The media is rushing forward with all sorts of careful lawyerly denials of wiretapping from Obama's people. The biggest one comes from James Clapper.
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on Sunday denied any suggestion that Trump Tower communications were wiretapped before the election.
For the part of the national security apparatus that he oversaw, "there was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president, the president-elect at the time, or as a candidate, or against his campaign," Clapper told Chuck Todd in an exclusive interview on Sunday's "Meet The Press."
This carefully leaves out wiretaps of his associates. It also emphasizes Trump in the political sphere rather than the business or personal one.
When Todd asked him whether he could confirm or deny if a FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Act) order for this existed, Clapper declared, "I can deny it."
Asked again whether there was a FISA Court order to monitor Trump Tower, Clapper said, "Not to my knowledge."
Clapper said that if any wiretap like that occurred, he would "certainly hope" that he would be aware of it.
"I can't speak for other authorized entities in the government or a state or local entity," he added.
So this is a very careful denial/non-denial. But here, as Andrew McCarthy laid out, is the key point about this. It was a request, not an order.
In June, the Obama Justice Department submitted an application that apparently “named” Trump in addition to some of his associates. As I have stressed, it is unclear whether “named” in this context indicates that Trump himself was cited as a person the Justice Department was alleging was a Russian agent whom it wanted to surveil. It could instead mean that Trump’s name was merely mentioned in an application that sought to conduct surveillance on other alleged Russian agents. ...
In any event, the FISA court reportedly turned down the Obama Justice Department’s request, which is notable: The FISA court is notoriously solicitous of government requests to conduct national-security surveillance (although, as I’ve noted over the years, the claim by many that it is a rubber-stamp is overblown).
Not taking no for an answer, the Obama Justice Department evidently returned to the FISA court in October 2016, the critical final weeks of the presidential campaign. This time, the Justice Department submitted a narrowly tailored application that did not mention Trump. The court apparently granted it, authorizing surveillance of some Trump associates.
This was out there in mainstream media reporting.
Clapper denies the order, but he doesn't deny that a request was made. These are the same word games that we were getting from the Hillary campaign.