Rep Smith on Reasons To Be Concerned

Mar 11, 2017

Last weekend, President Trump opened up about his suspicion that his campaign was wire tapped by the Obama White House during the 2016 Presidential election. While some in the media found this outlandish, the reality is that a long track record by the Obama White House of using whatever means necessary to discredit those who opposed him leaves President Trump justified in believing that individuals who worked on his campaign and potentially himself were subjected to eavesdropping.

In the coming months, the U.S. House Intelligence Committee will be conducting a full investigation on interference during the 2016 election – interference from foreign countries as well as executive overreach and manipulation by the Obama White House. In the meantime, what we do know is that a pattern and history of overstep and abuse by the Obama Administration has given President Trump plenty of reason to suspect his organization was targeted during the Republican nomination process.

Most glaring is that the Obama White House had a history of using deceitful tactics to target those who disagreed with them. In 2013, Obama’s IRS told employees to “be on the lookout” for Tea Party organizations applying for tax-exempt status and other groups who objected to the government takeover of healthcare and our economy. Their applications were delayed and denied in an attempt to stop them from working against Obama’s liberal agenda. Led by Eric Holder, Obama’s Justice Department also pried into the personal communications of Associated Press reporters and Fox News reporter James Rosen who was unfavorably reporting on the White House.

Second, since the beginning of the Trump Administration, his presidency has been hounded by numerous unauthorized leaks from lifelong bureaucrats, burrowed deep within the bowels of a bloated government. These bureaucratic hold overs from the Obama Administration have infiltrated the Trump Administration and are working every day to discredit America’s newly elected leader.

Lastly, it’s easy to see why the Obama Administration would be motivated to wiretap the Trump campaign and find information to prevent Trump from being elected – the preservation of their liberal policies and Obama’s legacy was at stake. They wanted Hillary Clinton – another president who would spend too much, tax too much and try to rewrite the Constitution in order to encroach upon the very liberties our country was founded on. Scared of what Trump would do to their legacy, the Obama White House might do anything to ensure that a true agent of change didn’t take over. While it is completely acceptable for a president to want to see his legacy continued by his successor of choice, it is not acceptable for anyone in his administration to spy on the opposition.

We are just beginning to scratch the surface of the executive overreach and manipulation by the previous administration during the 2016 election. In the coming months, the facts will rise to the surface and we will know more about if, when and how the Obama White House may have worked to undermine the democratic process. But we don’t need to dig any deeper to understand why the Obama White House would want to try to stop candidate Trump from becoming President Trump.