Breaking: Barack Obama arrested for illegal wiretapping of USA President Donald Trump's Tower is Fake news

Barack Obama Arrested For Illegal Wiretapping Of Donald Trump’s Trump Tower Is Fake News

business2community.com

Mar 7, 2017 2:17 PM

Former president Barack Obama being arrested over charges of illegal wiretapping of President Donald Trump’s Trump Tower is fake news. According to false reports, the FBI has issued an arrest warrant for Obama over charges of illegal wiretapping. Despite Trump supporters believing Obama should be in jail, there is no truth to the reports.

Where did this fake story originate? On March 4, 2017, the web site The Last Line of Defense published an article suggesting that a warrant had been issued for the arrest of Obama over the unsubstantiated claim that he had illegally ordered wiretapping of telephones at Trump Tower prior to the 2016 U.S. presidential election between Trump and Hillary Clinton. You can read text from that fake story below.

“Former president and breaker of laws, Barack Obama, will either surrender himself or be picked up by the FBI sometime today to be booked and charged with unlawful use of authority, wire fraud and conspiracy to interfere with free elections after it was confirmed that he ordered the tapping of the phones at Trump Tower during the presidential election.

Todd McMartin, a spokesman for the FBI, told Fox News: “The proof is undeniable. Obama basically confessed in a private call to one of Hillary Clinton’s aides that he had the Trump Tower tapped and we can’t find any federal order legally authorized by a judge to do so.”

The call, between Obama and Huma Abedin, was intercepted by the FBI after President Trump ordered Obama’s phones tapped to catch him in a lie over the Russia scandal. That tap was authorized by executive order for national security reasons. If convicted, Obama could face up to 40 years in prison, and no President will be pardoning him anytime soon.”

However, none of this was true as no major news organization has picked up this story. Obama was not arrested, nor was a warrant issued for his arrest. No FBI spokesman named “Todd McMartin” made a statement about Obama’s supposed imminent arrest to Fox News, nor to any other news organization (and an FBI spokesman would not be able to publicly comment on an investigation in progress in any case).

Also, unbelievable in the fake story is the idea that Trump could order a wiretap through an executive order to incriminate another president who ordered a wiretap without a federal order “legally authorized by a judge.” Rather, The Last Line of Defense is a well known “satirical” (i.e., fake news) web site whose disclaimer notes that:

DISCLAIMER: The Resistance may include information from sources that may or may not be reliable and facts that don’t necessarily exist. All articles should be considered satirical and any and all quotes attributed to actual people complete and total baloney. Pictures that represent actual people should be considered altered and not in any way real.

Here is an example of someone sharing the fake news on 

The Last Line of Defense followed up this spoof article the following day with another fabricated piece detailing Obama’s supposed arrest in Canada:

“This morning, Obama was stopped at a checkpoint at Toronto International Airport, where he was trying to fly to an unknown destination under the alias “Bruce Wilekenmeyer.” The CRMP officer who stopped him recognized him beneath a fake mustache, took him into custody and turned him over to the US Embassy.

After a short transport back to Washington, Obama was brought before a special session of US District Court where he could be formally charged and ordered not to leave the country before being released into his attorney’s custody.”

Regarding Trump’s claims, it appears more likely that Trump took several media reports about legitimate intelligence investigations into his associates’ possible Russia ties and wove them into a new, unsubstantiated theory that Obama himself did something illegal.

What did you think of the fake story? Did you see people falsely sharing it on social media as real news? Do you believe Trump’s claims about Obama’s wiretaps? Should there be an investigation into the claims? Let us know in the comments section.