Donald Trump recently made one of the strangest, most bizarre accusations of his already puzzling presidency. Instead of calling a press conference, he chose to reveal through Twitter that he was angered by the warrant being used by the FBI as grounds to monitor his administration, transition team, and campaign for any and all potential foreign agents. In doing so, Trump also revealed that he believes former President Obama ordered advanced surveillance and ‘wiretapping’ on Trump Tower during the Presidential the campaign. These accusations were entirely baseless, yet Trump shared them as truth for the world to see.
Professor Robert Reich, the former Labor Secretary, released a statement trying to explain the conclusions we can draw regarding Trump in the wake of this ridiculous new scandal. Reich is a professor at Berkeley, and none of what he gathered from the event could be considered promising. The first thing he suggested Americans must admit is that Trump is significantly more paranoid and crazy than original anticipated, which seems like a fair point.
The second conclusion is that Trump is actually right about the wiretapping, but that only leads to the conclusion that Trump or someone in his camp was guilty of treason. Presidents can not order or have a wiretap carried out on their own. In order for wiretaps to be used, a federal judge must decide that enough evidence exists that points to a serious crime or the possibility that someone was working for a foreign power. In either case, that should be something Trump would want to keep quiet, yet he unabashedly accused the former President of performing the wiretap himself, much like a child throwing random accusations when he doesn’t get his way.
The last conclusion that Reich reached from the outburst on Twitter was that it could have been triggered by something Trump heard while listening to Mark Levin, who suggested that ‘police state’ tactics were employed by the Obama administration to attempt to monitor any potential connections between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence. Levin made these comments without any evidence of such techniques being used, yet it is possible that Trump merely heard what he wanted to hear and started spouting off about how unfair life is for him. Again, if this is the case, Americans should be concerned.
Several Democrats have started to push legislation that would require the president to undergo psychiatric evaluation. The legislation is drafted, for now, to appear as if it doesn’t target Trump, but he would be susceptible to its conditions at his advanced age. There is absolutely no way Congress will pass such a bill, especially since it is currently dominated by the Republicans, but that doesn’t mean the idea can’t be employed in the future.
There is basically no doubt that Trump has some sort of psychological issues, even if they can only be categorized as narcissistic and reckless. He often voices his opinion on Twitter about things that either don’t exist as they do in his mind or, or they don’t exist at all. He never seems to listen to his own government, unless they say what he wants to hear. While Trump plays around, the country is being run by his horrifying advisors and family.
The sad truth of the matter is that wiretaps were very clearly used, but that means the Justice Department was able to convince a judge that such surveillance was warranted. What sort of evidence did they already have against the Trump team that could warrant such surveillance, and what else did they find? It is only a matter of time before the whole truth reaches the surface.