Talk:Spygate (conspiracy theory)

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Roundup of more recent descriptions of the term "spygate"

This article was created in 2018 with the edit comment "spygate" refers to trumps claims that his campaign was spied on. Since then it has become specifically about an embedded campaign informant and specifically about the Obama administration. I think limiting the scope to that is unsupported by the way "spygate" is referred to in the reliable sources. Below are some examples of the way the term spygate is described:

• “Spygate” — a labyrinthine conspiracy theory involving unproven allegations about a clandestine Democratic plot to spy on Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign.
• “Spygate,” the term it used to describe a sweeping conspiracy to undermine Trump through investigations into Russian election meddling.
• The claim that his 2016 campaign was illegally spied on — either “spygate” or “Obamagate”
• “Spygate: The Attempted Sabotage of Donald J. Trump,” which posits connections between the Hillary Clinton campaign and foreign entities to undermine Trump’s 2016 election chances.

And finally here is an MSNBC opinion columnist implying that spygate has morphed into many things over time, sort of illustrating my point here:

Over the course of his presidency’s first year, Donald Trump came up with a conspiracy theory he seemed quite excited about. The Republican called it “Spygate.”

If you’re struggling to remember the details of the manufactured controversy, don’t feel too bad about it: Trump also had a hard time explaining exactly what he thought the story was all about. In 2017, for example, Trump invested a fair amount of energy pretending that Barack Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower. (There was no such wiretapping.) A year later, “Spygate” involved an imagined scheme in which the FBI put a spy in his 2016 political operation. (That didn’t happen, either.)

...

Four years later, the now-former president has apparently decided to tweak his conspiracy theory, swapping out one central detail for another. In the new iteration, Barack Obama didn’t spy on him, but Hillary Clinton did.

There are many aspects to this and it involves international people and non-government people. The way things are now, it's confusing where the scope of one related page ends and another begins. I think this is the place to really tie it all together since this is the term most commonly used to refer to all of it. Nweil (talk) 16:37, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

References

There was a mole in the Trump Administration that Hillary and Obama hired

Why isn't this mentioned? 205.149.37.229 (talk) 23:54, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Spygate is a conspiracy theory promulgated by President Donald Trump in May 2018 that the Obama administration had put a spy in his 2016 presidential campaign soibangla (talk) 00:02, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

If, as Wall Street Journal seems to think, there was a mole in the administration then Wiki's strong stance on Spygate seems to be a mistake. Based on WSJ, at least, there was spying. I believe the article should be cleaned up under neutral POV. Tiggy The Terrible (talk) 12:02, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Note the date on that source: Feb. 14, 2022. Also note the source...Durham. WSJ/Durham...not RS. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 14:43, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Are you aware the WSJ editorial board has a long history of lying? Really bad. soibangla (talk) 19:38, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

@Soibangla Every media company is biased, but that's a heck of an accusation. @Valjean Can you clarify what you mean? Tiggy The Terrible (talk) 15:26, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Unconstructive and off-topic. Discussion about reliable sources belongs at WP:RSN. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:37, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Tiggy The Terrible, sure, I'll explain this as it has many confusing angles. We treat the WSJ Editorial Board with strong suspicion around here because of their poor track record and their very strongly biased political POV. (Bias is okay, but a very strong bias warps everything.) They are Rupert Murdoch mouthpieces (he owns the WSJ), ergo as bad as Fox News, and they, like Fox News, are not a RS for American politics and science. They are only a RS for their opinion. They tend to be much further to the right than just right-wing, and that means they often bend or ignore the facts in their efforts to support Trump's conspiracy theories, just as Durham did in his so-called "report" (a partisan junk source). So caution is advised. Don't treat any opinions as facts, especially theirs. Also, the Sussmann/tech business is dealt with. Durham tried unsuccessfully to make that seem like part of a Clinton plot. You may wonder why the Durham Report is a junk source. It becomes pretty obvious when you FIRST read the trial, all the testimony and evidence, and his behavior as a prosecutor in court (clearly a Trump/Barr mouthpiece), and THEN read his "report". It is a far cry from the Horowitz report, which was apolitical and professional, a truly great report. Compare them. It's really interesting. Durham lost in court because of his partisan agenda and dependence on liars (like Giuliani and his Russian intelligence friends) as sources, and he reproduced what he did and said in court in his report, IOW he used his losing strategy(!), unchanged(!!!!!), as the basis for his report, so, of course, the report itself is an unreliable document. It seeks desperately to find ways (usually using innuendo and assertions, not solid evidence) to support Trump's conspiracy theories, but it fails in that endeavor. (Any attempts to defend Trump always fail because his foundation is nothing but lies.) Our articles here are much better and more accurate because they depend on multiple RS. Read them and believe them. Here's another angle on the "mole" assertion. For those who remember the news when it exploded on all news sources (and I and Soibangla do remember), the information about the Russian willingness to share "dirt" about Clinton with the Trump campaign was claimed by Trump and others to be info from a Clinton/DNC "mole" in his campaign (shoot the source while not denying the truth of the incriminating claim), but later we learned all the facts. That info was from Papadopoulos. (See loose lips sink ships. Papadopoulos, Carter Page, and Sergei Millian are all boasters and loose lips, and Millian immediately left the country and disappeared. I'm surprised Carter Page and Papadopoulos didn't do the same.) He was not a mole, but a loyal member of the Trump team whose info was given to American intelligence by the Australians. He was even ahead of the FBI. What he revealed was shocking and alarming to the FBI, as it showed the Russians were clearly supporting Trump (something they promised Trump in 2013 that they would do), and that the Trump campaign knew and was willing to act illegally and unpatriotically in these efforts because both parties would benefit from a Trump presidency. The campaign lied about this information and hid it from the FBI and the public. ((This "internal" knowledge explains why Donald Trump Jr. was so ecstatic ("if it's what you say I love it") about the invitation to hold the Trump Tower meeting. He had been waiting for the promised "dirt", but he was disappointed because there was no dirt on Clinton, nothing of the type of real dirt and kompromat the Russians have on Trump.)) This info from Papadopoulos was the first solid actionable evidence of collusion between the Russians and the Trump team, and that gave the FBI legitimate probable cause to immediately open the Crossfire Hurricane investigation on July 31, 2016, long before the FBI team got the first Steele dossier reports on September 19. The FBI already knew of the Russian hackings and about myriad suspicious and unexplainable (not legitimate) contacts between Trump people and known Russian spies all over Europe in 2015 and 2016, but this was real proof to act on. On page 110 of his 2020 book Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump, Peter Strzok, former FBI deputy assistant director of counterintelligence, says this: "First, Papadopoulos's admission predated the release of the stolen Democratic email on the website DCLeaks, and Julian Assange and WikiLeaks hadn't yet made comments about the future release of Clinton's email. None of the information about Russia's cybertheft was in the public domain. In other words, Papadopoulos had somehow learned about the hacking operation before the public did and had advance knowledge of the Russian plan to use that information to hurt Clinton's campaign. Even the FBI hadn't known about it at that time." There was no "mole" in the campaign. Even Halper was not a "mole". He was a legitimate investigator for the FBI, and he never attempted to join the Trump campaign. This thread is just troll bait, a waste of time, and should be archived. This article explains this stuff, and those who question it should be directed to read it, believe the RS we use, and stop wasting our time on this talk page. If any editors insist on disbelieving RS and believing conspiracy theories, they don't belong at Wikipedia, because Wikipedia does side with RS. Tiggy, I trust you do believe RS and will act accordingly. Feel free to contact me on my talk page if you have more questions. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:06, 6 March 2024 (UTC) Wow, I wasn't expecting that level of depth. Thank you. Though I confess I think CNN are every bit as bad as Fox, and I'm not at all sure why they are allowed to be cited on this page if Murdock is not. Tiggy The Terrible (talk) 12:06, 7 March 2024 (UTC) Tiggy The Terrible, Fox News is uniquely deceptive for a major network. They lie in many ways, especially in politics and science. That's why they are partially deprecated here. The reason they are deceptive is largely because of its owner, Rupert Murdoch, his history (yellow journalism), his business methods (only money counts), and its MAGA audience. It is a pusher of Trump's Big Lie of a stolen election, and pushing that lie has cost Fox News the largest known media settlement for defamation in U.S. history, $787.5 million in the Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News Network case. That's what their deliberate deception cost them. They knowingly pushed what they knew was a lie. Discovery (law) exposed all the internal communications between Fox employees and management, revealing that literally everyone at Fox News, from top to bottom (Murdoch to the janitors), knew and privately agreed that Trump lost the 2020 election, that he was a liar and a fool (they privately ridiculed him), that the election was fair and the safest in U.S. history, and that there was no election fraud of any significance, but because Fox would immediately lose their MAGA viewers if they told them that (they immediately started to migrate to Newsmax and OAN when Fox called Arizona for Biden), Fox deliberately continued to lie to them. MAGA people are not interested in the truth. They go where they will be told their favorite lies, and Fox News knew that the only way to keep their viewers, advertisors, and keep their stock price up, was to continue to lie about the election and Dominion Voting System's machines. That cost them a lot. That's what happened. Right there you have full legal proof that you cannot trust Fox News. There is no comparison with any other major network, including CNN. CNN is not perfect (no media is perfect), but they do abide by journalistic ethics and have a good reputation for fact-checking. Those are our basic requirements for a RS here. It has nothing to do with their bias or political persuasion, at least not until Trump came along and perverted nearly all the right-wing media. They went down the rabbit hole with him and just lie all the time, just like he does. That is why most right-wing media are classified as unreliable here. They have become Trump media. See also: Republican reactions to Donald Trump's claims of 2020 election fraud, 2020 United States presidential election#False claims of fraud, Trumpism, False or misleading statements by Donald Trump, and Donald Trump's rhetoric. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 15:12, 7 March 2024 (UTC) Muboshgu I find it curious that you are only removing my posts as 'offtopic', but I will happily continue this on my talk page if you feel it is cluttering up the place. I have corrected this small oversight by hiding the rest of our offtopic conversation. Tiggy The Terrible (talk) 09:17, 22 March 2024 (UTC) Muboshgu (talk) 18:37, 11 March 2024 (UTC)}} I'm sorry to tell you this, but CCN has been caught in plenty of manipulative and dishonest behaviour. You just don't hear about it as much. Tiggy The Terrible (talk) 06:55, 9 March 2024 (UTC) If that was true, it would be documented in the CNN article. Feel free to prove your point there using RS. We already document it for Fox News. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:47, 9 March 2024 (UTC) That depends entirely on the political bias of the page. Tiggy The Terrible (talk) 18:35, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Spygate (Conspiracy Theory) and the Durham Report

The Durham Report (https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf) confirms much of what is currently labeled as "conspiracy theory" in this article, including that all of the major players at the FBI, CIA, and Obama White House knew there was no substance to the "Russia/Trump collusion" theory, yet opened the Crossfire Hurricane investigation anyway. WikiJohnS (talk) 21:18, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

That is not what the Durham Report says. I suggest you read a description of its conclusions from a reputable source, like this one, rather than Newsmax or 4chan. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:29, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

I suggest you read the actual report, not summaries by third parties. No substance to the to the Trump/Russia collusion theory, I refer to page 8 of the report:

"As set forth in greater detail in Section IV.A.3 .b, before the initial receipt by FBI Headquarters of information from Australia on July 28, 2016 concerning comments reportedly made in a tavern on May 6, 2016 by George Papadopoulos, an unpaid foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign, the government possessed no verified intelligence reflecting that Trump or the Trump campaign was involved in a conspiracy or collaborative relationship with officials of the Russian government.21 Indeed, based on the evidence gathered in the multiple exhaustive and costly federal investigations of these matters, including the instant investigation, neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation."

WikiJohnS (talk) 04:09, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

"before" Downer's alert. And what does this have to do with Spygate? Are you asserting Durham proved Trump was spied on? I'm seeing a lot of "Durham proved everything Trump said was right all along" making the rounds. soibangla (talk) 04:22, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

I agree that the bolded words are the ones Durham used in his report, which is a primary source. We prefer secondary sources that discuss primary sources over our editors' interpretation of those primary sources. Those analyses are still coming in. We have no deadline for that. – Muboshgu (talk) 04:28, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 14 February 2024

To make the article more accurate-\ Spygate was a disproven[1] conspiracy theory peddled by 45th U.S. President Donald Trump

Spygate is a proven[1] conspiracy theory peddled by 45th U.S. President Donald Trump RomaBoy (talk) 16:35, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: That would make the article inaccurate. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:43, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

It was a conspiracy theory, now it's been proven true. So it's more accurate to describe it as a proven conspiracy theory rather than a historical disproven conspiracy theory. 38.96.169.131 (talk) 18:19, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

It has not "been proven true". Not at all. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:22, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

It absolutely has been proven true, the Steele Dossier was proven to be false, by it's own author (https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-donald-trump-presidential-elections-campaign-2016-41116202428688e1088829852505e144), there is now a missing binder filled with formerly classified material that was ordered declassified as part of the declassifaction of the "Crossfire Hurricane" investigation into Donald Trump by former President Barack Obama's justice bureau (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/15/classified-russia-documents-missing-trump). 8.10.181.17 (talk) 01:56, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Done: This should be voted on. The Wall-street Journal and other sources - along with a primary source from the Durham report - confirmed that Trump's 2016 campaign was illegally spied on. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.154.125.230 (talk) 01:58, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

um ... no soibangla (talk) 02:01, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes; the AP has already been sourced, along with the Durham Report, which is a PRIMARY SOURCE. Furthermore, the WSJ confirms the AP story. https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-really-was-spied-on-2016-clinton-campaign-john-durham-court-filing-11644878973 Stop putting your extremist politics in the way of factual statements. Donald Trump had his campaign spied on by intelligence services while Obama was president. Wikipedia readers deserve to know this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.154.125.230 (talk) 02:03, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

That's an op-ed. All I see above the paywall is that Durham filed something about Michael Sussmann, who was acquitted from Durham's charges. Absolutely nothing about Obama spying on Trump has been proven. It has been disproven. – Muboshgu (talk) 02:10, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

“Spygate was a disproven[1] conspiracy theory” is only an opinion, and due to the the use of the word “was,” this statement could be interpreted by readers to mean it “WAS a disproven conspiracy, but has now been proven.” While opinions may differ on the interpretation of events, it’s essential to acknowledge significant developments, such as the recent disclosures by Special Counsel John Durham, which shed new light on the activities surrounding the Trump-Russia investigation. The article should reflect these developments accurately, updating the language to reflect the ongoing debate and evidence emerging from investigations like the Durham report. Trulyneutral (talk) 17:00, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Actually that's a good point. It "was" disproven, but "is" still disproven. I will make that change. As far as "significant developments" from John Durham, what are you talking about? The Durham report was issued in May 2023. Nothing new has come out of it since, as his investigation has wrapped. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:34, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your attention to this matter. While it’s true that the Durham report was issued in May 2023, recent court filings and developments related to ongoing legal proceedings stemming from the report have provided new insights into the activities surrounding the Trump-Russia investigation. These developments are still relevant and should be considered when updating the article to ensure accuracy and completeness. Additionally, recent articles, such as the one by journalist Matt Taibbi, highlight new information regarding the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation. This includes allegations of illegal mobilization of foreign intelligence agencies by the United States Intelligence Community to target Trump advisors before the summer of 2016. While these claims are based on sources and testimonies, they add complexity to our understanding of the events surrounding Spygate and warrant consideration when updating the article to ensure accuracy and relevance. Trulyneutral (talk) 18:49, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Can you please provide these recent articles? I am not aware of what articles you are referring to. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:57, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

you know, when I click a Fox News story about this Taibbi claim and the first thing I see is Jesse Watters, I just spew my beverage all over my screen soibangla (talk) 19:43, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

This comment is unhelpful. But WP:FOXNEWSPOLITICS coverage is not reliable. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:58, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Again, Taibbi is not a reliable source (RS). He is a conspiracy theorist, and his speculations don't begin to qualify as reliable sourcing for our content. If and when his speculations are confirmed to be true by multiple RS, then, and only then, can we include it and cite them as sources. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:12, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Durham was granted access to everything that Taibbi et al. cannot conceive of. he found nothing to support these allegations. soibangla (talk) 02:25, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

www.cnn.com/2023/05/15/politics/john-durham-report-fbi-trump-released/index.html Boeing352 (talk) 00:00, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

https://www.westernjournal.com/new-york-times-concedes-obama-fbi-spied-trump-campaign/ Boeing352 (talk) 23:57, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

www.nypost.com/2024/02/13/news/cia-and-foreign-intelligence-agencies-illegally-targeted-26-trump-associates-before-2016-russia-collusion-claims-report/ Boeing352 (talk) 23:58, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/cia-and-foreign-intelligence-agencies-illegally-targeted-26-trump-associates-before-2016-russia-collusion-claims-report/ar-BB1ieWUm Boeing352 (talk) 23:59, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

www.cnn.com/2023/05/15/politics/john-durham-report-fbi-trump-released/index.html Boeing352 (talk) 23:59, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

these sources are trash, and the CNN source explains what Durham concluded, but Michael E. Horowitz concluded the opposite

so, who to believe? a career DOJ IG who is still there, or a man appointed by Bill Barr who had already made up his mind there was FBI corruption before he even became AG? soibangla (talk) 00:14, 11 June 2024 (UTC)