was the coverup Nweil (talk) 21:08, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Technically, Valjean, the content that you modified was just as long-standing as your revision; if I had been aware of your edit, I would have challenged it sooner. Regardless, the article makes clear that there were two main sources that motivated Trump's tweets, namely the Breitbart article and a misinterpreted exchange on Fox News between Bret Baier and Paul Ryan which aired the evening prior to the tweets. Importantly, the Breitbart article was itself derivative of claims previously made by right-wing talk radio host Mark Levin. While I will not link to Breitbart directly as it is a deprecated source, even the Breitbart article did not make claims as outlandish as those in Trump's tweets. Therefore, while there is a section specifically devoted to examining the murky "Origin" of this conspiracy theory/urban legend, the "Accusation" section reads better by simply focusing on that topic—Trump's accusation against President Obama, and the many shocked reactions to it, as no previous president had ever made comparable claims in such a cavalier manner—as in the older long-standing version: "In a succession of tweets on March 4, 2017, Trump stated he had 'just found out' that former president Barack Obama had wiretapped his phones at Trump Tower during the last month of the 2016 election. He did not say where he had obtained the information and offered no evidence to support it." Your version—"Trump responded to the conspiracy theories in a succession of tweets on March 4, 2017 ..."—has the unfortunate implication that Trump passively "responded" to an already widely-circulating conspiracy theory, when in fact he amplified and exaggerated a few (often contradictory) fringe claims which until then had gone almost unnoticed in mainstream discourse.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 21:22, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the good explanation. Since we have RS for both aspects, it sounds to me like we should mention both Breitbart and Baier.

I also think you make a good point about the "unfortunate implication that Trump passively "responded" to an already widely-circulating conspiracy theory". Thanks again. It's been a pleasure doing business with you! -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 23:26, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Adding one more RS to this with a third take. Washington Post Factchecking staff released a book in 2020 which says "This tale stems from a January 2017 New York Times report that investigators were examining intercepted communications and financial transactions as part of the probe into possible links between Russian officials and Trump associates. The headline was dramatic: 'Wiretapped Data Used in Inquiry of Trump Aides.' Then, on March 4, Trump tweeting his own allegation." Wouldn't a book released 3 years after the fact, after everything has settled, actually be the best source here per WP:RSBREAKING? Nweil (talk) 04:37, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

EC: I don't necessarily think so. If that is the entire synopsis, then it is rather abbreviated and certainly less thorough than many of the sources already cited in the article. Again, Ryan's "non-denial" on Fox was the night before, and the Breitbart article was reportedly included in Trump's morning papers. Even if Trump read about "Wiretapped Data" in The New York Times two months earlier, the timing suggests that something else must have triggered his tweetstorm. If anything, The New York Times article seems more likely to have been one of the sources that was seized on by administration officials during the subsequent scramble to find something, anything, that would provide Trump's accusations with a veneer of credibility, and indeed it was one of the five reports provided to Kessler by a White House spokesman. (As Kessler observed: "We recall that the president has previously deemed Times reporting on this matter as 'fake news.'")TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 05:46, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

TheTimesAreAChanging you say the timing with Breitbart/Fox makes perfect sense but that makes no sense. The NYT article was the one mentioned on Fox, not Breitbart. So the way it stands now, the Fox interview is not integrated into the lede at all. Furthermore, and maybe this is venting, but I'm sure you all can see that Ms. Mensch was attempting to gain notoriety for her nascent publication, which clearly was not doing well as it shuttered shortly after. She had an incentive to say it was from her, not the New York Times and she wasted no time spiking the football on that one. It very much feels like she played quite a few people inside and outside the government and I'm quite bothered that she seems to be playing quite a few Wikipedia editors as well. Finally, Trump was at Mar-a-Lago with his kids and went to an event the evening before, not at the White House. And the tweets occured way before anyone was up. So this image of white house staffers placing the breitbart article on the resolute desk and then trump tweeting about it is extremely misleading, but again, thats how the article reads. Nweil (talk) 05:37, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

I don't claim to know anything about Trump's schedule, but the aforementioned White House spokesman cited Mensch's Heat Street as a primary source for the wiretap allegation, handing her plenty of notoriety independently of her own efforts. It is a fair point that "the Fox interview is not integrated into the lede at all," but the reason for that is because we only have one source on the topic, which acknowledges that the interview went "little-noticed." I would not be against adding a brief mention of the Ryan-Baier exchange to the lede, but we should avoid placing excessive WP:WEIGHT on this factor, as neither the preponderance of the sources nor our article body assigns it the same prominence as Heat Street/Breitbart. Furthermore, your assertion that "The NYT article was the one mentioned on Fox, not Breitbart" is inconsistent with the excerpt provided in our source:

"'There's a report that June 2016, there's a FISA request by the Obama administration, foreign intelligence surveillance court, to monitor communications involving Donald Trump and several other campaign officials,' Baier said. 'Then they get turned down, and then in October they renew it and they do start a wiretap at Trump Tower with some computer and Russian banks and it doesn't show up anything, by reporting. Have you heard that?' Ryan, speaking from Janesville, Wisconsin, answered that he had no proof any Trump officials had colluded with Russia."

Those details seem clearly to come from Heat Street/Breitbart; by contrast, The New York Times referred to "Intercepted Russian Communications."TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 06:11, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

TheTimesAreAChanging What you wrote above is wrong. We have three sources saying he got it from the Baier interview (US News, Business Insider, and Fire and Fury). And only two which say its from a Breitbart article on his desk (CNN and AP). The WaPo article only says that the article circulated internally (which actually matches Fire and Fury), not that the tweets are based on it. Nweil (talk) 15:52, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

All of this seems like a craziness to differentiate between which false story it was. The Heat Street article was false. The BBC article was false. The Guardian article was false. The McClatchy article was false. All of the articles saying that Manafort has a FISA were proven false. Why are we comparing and contrasting all the different ways they were false. Nweil (talk) 06:34, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

?? Nweil, Manafort was indeed surveiled under TWO FISA warrants. A good analytical source. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 14:58, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Valjean, your derivative 2017 source has been directly contradicted by Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz, whose team concluded in 2019 that "we are aware of no information indicating that the Crossfire Hurricane team requested or seriously considered FISA surveillance of Manafort or Flynn." Additionally, while CNN declined to retract their original report (and was criticized for not doing so), it did add the following "Editor's Note": "On December 9, 2019, the Justice Department Inspector General released a report regarding the opening of the investigation on Russian election interference and Donald Trump's campaign. In the report, the IG contradicts what CNN was told in 2017, noting that the FBI team overseeing the investigation did not seek FISA surveillance of Paul Manafort: 'We were also told that the team also did not seek FISA surveillance of Manafort ... and we are aware of no information indicating that the Crossfire Hurricane team requested or seriously considered FISA surveillance of Manafort.'"TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 15:28, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

The fact that there is no more recent FISA on Manafort seems cut and dried. I can't even find a source for the 2014 supposed earlier FISA on Manafort. Nweil (talk) 15:34, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Ugh! You're right. I wasn't thinking clearly.(I'm severely jetlagged.) I confused the surveillance of Flynn, Manafort, Page, and Papadopoulos for FISA warrants. Page got the FISA warrants. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:15, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

As I recall, Kessler made a point of distinguishing Heat Street from the other sources, and the relevant paragraph is based on his analysis. Manafort is a separate issue: There was only one credible report alleging a wiretap on Manafort (long after Trump's initial tweets), from CNN (and which CNN never retracted despite it being directly contradicted by Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz two years later), plus a few derivative mentions explicitly citing CNN.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 07:39, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

References

duplicate wording

the wording in this article about unmasking is duplicated and described better here: Unmasking by U.S. intelligence_agencies#Unmasking aides to Donald Trump. I propose we remove a lot of the nitty gritty details about unmasking and just say something like "unmasking was brought up as possible vindication for the tweets." Nweil (talk) 17:15, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Possible duplication is irrelevant. The word appears three times and the content seems solid, so no good reason to change it. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:15, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

It would be contrary to Wikipedia policy to mention this purported "vindication" without also including the context from RS that it was a largely disingenuous ploy by Representative Devin Nunes (now the CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group).TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 23:35, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

A line saying "Nunes implied that such unmasking may have been improper—an allegation that the Trump administration used to deflect from Trump's original wiretap claim" is already in the article? I'm confused by your comment. This is one of a long string of things that are "possible vindications" (but dont really fit the original claim). Incidental collection/unmasking, the carter page fisa, the fake manafort fisa, the informants of crossfire hurricane, the comey memos etc. And really the fact that these things were discussed as "vindications" are the only reason they are related to the wiretap tweets. That's the connection. So rather than going into detail about each one of them (especially since most have their own wikipedia pages), seems better to just say "this was brought up and then dismissed." Nweil (talk) 15:04, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

The next section might be relevant to the "wiretap tweets" vindication claims. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:26, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

What to do?

In the lead we have this wording:

Furthermore, the 2017 CNN report cited as partial vindication for Trump was refuted by a 2019 investigation by the DOJ's Inspector General, which stated: "We are aware of no information indicating that the Crossfire Hurricane team requested or seriously considered FISA surveillance of Manafort or Flynn." Bold added.

From the Paul Manafort article:

It was later confirmed that Manafort was wiretapped by the FBI "before and after the election ... including a period when Manafort was known to talk to President Donald Trump." The surveillance of Manafort began in 2014, before Donald Trump announced his candidacy for President of United States.

So we know that Manafort was subjected to wiretap surveillance by the FBI (not the same as the Crossfire Hurricane team) from 2014 and onwards, but the Crossfire Hurricane investigation is relevant only after July 31, 2016, and any FISA warrant applications by them were from approximately October(?) 2016. To me, this indicates that Manafort was likely still under surveillance and that Crossfire Hurricane was irrelevant to this question. Whether "the Crossfire Hurricane team requested or seriously considered FISA surveillance of Manafort or Flynn" has nothing to do with the existing surveillance of Manafort.

Therefore, I suspect that the wording "was refuted by a 2019..." is a bit of OR overreach and needs rewording or deletion. Please explain. Maybe I'm misunderstanding/forgetting something. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:23, 12 July 2022 (UTC) Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:23, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Because this is directly related to the thread above ("Manafort wiretapping"), I'm pinging those active in that thread: Laurel Wreath of Victors, Emir of Wikipedia, TheTimesAreAChanging, and MelanieN. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:25, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Can you provide a source for the claim we know that Manafort was subjected to wiretap surveillance by the FBI (other than the CNN article which is controversial and many believe is wrong) Nweil (talk) 16:35, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

That is the source I'm thinking of. What sources dispute it? We know that Manafort was engaged in possibly illegal activities for a long time before leading Trump's election campaign, and the FBI would have been interested in surveilling him. If the CNN report was wrong, then the Manafort article needs to be fixed using multiple RS. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:05, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

WaPo: "CNN was wrong about the Manafort wiretapping story, as made clear in the report from Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz." Nweil (talk) 20:00, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm still confused. Wemple (a source of usually unreliable WaPo "opinion" articles about the dossier, like the one you cite) seems to conflate the older FBI FISA surveillance warrant from 2014 (mentioned by CNN, and apparently still active after the election) with the apparent lack of any newer 2016 warrant initiated by the Crossfire Hurricane team (mentioned by Horowitz). Crossfire Hurricane didn't exist in 2014, so we're obviously talking about two different situations.

I'm on my cellphone, which makes it difficult to research this. Maybe I'm missing something. Please keep helping me understand this. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 00:06, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Valjean, CNN acknowledges in its "Editor's Note" that "the IG contradicts what CNN was told in 2017". There is no serious argument that CNN's original report is accurate, let alone that it is consistent with Horowitz's findings; to the contrary, the argument that you made above, attempting to reconcile the sources, itself smacks of original research that has not been published by any reputable source. If that isn't already blindingly-obvious from CNN's "Editor's Note," consider common sense:

• FISA warrants are secret by design; leaking them to the press is a serious crime, carrying a substantial prison sentence if proven in court. CNN never revealed its sources, and their credentials are therefore impossible to independently assess. Nevertheless, it is extraordinarily improbable that anyone affiliated with the FISA court itself or the upper echelons of the FBI would have countenanced such a leak, raising the possibility that the "leak" was actually thirdhand hearsay—which is not known to be particularly reliable.
• U.S. media outlets spent countless months trying to corroborate rumors of a Manafort FISA warrant, but all of them failed—except for CNN, which now candidly admits that its exclusive rests on a shaky foundation following the release of Horowitz's investigative summary. As of 2022, the number of mainstream U.S. media outlets that stand behind that story without reservation is zero.
• Crucially, no communications that would have been intercepted by a FISA warrant were presented as evidence during Manafort's trial. (Nor was Manafort charged or convicted of espionage or criminal conspiracy—which is notable as mere money launderers and unscrupulous FARA-violating lobbyists are never subject to intrusive, secret FISA surveillance.) Even Manafort himself, after being pardoned by Trump, has made little mention of the FISA claim in his "rehabilitation tour" on right-leaning media outlets.
• For your alternative theory to be correct, we would have to believe that IG Horowitz lied by omission, writing that "we are aware of no information indicating that the Crossfire Hurricane team requested or seriously considered FISA surveillance of Manafort" and leaving it at that, without mentioning that the surveillance did occur and that the 2016 portion of it was overseen by Crossfire Hurricane, albeit not specifically "requested" by that FBI body. Horowitz is known as a man of integrity who chooses his words very carefully, rendering this hypothesis implausible.

Journalism is the first rough draft of history. Sometimes, thinly-sourced thirdhand accounts get it wrong, and are corrected by more thorough retrospective examinations (e.g., the Horowitz report). Some individuals, on both the far-Right and the far-Left—and President Trump himself—wanted there to have been FISA surveillance of Manafort, either to illustrate the contention that the FBI was abusing heavy-handed investigative tools intended for terrorists and similar threats to American national security for political reasons, or the contrasting thesis that there is probable cause to believe Manafort is a Russian agent or asset and, perhaps, that the same is true of Trump (as alleged in the Steele dossier). However, what they wanted to believe is orthogonal to the underlying facts.

CNN's "Editor's Note" alone is sufficient to update Manafort's article, if it needs updating. (This would avoid any real or imagined WP:OR in our use of Horowitz as a primary source.) If the sentence in question has not been reevaluated since December 2019, that is (sadly) far from surprising: As Mark Twain once said, "A lie can travel around the world and back again while the truth is lacing up its boots."TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 02:30, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

This is well explained by TheTimesAreAChanging. For even more evidence, although admittedly in the WP:OR realm, peep this article from March 2017, which states: On Monday, the House panel sent the Justice Department a letter asking for copies of any court orders related to Trump or his associates which might have been issued last year under an electronic surveillance law or a wide-ranging anti-crime statute. So the committee asked for any and all documentation of court ordered surveillance of anyone associated with Trump over the last year and they were delivered....the Carter Page FISA. That's the only one. Now on to the mystery of the 2014 investigation, we have very little information about it, but if you read the Horowitz report, page 291 for example, you see that a money laundering investigation of Manafort was opened in January 2016. Note this has nothing to do with being a foreign agent or spy so FISA is off the table, since that's for foreign influence. Ultimately, that investigation was subsumed by Mueller and ended with Manafort's tax fraud conviction. For completeness sake, John Solomon (who I know isn't going to be an RS for the article, but for reference here on the talk page) said: During the 2014 investigation, Manafort and his partner Richard Gates voluntarily identified for FBI agents tens of millions of dollars they received from Ukrainian and Russian sources and the shell companies and banks that wired the money. “Gates stated that the amounts they received would match the amounts they invoiced for services. Gates added they were always paid late, and in tranches,” FBI memos I obtained show. So again, it was about weird money stuff, not about foreign influence, Manafort wasn't even participating in US politics at the time. Regardless, we know for sure the 2014 investigation was closed at some point, because as referenced in the Horowitz report, the slate was clean in January 2016 when a new investigation started. Seems like the 2014 investigation was short lived but we don't have actual dates. Nweil (talk) 02:43, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Just a point. Manafort's work internationally was usually of a "foreign influence" nature. When he was in Ukraine it was for Russia and against Ukrainian and American interests, and he continued that work while he was Trump's campaign chairman. Therefore, FISA warrants would have been justified. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:10, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Wow you are really just mashing ideas together randomly. Nweil (talk) 03:21, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Just the facts. Weren't you aware of this? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:29, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Nweil, you may find the Senate Intelligence Committee report's coverage of Manafort's "influence operations" interesting. Manafort was paid very handsomely for pushing Russia's interests in Ukraine. Look at the Table of Contents, and then start on the page with 33 at the bottom (47):

"The Committee limited its investigation of Manafort and his associates to areas related to Russia and Russian-aligned interests. The most significant of Manafort's Russian-aligned interests centered on two overlapping areas: (1) Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and (2) politicians affiliated with the now-defunct Party of Regions (PoR) and its successor, the Opposition Bloc (OB), in Ukraine. In pursuing these relationships, Manafort conducted influence operations that supported and were a part of Russian active measures campaigns, including those involving political influence and electoral interference. These past activities resulted in relationships and levers of influence, including multi-million dollar financial disputes, which persisted throughout Manafort's time as the head of the Trump Campaign. Furthermore, Manafort sought to secretly contact both Deripaska and Ukrainian oligarchs affiliated with the OB in connection with his work on the Trump Campaign. Manafort reached out to both entities before, during, and after his time on the Trump Campaign to provide inside information and offer assistance to these Russian-aligned interests." (bold added)

So you see, my knowledge about Manafort is pretty well aligned with very RS. In fact, I have no other ideas about him. I get all my ideas from RS. It is no exaggeration to call him a VERY active "Russian asset" while leading the Trump campaign. He actively pushed for Russia and against Ukraine, and he was paid to do this. He also shared important campaign data with Deripaska, who of course shared it with Russian intelligence so they could use it to more precisely target American voters. It is because of Manafort's anti-Ukraine, pro-Russian, activities and interests that the Trump campaign got the GOP to change its party platform about support for Russia vs. Ukraine. Russia used Manafort to get their will with Trump, who willingly complied as he would, and did, benefit from the arrangement. This was a fulfillment of Trump's very public promises to Putin, a real quid pro quo, to back off on U.S. support for Ukraine, IOW to weaken and lift the sanctions that hurt Putin and his oligarch friends, especially Deripaska (Trump later succeeded in lifting the sanctions against him). In exchange, Putin would support Trump's candidacy, and he really came through. Trump repeatedly and very publicly stated before the election that he would seek to lift the sanctions when elected. The Steele dossier accurately described this long before the intelligence community, Mueller Report, and Senate Intelligence Committee all documented it. The red thread behind nearly all the Trump-Russia business is about those sanctions. Trump would help Putin by lifting the sanctions in exchange for Russian interference in the elections. It was always about the sanctions, and Russia managed to surround Trump with Russia-friendly people who thought like him, because Trump too was Russia-friendly and had publicly expressed anti-American views. Trump was and is a very useful idiot, IOW a Russian asset. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:28, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

You say many wrong things in the above comment but I'm not breaking it down because this is not a forum. The only relation Manafort has to the wiretap tweets is that he was mentioned as vindication for the wiretap tweets if there indeed was a FISA warrant approved for him. Other than that, yes, he's part of the overarching trump-russia saga but that is covered extensively elsewhere and this page is a small slice of that and it should remain focused. Nweil (talk) 16:42, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

edit conflict... TheTimesAreAChanging, thank you so much for an excellent attempt to clarify matters. It's much appreciated. So let me try to parse this even more. If I understand this correctly, the only part of CNN's report that is contradicted by Horowitz is the parts I strike below:

"It was later confirmed that Manafort was wiretapped by the FBI "before and after the election ... including a period when Manafort was known to talk to President Donald Trump." The surveillance of Manafort began in 2014, before Donald Trump announced his candidacy for President of United States.}}

Is that correct? (I am assuming that "The surveillance of Manafort began in 2014" refers to a FISA warrant, similar to the multiple FISA warrants for Carter Page, beginning in 2014. I don't know of any other way they get warrants for surveillance, especially for high-profile international targets like Manfort, who was involved with money laundering, tax evasion, multiple dictators, and huge amounts of money, the last job in Ukraine while working for Russian interests. Manafort's daughters believed he had people killed in Ukraine.)

Horowitz wrote:

"We are aware of no information indicating that the Crossfire Hurricane team requested or seriously considered FISA surveillance of Manafort or Flynn."

He only mentions any possible surveillance/FISA warrants made by the Crossfire Hurricane team. Right? (And, to make sure you understand me, I am not, and have not been, assuming that there was some secret surveillance of Manafort by the Crossfire Hurricane team which Horowitz is hiding.) -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:03, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Look, CNN and Wemple are pretty clear about what Horowitz found (and didn't find). If there are other recent reliable sources that present a contrary view, we can discuss them, but otherwise this is veering into a discussion of original research, which cannot be used in article space. You've always been outspoken and eager to engage others in debate about topics such as "Why to believe" that the pee tape exists per Occam's razor, "Whether there is a continuing ultra-secret FBI investigation (that) is unknown to the public," and now why the Manafort FISA is likely still a thing, but it's not up to us to parse what Horowitz really meant or to find the WP:TRUTH.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 04:05, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Please stop discussing me and making me say the opposite of what I've said by leaving out key words (your last link). I asked for enlightenment here and have been receiving it, so your sudden hostile personalizing is unwarranted, assumes bad faith, and poisons the well against my good intentions. Stop it. You know better. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:37, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

References

Hannigan flight

The paragraph in the article that says:

Shortly after FBI James Comey publicly announced the counterintelligence investigation into Russian collusion, Robert Hannigan flew to Washington, D.C.: "Robert Hannigan, then the head of the U.K.'s intelligence service the G.C.H.Q., had recently flown to Washington and briefed the C.I.A.'s director, John Brennan, on a stream of illicit communications between Trump's team and Moscow that had been intercepted. (The content of these intercepts has not become public.)" "The matter was deemed so sensitive it was handled at 'director level'."

is wrong and I'm not sure what it's even trying to convey. The article says that "flight over to brief brennan" happened in summer 2016, not after Comey's testimony. But also, is this even relevant? Nweil (talk) 23:19, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm on my cellphone, so can't examine this right now, but will do so tomorrow. The timing ("after...") may indeed be wrong, but the content is otherwise quite relevant. See: Links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies#2015–2016 foreign surveillance of Russian targets. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 06:05, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

If you think it's relevant, move it to the origin section? This is summer 2016 stuff, before anything else mentioned in the article currently I believe. Nweil (talk) 15:48, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Nweil, I have reread the sources and gotten the timing right. Comey shouldn't be mentioned at all. I have reworked the last part and moved it to the beginning. Edit summary: "Getting the timing right and placing it in a better chronological order. This still belongs here as it's about the original GCHQ discovery of the Trump team's secret contacts with Russian intelligence agents. Later other European intelligence agencies found even more contacts in their nations." I hope that makes things better. Apparently Napolitano got wind of this from former intelligence officer Larry C. Johnson and turned it into a false "wiretapping" claim. Later, The Guardian made the information public. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:28, 15 July 2022 (UTC)