{"id":4317,"date":"2026-08-03T16:36:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T16:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=4317"},"modified":"2026-08-03T16:36:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T16:36:18","slug":"trump-wiretapping-enemies-is-breathtaking-abuse-of-power-whistleblower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=4317","title":{"rendered":"Trump wiretapping enemies is ‘breathtaking abuse of power’: whistleblower"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

President Donald Trump\u2019s attempt to surveil the phone of former FBI Director James Comey has prompted much discussion as to how far the former is willing to go to punish his enemies. According to a whistleblower from his first term, however, Trump has turned the \u201c intelligence apparatus into an instrument of personal revenge and political spying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Even conservative legal experts call Senate deal with Blanche \u2018inexcusable\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

This is the assertion of Miles Taylor<\/u>, who served as Deputy Chief of Staff in the Department of Homeland Security during the first Trump administration, during which he famously penned an anonymous article revealing the existence of a resistance group within the White House. As Taylor explains, last week, it was revealed that while attempting to secure charges against Comey for posting an Instagram photo of shells spelling the numbers \u201c86 45\u201d \u2014 which Trump claims were a call for assassination \u2014 the president, via the DOJ, ordered the Secret Service to begin tracking and surveilling Comey\u2019s phone, which agents recognized as problematic. <\/p>\n

As Taylor elaborates, \u201cThe Secret Service\u2019s own supervisor put his objection in writing. Pinging the phone \u2018could be done,\u2019 he warned, \u2018but it would be a bad idea.\u2019 Warrantless emergency tracking requires an imminent threat to life, and \u2018we did not believe that anyone\u2019s life was in immediate danger.\u2019 It was, in his words, \u2018legally questionable.\u2019 His boss agreed, according to the emails, \u2018but said we might do it anyway.\u2019 And they did.\u201d Agents tracked Comey\u2019s movements as he and his wife drove to visit their son\u2019s grave, with Trump allegedly following the progress from Air Force One. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo, to be clear,\u201d emphasizes Taylor, \u201cwe found out that the president of the United States was aboard his airplane, personally tracking the surveillance of a private citizen who had posted a photo of four digits. Obvious free speech. Breathtaking abuse of power to punish it.\u201d What\u2019s more, not only did the investigation turn up nothing, but the government continued to pursue Comey, with the FBI obtaining warrants for his Apple and Google accounts. <\/p>\n

Read more Trump \u2018alarmingly simple\u2019 to spy on \u2014 and there\u2019s one major beneficiary: espionage expert\u200b<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI believe the Comey prosecution will be remembered as one of the most significant First Amendment cases in American history,\u201d asserts Taylor. \u201cAn American president is trying to imprison a critic for posting a photograph. And to build the absurd case, the government surveilled that critic without a judge\u2019s approval, in a manner its own agents admitted in writing was illegal. The filings answer some questions about what was done to Comey, but they open a far larger one that may not be answered for years: how many other people is this administration illegally watching and preparing to illegally punish?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t write this as a bystander of course,\u201d notes Taylor. \u201cTrump has publicly accused people like me, John Brennan, James Clapper, Adam Schif, and even Barack Obama and Joe Biden, of treason. I have to assume some of us are already under surveillance for the audacity of criticizing the sitting president, while he has agents hunt for something \u2014 anything \u2014 to charge us with as punishment … Ironically, one of those criticisms is that I\u2019ve long warned a second Trump term would turn the intelligence apparatus into an instrument of personal revenge and political spying. Again, the wannabe despot in the Oval Office has proven my point.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Taylor concludes, \u201cWe don\u2019t know how many Americans are being warrantlessly monitored right now, or individually targeted despite their constitutional rights. That is the problem. Comey\u2019s surveillance surfaced only because his prosecution forced these documents into open court. Everything about how this administration treats the people it considers enemies tells me his case is the rule, not the exception, and that there may be far more people they\u2019ve decided to watch than to tip their hand by bringing weak and foolish cases.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Bank of America warns Trump\u2019s Fed Chair is losing credibility<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump\u2019s attempt to surveil the phone of former FBI Director James Comey has prompted much discussion as to how far the former is willing to go to punish his enemies. According to a whistleblower from his first term, however, Trump has turned the \u201c intelligence apparatus into an inst…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump wiretapping enemies is 'breathtaking abuse of power': whistleblower - Next Address America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=4317\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump wiretapping enemies is 'breathtaking abuse of power': whistleblower - Next Address America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"President Donald Trump\u2019s attempt to surveil the phone of former FBI Director James Comey has prompted much discussion as to how far the former is willing to go to punish his enemies. 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