President* Donald Trump, or more likely one of his advisors tasked with emergency damage control, found a way of at least postponing the embarrassment from investigating his Saturday morning rage-tweet mentioned in the previous post. President* Trump made careless and most likely groundless accusations that former President Obama personally authorized a "wire tap" in Trump Tower, New York City. Assistants to Mr. Obama have categorically denied the allegations, educating President* Trump about how the surveillance laws in the US work. (The President's executive power does not extend to authorizing surveillance of US citizens. It requires a FISA warrant issued by a federal judge.)
Sean Spicer, the press secretary for the White House, issued this statement later during the day, without presenting any more details or evidence to support the accusations:
"Reports concerning potentially politically motivated investigations immediately ahead of the 2016 election are very troubling. President Trump is requesting that as part of their investigation into Russian activity, the congressional intelligence committees exercise their oversight authority to determine whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016. Neither the White House nor the President will comment further until such oversight is conducted."Note the last sentence. Damage control has now put the lid on the story, once again deflecting from a clear sign of President* Trump's ineptitude, ignorance and lack of self control. They don't even have to acknowledge his obvious mistake in confusing the executive branch of power (the President and the cabinet) with the judicial branch (the courts and judges).
This weasel move dodges the calls for elaboration and more evidence, and it softens the blow to the President's heavily tainted reputation. The expected revelation that there is absolutely nothing to the allegations will now be delayed until the outrage has blown over, and it can be hidden away in an inconspicuous report released somewhere down the line. This will also let President* Trump off the hook, at least temporarily, for disclosing his sources. Most likely, his sources are woefully inadequate for such a serious, public accusation. Last but not least, it won't require him to reveal any time soon whether there was in fact a FISA warrant against his campaign. The mere existence of a warrant would raise suspicions that there was something illicit going on. For good reasons, there is a high bar for a prosecutor to get such a warrant.
Of course, this request for an investigation will also divert some of the attention of the Senate and House intelligence committees and make their job slightly more taxing. However, as disingenuous as that move is, it won't be enough to obscure the much more serious issue at hand: the Trump campaign, the Trump transition team and the Trump administration all show troubling signs of collusion with the Russian government.
No matter how hard President* Trump tries to spin, dodge and weasel his way out of this situation, he is running out of time, options and trust to remain in office.
(The phrase "a business of weasels" is one way of referring to a group of weasels, like "a school of fish" or "a pack of rats". Another phrase is "a confusion of weasels". Yes. Honestly. Look it up.)
