US investigators wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort under secret court orders before and after the election, sources tell CNN
Washington (CNN)US investigators wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort under secret court orders before and after the election, sources tell CNN, an extraordinary step involving a high-ranking campaign official now at the center of the Russia meddling probe.
The government snooping continued into early this year, including a period when Manafort was known to talk to President Donald Trump.
Some of the intelligence collected includes communications that sparked concerns among investigators that Manafort had encouraged the Russians to help with the campaign, according to three sources familiar with the investigation. Two of these sources, however, cautioned that the evidence is not conclusive .
Special counsel Robert Mueller's team, which is leading the investigation into Russia's involvement in the election, has been provided details of these communications.
A secret order authorized by the court that handles the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) began after Manafort became the subject of an FBI investigation that began in 2014. It centered on work done by a group of Washington consulting firms for Ukraine's former ruling party, the sources told CNN.
The surveillance was discontinued at some point last year for lack of evidence, according to one of the sources.
The FBI then restarted the surveillance after obtaining a new FISA warrant that extended at least into early this year.
Sources say the second warrant was part of the FBI's efforts to investigate ties between Trump campaign associates and suspected Russian operatives. Such warrants require the approval of top Justice Department and FBI officials, and the FBI must provide the court with information showing suspicion that the subject of the warrant may be acting as an agent of a foreign power.
It is unclear when the new warrant started. The FBI interest deepened last fall because of intercepted communications between Manafort and suspected Russian operatives, and among the Russians themselves, that reignited their interest in Manafort, the sources told CNN. As part of the FISA warrant, CNN has learned that earlier this year, the FBI conducted a search of a storage facility belonging to Manafort. It's not known what they found.
The conversations between Manafort and Trump continued after the President took office, long after the FBI investigation into Manafort was publicly known, the sources told CNN. They went on until lawyers for the President and Manafort insisted that they stop, according to the sources.
It's unclear whether Trump himself was picked up on the surveillance.
The White House declined to comment for this story. A spokesperson for Manafort didn't comment for this story.
Manafort previously has denied that he ever "knowingly" communicated with Russian intelligence operatives during the election and also has denied participating in any Russian efforts to "undermine the interests of the United States."
The FBI wasn't listening in June 2016, the sources said, when Donald Trump Jr. led a meeting that included Manafort, then campaign chairman, and Jared Kushner, the President's son-in-law, with a Russian lawyer who had promised negative information on Hillary Clinton.
That gap could prove crucial as prosecutors and investigators under Mueller work to determine whether there's evidence of a crime in myriad connections that have come to light between suspected Russian government operatives and associates of Trump.
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There is a little more in the seeded article that I didnt include just to not make it too long.
I think the bottom line here is that if they have a wiretap of Manafort contacting Russians to ask them to aide Trump, it is likely explosive, whether it is conclusive or not.
Manafort is open to prosecution in a way that a Trump pardon won't save him. If he has personal knowledge of collusion, he may be able to be 'turned' and made to give evidence against the Trumps as part of a deal to keep him out of prison.
Wrong -
He's been under scrutiny over his financial dealings and lobbying efforts with pro-Russia and Ukrainian officials but has denied colluding with Russia to influence the election. He is actually an easy target based on statements& disclosures he has already made. In his case he has been put on notice that an indictment is imminent. I am sure they will prosecute to the full extent of the law - thus putting pressure on him to cut a deal - the bad news for Trump haters is that there is no Trump collusion (never was) for Manafort to hand over.
Flynn will be the other one they prosecute. We will have a few stand alone indictments which wont have much to do with the rest of the investigation. Sorry progressives, but keep dreaming.
I wonder if any of these FISA requests had anything to do with the bogus Trump document that the CIA had once attached to an intelligence report? (probably not)
Right.
Please post the proof. I'll wait.
I'm particularly interested to see the proof that they colluded to win the election after the election was over.
Right - even to this day!
But it does prove one thing.
That T-Rump was telling the truth when he claimed that him and his campaign were being wiretapped during the election.
Does anyone remember the ridicule that was heaped upon him when he made that claim?
Well it's been a few months later and it turns out to be true.
They are telling so many fabricated stories and have so many denials sitting out there they are forgetting what they have said in the past...
It's all a witch hunt....
They wanted to use the Russian connection and collusion story as a liberal October surprise, and it backfired on them...
T-Rump was telling the truth when he claimed that him and his campaign were being wiretapped during the election.
Nowhere Man, please show us something other than your says so that indicates Donald Trump was wiretapped.
Didn't say he was, he claimed he was shortly after being elected. and now CNN is saying he was.
If we should believe what CNN says when they accuse T-Rump, why should we not believe what they are saying now when they reveal that he was and prove what he (T-Rump) claimed.
You can't have it both ways.
I will try one more time. Show us something that indicates Trump was wiretapped. The CNN story doesn't do that, it says Manafort was wiretapped.
You said "But it does prove one thing. That T-Rump was telling the truth when he claimed that him and his campaign were being wiretapped during the election."
Manafort was being wiretapped before he went to work for Trump.
AT BEST, you assertion is very misleading.
Seems to me John that you really didn't even read your own article, or at the least didn't comprehend what they were saying....
Here let me quote from it....
Show us a sentence that indicates that Trump, in addition to Manafort, was wiretapped.
You are taking a wiretap on Manafort and claiming it was a wiretap on Trump. They would be two different things.
Hold the phone, m'love. Paul Manafort was a legally-registered foreign agent for Russia. He lobbied the US for Russian causes, and also lobbied the Ukraine and other Putin-skeptical countries for Russian causes, and he was scary good at it. What he did wrong, was to become scary greedy. There is a yearly fee cap on what American foreign agents can earn, and he exceeded his yearly cap by about $12 million, and then stashed it in all kinds of off-shore hidey-holes. The real moral of the story is to avoid being grinchy to the one person with the knowledge to put the feds all up in your financial cheese-whiz, namely...your soon-to-be ex-wife.
Just for the record, I think Trump is the biggest embarrassment to hit this nation since Noah built himself a boat. The one smart thing he did was to hire a man that had a proven track record for getting unpopular and/or inappropriate candidates elected to office. Both Trump and Manafort would be sitting pretty right about now had the campaign CEO simply forked over some of his ill-gotten gain to his ex so she could continue to live the life in the manner to which she had become accustomed. Whatever the feds learned (and continue to learn) about Russia's US election interference during their Manafort investigation was an inadvertent perk.
Well this isn't about the so-called election interference my good sister, (I personally still need to see some proof allegation and supposition does not make a good substitute) It is about T-Rump and his campaign being wiretapped and surveiled by the administration in power/political opposition. EXACTLY like he claimed it was.
And that is straight out of the talking heads mouth at CNN.
So either this report is the truth, and T-Rump was correct, or this report is a lie and T-Rump was incorrect in his claims.
Either way it goes sweetheart, CNN has screwed the pooch here.
You are going to keep making that ridiculous statement until hell freezes over, arent you?
RIDICULOUS STATEMENT!!!!
John, it's right there in your article title for gods sake!
If it is a ridiculous statement, then YOU made it, I only pointed it out!
Your comments on this thread make very little sense. Manafort came under investigation in 2014. (As an aside, Manafort knows he's a crook. Did he tell Trump and Trump didn't care, or did he keep his criminal nature hidden from Trump during 2016?)
If the "Trump campaign" was wiretapped, where is the evidence of it after Manafort left shortly after the GOP convention?
As for your silly contention that Trump himself was wiretapped, numerous US agencies have flatly said that is not true. You are not a conspiracy nut are you?
Does anyone remember the ridicule that was heaped upon him when he made that claim?
Well it's been a few months later and it turns out to be true.
I heard CNN mock Trump repeatedly for claiming, without proof, that he and/or his campaign had been wiretapped. Manafort was a central figure in the campaign so tapping him is a tap of the campaign and an indirect tap on Trump because the two of them talked to each other regularly. I would expect a reputable news organization to at least note that Trump was right but, then again, the Clinton News Network (CNN) is part of the Trump resistance.
Ridiculous. Trump claimed he had been wiretapped, and he wasnt. You can say a thousand times that Trump was right, but all you will display is an aversion to the truth and a devotion to Trump.
The wiretap was initiated against Manafort in 2014.
Ridiculous. Trump claimed he had been wiretapped, and he wasnt. You can say a thousand times that Trump was right, but all you will display is an aversion to the truth and a devotion to Trump.
The wiretap was initiated against Manafort in 2014.
My devotion is to the truth, not Trump. There were two wiretaps. It's not clear when the second one started but if Manafort was tapped during the time that he worked for the campaign, and he was a central figure in the campaign, then the campaign was tapped.