Did it start before Trump?

In a December 29, 2015 article, The Wall Street Journal described how the Obama administration had conducted surveillance on Israeli officials to understand how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials, like Ambassador Ron Dermer, intended to fight the Iran Deal. The Journal reported that the targeting “also swept up the contents of some of their private conversations with U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups.”

Despite this reporting, it seemed inconceivable at the time that—given myriad legal, ethical, political, and historical concerns, as well as strict National Security Agency protocols that protect the identity of American names caught in intercepts—the Obama White House would have actually spied on American citizens. In a December 31, 2016, Tablet article on the controversy, “Why the White House Wanted Congress to Think It Was Being Spied on By the NSA,” I argued that the Obama administration had merely used the appearance of spying on American lawmakers to corner opponents of the Iran Deal. Spying on U.S. citizens would be a clear abuse of the foreign-intelligence surveillance system. It would be a felony offense to leak the names of U.S. citizens to the press.

Increasingly, I believe that my conclusion in that piece was wrong. I believe the spying was real and that it was done not in an effort to keep the country safe from threats—but in order to help the White House fight their domestic political opponents.

It would be perfectly in character.

No, “the pony in the manure is the corruption of our intelligence officials.”

It’s both appalling and amusing to watch the Democrat operatives with bylines in the media attempt to “cover” this story (as in, in the immortal words of Iowahawk, hold a pillow over it until it stops moving).

[Update a couple minutes later]

It’s worth reading the Victor Davis Hanson piece that Clarice cites. Sure, after all the lies about Benghazi and the deserter, I totally believe Susan Rice now. As noted, if Obama was Nixon, she’d be one of his “plumbers.”

[Update a couple minutes later]

Rice, Obama’s hatchet woman, proves Lord Acton right again.

[Update a while later]

Why is CNN trying to refute a story it refuses to cover?

[Update another while later]

Susan Rice’s unmasking: A Watergate-style scandal:

Understand: There would have been no intelligence need for Susan Rice to ask for identities to be unmasked. If there had been a real need to reveal the identities — an intelligence need based on American interests — the unmasking would have been done by the investigating agencies.

The national-security adviser is not an investigator. She is a White House staffer. The president’s staff is a consumer of intelligence, not a generator or collector of it.

If Susan Rice was unmasking Americans, it was not to fulfill an intelligence need based on American interests; it was to fulfill a political desire based on Democratic-party interests.

Oopsie. What did the president know, and when did he know it? Will Susan Rice wear orange to protect him?

[Update late morning]

More links and thoughts from Glenn Reynolds.

[Update early afternoon]

Susan Rice has no defense. Only one I can think of is “I was ordered by the president,” but that one doesn’t pass the Nuremberg test.

[Update a while later]

A Watergate-level scandal? Looks like it to me, particularly if they can find a link to Obama. Of course, the IRS scandal should have been as well. Obama did what Nixon could only dream of doing.