Spygate summarized;

As more of the secret evidence used to justify the Russia probe becomes public, an increasingly dark portrait of the FBI’s conduct emerges.
 
The bureau, under a Democratic-controlled Justice Department, sought a warrant to spy on the duly nominated GOP candidate for president in the final weeks of the 2016 election, based on evidence that was generated under a contract paid by his political opponent.
 
That evidence, the Steele dossier, was not fully vetted by the bureau and was deemed unverified months after the warrant was issued.
 
At least one news article was used in the FISA warrant to bolster the dossier as independent corroboration when, it fact, it was traced to a news organization that had been in contact with Steele, creating a high likelihood it was circular-intelligence reporting.
 
And the entire warrant, the FBI’s own text message shows, was being rushed to approval by two agents who hated Trump and stated in their own texts that they wanted to “stop” the Republican from becoming president.
 
If ever there were grounds to investigate the investigators, these facts provide the justification.

Obama’s spying scandal is starting to look a lot like Watergate;

“F.B.I. Used Informant to Investigate Russia Ties to Campaign, Not to Spy, as Trump Claims,” read the headline on a lengthy New York Times story May 18. “The Justice Department used a suspected informant to probe whether Trump campaign aides were making improper contacts with Russia in 2016,” read a story in the May 21 edition of the Wall Street Journal.

 

So much for those who dismissed charges of Obama administration infiltration of Donald Trump’s campaign as paranoid fantasy. Defenders of the Obama intelligence and law enforcement apparat have had to fall back on the argument that this infiltration was for Trump’s — and the nation’s — own good.

 

It’s an argument that evidently didn’t occur to Richard Nixon’s defenders when it became clear that Nixon operatives had burglarized and wiretapped the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in June 1972.

Related.   ” Bad as these latest developments are, however, they pale in comparison to looming negative consequences now that the State Department has begun dribbling out more than 30,000 missing Clinton emails, together with supporting attachments.”

The Hunter Becomes the Hunted;

In response to Trump’s demand, Rod Rosenstein has asked the DOJ inspector general to review the possible infiltration of the Trump campaign. The hunters have themselves become the hunted. For better or worse, two major American political factions are trying to jail each other. The outcome of their struggle may determine not only who occupies the White House, but what future role the intelligence agencies play in public life.

 

The specifics of the individual accusations may be fake, but the struggle over the control of the bureaucracy is frighteningly real. Concern over the independence of powerful bureaucracies has long been paramount for a reason. The biggest problem with weaponizing intelligence agencies is it CREATES a pathway for the foreign takeover of the system. If a once hostile power takes over the White House and that president corrupts the agencies, an unfettered secret police will have the ability to remain in power indefinitely. […]

 

Trump, by officially demanding an answer into whether the previous administration engaged in political spying, is effectively accusing them of cheating at cards. As everybody knows, once you ask this question at a table, the surface game stops and a deeper game begins.

Related: In Politicized Justice, Desperate Times Call for Disparate Measures

Just grab a coffee, and read them both.