Thread by @TimInHonolulu

1. Jim Comey announced March 20, 2017, the @FBI had opened a Trump Campaign counter-intelligence investigation. By May 9, 2017, when Comey was fired, the spooks likely knew a lot more about Trump & Russia than just suspicions about the Comey firing.

2. Here's the @nytimes story: F.B.I. Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia nyti.ms/2RH4nD4
Here is the video & transcript of Comey testifying on Russian interference in 2016 election. Video at :50 seconds in. wapo.st/2mlsYyn?tid=ss…

3. Comey was not clear on March 20, 2017 the date FBI opened Trump campaign investigation but we know Carter Page FISA order ap was date stamped Oct 2016. Here's first two pages of Page application. Significance of today's @nytimes report is that it appears to set foundation for

4. a Trump FISA order. Take a look at the second page of the application. Alleged in the application is that Page was an "agent of a foreign power" a defined term under FISA. That looks to me to be what the FBI thought about Trump that the

5. @nytimes is now reporting: That Trump was a suspected agent of a foreign power. And if they could support that finding, and it appears they believed they could, Trump may have been under FISA surveillance. So, if they did, bet we know what he said to Putin in Helsinki. 😎

6. Trump becoming a target of a National Security Investigation was not a very hard thing to predict. IMO anyone doing business with the Kremlin run Russian mob is by definition an agent of a foreign power. Here's my May 24, 2016 post.

https://twitter.com/TimInHonolulu/status/735259427800899584

@maddow