Past is prologue – was Romney’s Presidential campaign wire tapped?   By Edmunds Tucker, 9 Feb 2018

 In February 2018, the chairmen of both a House and Senate Committee, each accused the FBI of lying to the FISA judge to obtain a wire tap warrant. Was the focus correct ?     Was the warrant for  obtaining ‘dirt’ on the opponent? Commentators point to political people getting warrants through the intelligence agencies supposedly against one person, to get blackmail worthy scandal or criminal activity. But that can’t be right for the 2016 election, doesn’t the media already exhaustively search for head lines? Consider one media publisher, in a previous decade, who offered a million dollars for credible scandal worthy news (perhaps an affair, or lurid pictures, videos, testimonials) against targeted high profile and political figures. Hasn’t this option been around for centuries? Money for scandal? According to other public reports, wasn’t an attorney in 2016 offering hundreds of thousands of dollars for specific accusations of sexual harassment or assault, if the accusations could be obtained in time before the election in November?

What if dirt is not enough? Or, only of minor concern? What could have been so useful in the 2012 election, that could have been an incentive to wire tap the Romney campaign?

What does hind sight suggest?

Recall the Benghazi attack on September 11, 2012? Mere weeks before the election of 2012? What would the Obama campaign want to know about Romney’s reaction? What would or could the Romney campaign do with this? Could Benghazi be an example of ineptitude or weakness? If so, when and where would the campaign hit? Could Romney’s campaign saturate the battle ground states with enough advertising to push Benghazi into the living rooms? Would there be time for saturation radio and TV? Doesn’t it usually take weeks or months to produce professional ads, and the air time has already been sold as far in advance as possible? And who on the Romney campaign would be organizing any push on Benghazi? Would Romney campaign’s try focus groups? Where and when? Was there enough money in the Romney budget to so saturate?   Would any of the computer programs, or emails or phone calls give a direction of the tactics?

Back to the Romney campaign. Which celebrities were endorsing Romney? Not just movie stars, but perhaps state college football coaches – local celebrities in their own right – or business leaders, or church leaders – or labor – or anyone .   Which donors are stepping forward, with how much and when? What fund raising techniques are successful, and which are a waste? After the election, a report stated the Romney campaign made 900 million robo calls (computer generated telephone audio calls) before the election. Doesn’t matter if the report was accurate (truthful) or made up (or a lie), the election was over. But if knowing robo calls were used to contact voters and some way was available to monitor the robo calls success was available, it would help counter strategy.   Did people listen through the phone call? Did it matter who was voice on the tape? Governor Romney? Governor Huckabee? Santa Claus? A female voice? If one is the opposition party, it is enormously helpful to know how much is spent? How effective? Does the strategy or ads move private campaign polling numbers? And in what direction? If up, i.e. Romney doing better, or down, Romney doing worse, then the Romney campaign can adjust its direction.

           Would a wiretape help? Where should Romney campaign? How much can Romney, or his family, actually keep up with the schedule? Obama’s campaign could adjust what the President has to do, much like a tennis match, one side hits the ball, and the other side needs to volley the ball back and forth.

Remember the first debate, around September 2012, between Obama and Romney? Generally, Obama faired very poorly, and Romney very well. Comparisons were made to the televised 1960 Nixon Kennedy debates. In 1960, Nixon looked faded (Nixon s suit was grey which faded into the background), sweaty, and Kennedy looked prominent (Kennedy’s suit contrasted well with the studio background) and confident.  Kennedy won and Nixon lost in a narrow election, and it was considered the debates were a major factor. Would history repeat itself, except this time the debates would favor the Republican over the Democrat? Somehow, in 2012, Obama recovered in the later debates, with Romney seemingly caught off guard by comments from the moderator – the Benghazi attack was spontaneous,  Based on the 2012 remaining televised debates, observers felt Romney may have been advised to back off on an attack on Obama. Was that true? Did advisers so advise, and did Romney take that advice? Did the Obama campaign have a tip as to Romney’s approach in the debates? And if Obama did, how did Obama obtain the tip? A lucky guess, a leak, or a wiretap? The intel would be worth its weight in votes. Answers.

The next intel by wiretap, is just what did Romney know about the strategy of the Obama campaign? Romney’s campaign would have to rely on leaks from the Obama side, persons angry with their boss, or disappointed, or curious, The intel flows from shore to shore. You have media reporters with all of their sources, anxious to scoop each other, politics aside. And a campaign with 50,000 part or full time activists and volunteers, has so many holes it is impossible to plug the dike from all the leaks. But which are leaks and which are disinformation? What did the Romney campaign know about the Obama campaign and when did it know it? What is believed? What is ignored? What is disbelieved?   So if the Obama campaign leaks it is focusing its resources on battle ground states, perhaps the Romney campaign will react by ignoring other states? Perhaps a trap? Who chooses the battle ground states? Perhaps another trap?   But a wiretap doesn’t have to rely solely on leaks from Romney – what Romney knows about Obama? The wiretap can confirm leaks of other sources.

What do they know about what we know? Do they know, we know, they know, we know.?

Romney spoke fluent French, and had international business contacts, and had directed the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, with thousands of athletes from around the world. Would it require minimal effort to identify foreign interactions to include in a FISA warrant and then pick up, incidentally of course, other information and interactions?

Is this FBI and FISA tap about strategy?

To read the 2018 House report see the posting on UtahStandardNews of the Nunes memo, and the Senate report, the Grassley criminal Referral.

Back in 1972, the perceived need for intel against the opponent lead some in the Nixon campaign to get the idea, if the DNC’s phones were tapped, a lot of useful information could be obtained. How to tap the phones? Someone thought it a good idea to burglarize the DNC HQ in the Watergate building and place taps in the phones. But the burglars were caught, and Nixon resigned two years later. Poor choices.

Did the NDC or Clinton Campaign know to pursue a foreign intel wire tap info on Trump? Had this worked before? Would the difference between 1972 and 2016, be that 1972 burglary was a burglary? But a FISA search warrant was legal, sortof?

The Romneys campaign.

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