When It Comes to Meddling in the US Election, Was it the UK?

I learned a long time ago that when you are close to the truth the opposition, if there is any, springs into action and launches a desperate counter attack. That appears to define what happened in the wake of Fox News suspending Judge Andrew Napolitano for the following claim:

that former US President Barack Obama asked British intelligence agency GCHQ to monitor President Donald Trump. . . .

Andrew Napolitano, a political commentator and former New Jersey judge, said on Tuesday Obama used GCHQ in order to "make sure there were no American fingerprints."

"Three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command - he didn't use the NSA, he didn't use the CIA, he didn't use the FBI and he didn't use the Department of Justice," said Napolitano. "He used GCHQ."

Well, the Brits went absolutely bonkers. GCHQ came as close to having a full blown aneurysm as any bureaucratic entity can.

"We've made clear to the administration that these claims are ridiculous and they should be ignored and we've received assurances that these allegations will not be repeated," a Downing Street spokesman told reporters.

One of Judge Napolitano's sources apparently was Larry Johnson. However, according to Johnson, the Judge did not accurately report what Johnson had said. According to Mr. Johnson, President Obama did not order anything. Instead, information collected by GCHQ was passed to people in the U.S. intelligence community and then distributed in an unauthorized manner. To deny that GCHQ did not do anything in response to a request from President Obama, but that does not mean that GCHQ (aka General Communication's Headquarters) was passive and doing nothing.

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/03/when-it-comes-to-meddling-in-the-us-election-was-it-the-uk-by-publius-tacitus.html#comments