Who's Really Bugging Trump?

Here's another puzzling data point, from Politico on Wednesday:

Iranian hackers sent sensitive information stolen from the Trump campaign to President Joe Biden’s campaign earlier this summer, U.S. investigators said Wednesday.

The emails were sent in June and July to individuals “associated with the Biden campaign” and “contained an excerpt taken from stolen, non-public material from former President Trump’s campaign,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI and CISA said in a statement.

. . . It is unclear to what extent the then-Biden campaign read or made use of the information the Iranians sent.

The three agencies said the emails were unsolicited and campaign staff did not reply to them.

Although the account refers to Iranian "hackers", it doesn't say whether the hackers got the information from hacking the Trump campaign directly, or whether they obtained it indirectly, possibly from sources within the US government. We do know, again from Politico, that the Biden administration's Iran envoy, Rob Malley, had his security clearance suspended and was subsequently placed on unpaid leave in summer 2023. The FBI is investigating whether Malley

moved classified information onto his personal email, where it may have fallen into the hands of a foreign actor, according to a person briefed on the case and a letter from Republican lawmakers.

Investigators are trying to determine if any crimes were committed, according to the person briefed on the case and another person familiar with the matter. But it is not yet clear if the Department of Justice will bring any charges against Malley or what the scope of any charges might be. The people were granted anonymity to discuss a highly sensitive issue.

. . . Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote a letter this week [May 10] to Secretary of State Antony Blinken seeking more information.

In the letter, the pair wrote that they have come to “understand” that Malley “allegedly transferred classified documents to his personal email account and downloaded these documents to his personal cellphone.” The letter continues: “It is unclear to whom he intended to provide these documents, but it is believed that a hostile cyber actor was able to gain access to his email and/or phone and obtain the downloaded information.”

However, Malley has been on leave since last year, so he wouldn't have been involved in whatever means the Iranians used to transfer Trump campaign materials to the Biden campaign -- except that having sources within the US government transmit sensitive material to Iran, wittingly or unwittingly, via careless handling of e-mail has already demonstrably occurred. I can't discount Sundance's reasoning at Conservative Treehouse:

In the 2016/2017 version of the FBI/DOJ/DNI effort we eventually learned it was the FBI/DOJ/DNI who manufactured the “hacking stories” around Russia as an excuse to cover their illegal election surveillance operation over Donald Trump. This is no longer disputed amid the intellectually honest.

So, riddle me this…. Is there a reason to believe the 2024 version, where Iran is inserted to replace Russia, does not emanate from the same FBI/DOJ/DNI justification premise?

. . . You see, from the outset of the DOJ -now Special Counsel- case against Trump in the “classified documents” case, the DOJ-NSD framed every aspect of their accusations and indictment(s) around the issue of “Classified National Security.”

That approach is seemingly useful if the same Biden administration interests wanted to continue the use of Title-1 FISA surveillance warrants; a 2024 justification coincidentally facilitates hidden surveillance of yet another Trump presidential campaign in an identical manner as they did in 2016.

But wait… wha?

Yup, again if accurate, that would mean the entire construct of the Jack Smith special counsel case that Judge Aileen Cannon eventually threw out of her court, would be predicated on a hidden motive to keep Donald Trump under full (national security) surveillance.

What Sundance has been sayong is that Trump is likely the subject of a Title 1 FISA Surveillance Warrant that allows the government to target him with electronic surveillance, i e, to bug Mar-a-Lago, but of course, not just that.

Title I of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act governs the targeting of foreign powers or agents of foreign powers for electronic surveillance by the U.S. government. Agents of foreign powers can be either U.S. persons or non-U.S. persons. If the agent of a foreign power is a U.S. person, the government must show that the U.S. person is engaging in espionage, terrorism, or sabotage by or on behalf of a foreign power that involves a violation of a criminal statute.

. . . If the application is approved, the U.S. government can conduct electronic surveillance of the target for the period of time specified in the application. At the end of that time period, the government must stop surveilling the target unless it goes back to the Court and applies to renew the surveillance. For targeted U.S. citizens, FISA applications must be renewed by the FISC every 90 days with a separate finding of probable cause to continue surveillance.

I spent part of my career in computer security, and I know that hackers want to take the easiest path to their goal. It's possible to crack passwords through muiltiple attempts using strings like "12345", for instance, but why go to that trouble if you can find an easier way in? If you know someone who has what you want, and they're careless with their e-mail -- maybe intentionally "careless" -- why go to all the trouble of bugging Mar-a-Lago yourself?

In other words, whom did the hackers hack? Did they hack Trump directly, or did they hack (cough, cough) someone in the US deep state? It sounds to me as though Trump has his own idea, and he may well be right:

WOW, JUST OUT! THE FBI CAUGHT IRAN SPYING ON MY CAMPAIGN, AND GIVING ALL OF THE INFORMATION TO THE KAMALA HARRIS CAMPAIGN. THEREFORE SHE AND HER CAMPAIGN WERE ILLEGALLY SPYING ON ME. TO BE KNOWN AS THE IRAN, IRAN, IRAN CASE! WILL KAMALA RESIGN IN DISGRACE FROM POLITICS? WILL THE COMMUNIST LEFT PICK A NEW CANDIDATE TO REPLACE HER?

I think he's fully aware that he's being bugged under a FISA warrant, and that's how the information reached the Iranians. Trump is surrounded by savvy people. He may well have deliberately planted bogus information knowing it would be passed on, and he'd recognize it if it were. This is his way of sending that message to the deep state.