More evidence has just been published corroborating President Trump’s claim that he and Trump Tower were indeed placed under telephone and electronic surveillance not only during former President Obama’s term but also during President George W. Bush’s term as part of a “dragnet” surveillance program last from as early as 2004 through at least 2009 or possibly even later. A number of Trump’s employees were also monitored.
This “dragnet” surveillance program was used by domestic law enforcement personnel, including even IRS agents, to facilitate and enhance the use of an investigative method called “parallel construction”, a method in which law enforcement agencies tap into the secret surveillance database to gather all kinds of information on anyone they want to target. Once law enforcement has sufficiently milked information out of the secret surveillance database and is nearing completion of the investigation, they then create an alternative or “parallel” pathway of information and leads that prompted the investigation so that the true source of their investigative and lead development information, the secret surveillance database, is never known or discovered by judges, courts, defense attorneys and even prosecutors. The “parallel construction” of a separate set of tips, leads and information is not only deceptive but it is an egregious violation of a citizen’s constitutional right to challenge government allegations and confront government accusers. As pointed out by the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Taken together, the Fifth and Sixth Amendments guarantee a criminal defendant a meaningful opportunity to present a defense and challenge the government's case. But this intelligence laundering deprives defendants of these important constitutional protections. It makes it harder for prosecutors to comply with their ethical obligation under Brady v. Maryland to disclose any exculpatory or favorable evidence to the defense—an obligation that extends to disclosing evidence bearing on the reliability of a government witness. Hiding the source of information used by the government to initiate an investigation or make an arrest means defendants are deprived of the opportunity to challenge the accuracy or veracity of the government's investigation, let alone seek out favorable evidence in the government's possession.
I joined with Attorney Robert Bernhoft on the Infowars.com Nightly News to discuss these nefarious “parallel construction” investigative practices that inevitably lead to egregious abuses of the rights of ordinary Americans.
Reuters reporters John Shiffman and Kristina Cooke prepared an extraordinary expose detailing how government agents are directed by their superiors to use “parallel construction” to cover up the true origins of their investigative efforts.
Sadly, these incidences of unjustified surveillance against law-abiding Americans aren’t all that hard to believe given the lies the federal government has told the American people about the true boundaries of their income tax obligations under existing federal law, which are much more limited than the feds have led the American people to believe. More on that topic here and here and here and here.