The United States publishes secret files on Trump's surveillance



[ad_1]

There are so many blackened places in the 400 or so pages that it is difficult to draw clear conclusions. This is why everyone involved can feel assertive, especially the president.

Peter Winkler, Washington

  The secret files are supposed to contain information about Carter Page (photo), a former adviser by Donald Trump. (Photo: Sergei Karphukhin / Reuters)

The secret files contain information on Carter Page (photo), a former adviser to Donald Trump. (Photo: Sergei Karphukhin / Reuters)

The US Department of Justice first released a petition Saturday night to obtain the approval of the electronic surveillance of a US citizen. a secret court. However, many [400 000 pages] about 400 pages are totally or partially blackened for reasons of national security.

Much Blackening

Essentially, it is the result of a dispute between Republicans and Democrats in the House of Representatives in the winter. was. The Republicans had issued a report accusing American counterintelligence of spying on Trump's electoral organization for legitimate reasons and using it as a pretext for Russia's investigation. The case soon focused on a dazzling former banker named Carter Page, who had close ties with Russia and who was sometimes one of Trump's foreign policy advisers.

The motion had been published in trials, including the New York Times "and the organization Judicial Watch had made an effort. What is spectacular in the first place is that the original application and three 90-day renewal applications have even been published. Normally, the court case established in 1978, which governs the supervision of foreign agents, is very secretive.

The many black passages make it difficult to draw definitive conclusions. It is clear that the FBI believed that Page had not only been the target of an attempt at Russian recruitment, but had also established links with Russian government officials and intelligence agents. The controversy over the legitimacy of surveillance action revolves around the issue on which the FBI came to these beliefs. Trump's defense lawyers claim that they were mainly based on a politically motivated and proven false report from a controversial source, which the FBI deliberately hid from the petition.

The publication did not change this attitude. Trump himself used it Sunday morning after consuming his favorite show on Fox News to repeat his old claims in four Twitter posts : Page Monitoring had been an illegal pretext for spying on his election campaign and Russia. Investigation into a witch hunt.

Strengthening the Defense Reflex

Of course, the opposite side of the legible sections in the petitions also felt confirmed. It can be credited that his analyzes were much more detailed and a little less apodictic, for example in the Washington Post or the legal blog Lawfare. It is also clear that the particular requirements of counterintelligence on this side are better understood, for example if the key figures are named not with names but with codewords.

Behind this, there is the fact that there may be a great danger potential in terms of national security. To what extent do the criteria that usually apply to criminal justice still apply? This is a major and fundamental problem that deserves a serious argument. But that does not seem to be happening. The shadow of Russia on the Trump presidency has further increased since the Helsinki summit. For his followers, this only strengthened the defensive reflexes.

[ad_2]
Source link