Right Wing Revives Claim That Trump’s Obama Wiretap Accusation Has Been “Vindicated.” (It Hasn’t.)

On March 4, Donald Trump tweeted a number of claims about Barack Obama having ordered the wiretapping of Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign.

On Monday, CNN reported that Paul Manafort—who was briefly Trump’s campaign chairman—has been the subject of intermittent court-approved surveillance since 2014. As you can see above, Breitbart immediately announced that the news “vindicated” Trump. Nope. Here’s what CNN wrote:

-Manafort was initially being surveilled not because of his connection to Trump but because of an investigation opened in 2014 into his work as a political consultant in Ukraine.
-He was subsequently placed under surveillance again “last fall” because of his connections to “suspected Russian operatives,” but it’s “unclear” exactly when that happened—which is to say that it’s not certain whether it happened before or after the election.
-The investigation was led by the FBI and required the approval of Justice Department officials, i.e., not Obama himself.
-Regarding Trump’s “nothing found” remark, the investigation into Manafort appears to have in fact escalated; one of his homes was raided in July.
-“While Manafort has a residence in Trump Tower, it’s unclear whether FBI surveillance of him took place there.”
-“It’s unclear whether Trump himself was picked up on the surveillance.”
-Tap is still spelled with the traditional single p.

What’s particularly funny about the idea that Trump has been vindicated by the revelation of a literal wiretap on Paul Manafort is that the White House and its stooges in the right-wing press spent months earlier this year insisting that Trump’s tweets weren’t referring to literal wiretapping.

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