Home Tags Posts tagged with "us elections"

us elections

James Comey has rejected President Donald Trump’s claim that Barack Obama ordered a wiretap of his phone before he was elected president.

According to the New York Times and NBC, the FBI director reportedly asked the DoJ to publicly reject Donald Trump’s allegation.

James Comey is said to have asked for this because the allegation falsely insinuated that the FBI broke the law.

The DOJ has not commented.

It appears James Comey believed there was no evidence to support President Trump’s allegation.

The president, who faces intense scrutiny over alleged Russian interference in support of his presidential bid, made the claims in a series of tweets on March 4.

Image source Wikipedia

Donald Trump offered no evidence to support his allegation that phones at Trump Tower were tapped during his campaign.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer went on to say there had been “very troubling” reports “concerning potentially politically motivated investigations immediately ahead of the 2016 election”.

All the evidence indicates the answer is no. A spokesman for former President Barack Obama said Donald Trump’s allegation charge was “simply false”.

A warrant, if it existed, would most likely have been ordered by the DoJ independently of the White House.

The only way Barack Obama could have ordered surveillance without going through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court is if there was no US citizens involved.

In this case, considering the target is allegedly Trump Tower in New York – which would definitely have involved American citizens – this would have been hard to argue.

James Clapper, who was director of national intelligence under President Obama, has categorically denied a FISA court order existed.

Leading Democrats have called on the White House to produce evidence to support Donald Trump’s claim.

Meanwhile, the White House has called on Congress to investigate whether the Obama administration had abused its powers.

Both Congress and the FBI are currently investigating contacts between the Trump election campaign and Russian officials, after US intelligence agencies assessed that Russia had interfered with the election to help Donald Trump win against his Hillary Clinton.

The Electoral College was set up by the US founding fathers as a compromise between allowing Congress and the people to elect the president.

Technically, Americans cast votes on Election Day for electors, not the candidates themselves.us-electoral-college

The electors are mostly elected officials or party functionaries whose names are not on the ballot. They are generally unknown to the public apart from one or two exceptions such as former President Bill Clinton, who was a New York elector in 2016.

There are 538 electors in all, one for each member of Congress. A candidate needs to take at least 270 electoral votes – half of the total plus one – to win the White House.

In 2016, Donald Trump won 306 electors from 30 states.

If no candidate reaches 270 in the Electoral College, the House of Representatives must vote on the next president.

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has called Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump “dangerously incoherent”.

Hillary Clinton said Donald Trump was unfit to be president and his election would be a “historic mistake”.

Donald Trump hit back, saying Hillary Clinton “no longer has credibility – too much failure in office”.

Outside Donald Trump’s rally in San Jose, California, anti-Trump protesters clashed with his supporters in one of the worst such confrontations so far.

Several of the billionaire’s supporters were punched, one was pelted with eggs and others were spat at, reports said.

In a boost for Donald Trump, House Speaker Republican Paul Ryan has endorsed Donald Trump’s candidacy.Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Super Tuesday

Paul Ryan had previously refused to back Donald Trump and his support is the latest sign Republicans are unifying around their nominee.

He wrote in a column in his hometown Gazette newspaper in Wisconsin: “We have more common ground than disagreement.”

Paul Ryan also attacked Hillary Clinton saying: “A Clinton White House would mean four more years of liberal cronyism.”

In her speech Hillary Clinton, who is fighting Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination, rejected Donald Trump’s foreign policy points, and called him thin-skinned, irrational and unprepared.

Hillary Clinton defended the Iran nuclear deal and said a Trump presidency could start overseas wars and ruin the US economy.

“This isn’t reality television, this is actual reality,” she said.

Hillary Clinton also said someone like Donald Trump could not be in charge of the country’s nuclear codes and that his proposals were vague and often nonsensical.

She said his anti-Muslim rhetoric and talk of American isolationism bolstered ISIS and argued against his disdain for Mexico and Mexican immigrants coming into the country.

Questioning Donald Trump’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Hillary Clinton said: “I’ll leave it to a psychiatrist to explain his affection for tyrants.”

Bernie Sanders has vowed to keep fighting for the nomination until the party’s convention in July, despite Hillary Clinton’s strong delegate lead.