SHARYL ATTKISSON: “So how could these little-known abuses factor into the Trump investigation? At the same time the NSA and FBI Director James Comey’s agency were documented as having committed surveillance abuses FBI agents were secretly spying on numerous Trump associates using spy tools meant to go after foreign terrorists and spies.
“Through a single warrant, government agents can capture phone calls, texts, emails and bank records from people “two hops" away. That means all of the suspected spy’s direct contacts — ‘one hop’ — and everybody who contacts those people or even visits their Facebook pages or websites — two hops.
In this way, one analysis found intel agencies can use one legal wiretap to access to 25,000 people’s phones. Consider at least a half dozen Trump officials were caught in the FBI surveillance dragnet, according to news reports: campaign chair Manafort, multiple “transition officials” including Lt. General Michael Flynn and Jared Kushner, and adviser Carter Page — who was wiretapped over and over though never charged with anything.
(via RealClearPolitics)