Democrats\u2019 efforts to raise suspicions about alleged \u2014 and, thus far, imaginary \u2014 links between President Donald Trump\u2019s campaign and the Russian government may have backfired spectacularly.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0spotlight is now on\u00a0President Barack Obama and his administration\u2019s alleged\u00a0surveillance of\u00a0the Trump campaign, as well as his aides\u2019 reported efforts to spread damaging information\u00a0about\u00a0Trump throughout government agencies to facilitate later\u00a0investigations and, possibly, leaks to the media.<\/p>\n
On Sunday morning, the White House released a statement<\/a> indicating that the president would ask the congressional committees investigating Russian hacking theories to add the question of \u201cwhether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016.\u201d<\/p>\n Media outlets continued to repeat that the story was\u00a0based on \u201cno evidence,\u201d though the evidence was plain.<\/p>\n President Donald Trump originally\u00a0tweeted about<\/a> the alleged surveillance \u2014 which radio host Mark Levin called a \u201csilent coup\u201d by Obama staffers keen to\u00a0undermine the new administration \u2014 on Saturday. Levin\u2019s claims, reported<\/a> at Breitbart News early Friday, were in turn based on information largely from\u00a0mainstream outlets, including the\u00a0New York Times\u00a0<\/em>and the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>. Heat Street<\/a> was one non-mainstream source, but the BBC also reported<\/a> similar information in January. So, too, did the UK\u00a0Guardian<\/em><\/a>, which is a mainstream source (albeit with a decidedly left-wing slant, hardly\u00a0favorable to Trump).<\/p>\n