A little earlier today Obama’s spokesman responded to Trump’s assertion that Obama had ordered the wiretapping of Trump and/or Trump Tower.

Spokesman for Obama responds to Trump's assertion, without evidence, that Obama ordered Trump's phone tapped pic.twitter.com/1hnrO82FTH

— Mark Berman (@markberman) March 4, 2017

It is curiously similar to the the tweet released by Iran’s agent-of-influence in the Obama White House, Ben Rhodes.

No President can order a wiretap. Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you. https://t.co/lEVscjkzSw

— Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) March 4, 2017

What both of these tweets do is deny something that no sane person is actually alleging, that is, that Obama, himself, ordered a wiretap. What most people mean when they say “Obama” did something, is that his administration carried out the action. (Seriously, when people say Bush invaded Iraq or Osama bin Laden destroyed the Twin Towers do they actually mean the men, themselves, did it. I understand not liking Trump but I don’t understand beclowning oneself to further the hate.) What neither of the tweets deny is that a wiretap was ordered by the Obama administration and that it was carried out. This point is made by former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau:

I'd be careful about reporting that Obama said there was no wiretapping. Statement just said that neither he nor the WH ordered it.

— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) March 4, 2017

At this point I am of the opinion that a wiretap was ordered, that most likely it was a FISA order, and it was directed at the banking communications that were reported in October. If you recall, that story was shopped to many news outlets who all declined it because of sketchy sourcing (ah, for the good old days when journalists and editors and publishers actually worried about the reliability of sources) except for Slate. Trump more than likely was not the specific target. The Democrats had better hope that is the case because if it comes to pass that a presidential candidate was under surveillance by the other party and nothing material was uncovered things are going to get ugly very, very fast. And they should.