re: Definitive #Obamagate Timeline (8PM 3/17 Update)

I think what happened is the following:

1) Our IC has been monitoring Russian agents (as they should) for a long time. Keep in mind that "Russian agent" would apply to pretty much ANYONE even loosely connected to the Russian government.

2) The Russians were trying to get close to the presidential campaigns, as I am sure they've always done. They could be doing this for any number of reasons, probably mostly to gain intelligence about the candidates and their foreign policy stances.

3) NSA, in routine surveillance, picked up one of these guys talking to Manafort or Page or someone on the campaign.

4) This got back to the FBI who began looking into it. They worried that perhaps the Russians were trying to influence the election. As a result, they launched a counter-intelligence investigation. I suspect, more than anything, that the FBI was worried that the campaign was taking money from Russia.

5) At some point they went to the DoJ and got a FISA warrant to monitor a computer in Trump Tower. The request was turned down twice, according to the BBC, but was approved on the third try. They suspected this computer was accepting payments from a Russian bank.

6) The FBI found nothing with the computer and dropped that part of the investigation. (Turns out the computer was a normal e-mail server, there were no banking transactions or any other contact with Russia).

7) This was only a few weeks before the election, so rumors began swirling and Hillary herself got wind of it. This is when she ratcheted up her "Russian" rhetoric.

8) It didn't work and Trump wins the election.

9) Obama was going to be in office until the 20th, so he had well over a month to continue monitoring. This is when they caught Flynn on an NSA intercept talking to the Russian ambassador. Keep in mind that there is absolutely NOTHING strange about an incoming national security adviser talking to an ambassador.

10) This conversation was leaked to the press by someone in the Obama administration -- probably someone very close to Obama himself. Why? Because only a few people would have access to this TS/SCI material.

11) 17 days before he left office, Obama amended EO 12333 to make it so all NSA wiretaps got spread to the other intelligence agencies. This is very strange and Obama has never explained himself. Most likely he did it to cover his arse so that his leakers would not be caught.

12) Trump and Pence by this time were sick of all the "Russia" talk and questioned Flynn about what his conversation was about. Something went wrong (Flynn lied) and they fired him. (I think Flynn was just a sacrificial lamb in an attempt to make the retarded conspiracy theory disappear).

13) Trump gets in office and has his people look into the rumors. They found out that indeed there was a FISA request for Trump Tower. This makes Trump mad and he tweets (incorrectly) that "Obama ordered" the wiretap. In fact, Obama didn't order anything, but he certainly knew about it.