Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • The Atlantic

    Is Trump's 'Wiretap' Claim Vindicated?

    The president’s defenders say reported surveillance of Paul Manafort justifies an accusation against Barack Obama, but they overstate the facts.
    by David A. Graham Sep 19, 2017 6 minutes
    Source: Mike Segar / Reuters

    Viewed from the most obvious angle, the latest scoops about special counsel Robert Mueller investigating Paul Manafort are at best neutral news for the president and more likely bad news.

    The new reports say that U.S. officials got warrants to surveil Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, before and after the 2016 election under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and that Mueller told Manafort he would soon be indicted. At the least, this means Trump made the dubious decision to hire a man with shadowy ties as a top aide. At worst, it could mean Mueller wants to flip Manafort into a witness against Trump or his campaign.

    But viewed from a more oblique angle, could the fresh revelations actually be good news for Trump? So far several of the president’s allies argue that this represents vindication for Trump’s thus-far-unproven allegation that President Barack Obama improperly surveilled him.

    “TRUMP VINDICATED: REPORT SAYS OBAMA GOVERNMENT WIRETAPPED TRUMP CAMPAIGN,” reads the headline on Breitbart. Dinesh D’Souza is more colorful:

    You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

    More from The Atlantic

    The Atlantic4 min read
    Hayao Miyazaki’s Anti-war Fantasia
    Once, in a windowless conference room, I got into an argument with a minor Japanese-government official about Hayao Miyazaki. This was in 2017, three years after the director had announced his latest retirement from filmmaking. His final project was
    The Atlantic4 min read
    When Private Equity Comes for a Public Good
    This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. In some states, public funds are being poured into t
    The Atlantic4 min readAmerican Government
    How Democrats Could Disqualify Trump If the Supreme Court Doesn’t
    Near the end of the Supreme Court’s oral arguments about whether Colorado could exclude former President Donald Trump from its ballot as an insurrectionist, the attorney representing voters from the state offered a warning to the justices—one evoking

    Related Books & Audiobooks