William Binney, a former highly placed National Security Agency (NSA) official turned whistleblower, surmised it is “very likely, in fact, most probable” that the NSA has recordings of President Donald Trump’s phone conversations with former FBI Director James Comey.
“It is very likely, in fact, most probable that NSA does have those tapes,” stated Binney.
Binney continued: “I think you already have examples of it where you had conversations that President Trump had with the president of Mexico and also with Australia. All of those have been leaked. Also phone calls involving [former National Security Advisor Michael] Flynn and so on and the White House.”
“And the point is here, you see, I don’t know of any time that the president makes a phone call that is not encrypted. So that means that the people who are intercepting the president have to be able to decrypt it. And the people who provide the encryption and the keys to the systems to be used are NSA,” he added.
Binney was speaking Sunday night on this reporter’s talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio,” broadcast on New York’s AM 970 The Answer and Philadelphia’s NewsTalk 990 AM.
Binney was an architect of the NSA’s surveillance program. He became a famed whistleblower when he resigned on October 31, 2001 after spending more than 30 years with the agency. He has remained a sought-after expert on NSA surveillance.
Binney was responding to a series of tweets from the U.S. president last week in which Trump wrote that he “did not make” and does not have recordings of his conversations with Comey.
However, Trump allowed that “with all of the recently reported electronic surveillance, intercepts, unmasking and illegal leaking of information, I have no idea whether there are ‘tapes’ or recordings of my conversations with James Comey.”
On May 12, after Comey had been fired and there was speculation he was behind leaks to the news media, Trump had ominously issued the following warning on Twitter:
In remarks to the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this month, Comey described three in-person private conversations with Trump – one in January at Trump Tower before the inauguration and two more in the White House after Trump became president – and two phone calls between the two.
NSA ‘Absolutely’ Tapping Trump’s Calls
Asked pointedly whether he believes the NSA is bugging the Oval Office, Binney replied, “Absolutely.”
In February on this reporter’s radio program, Binney made national headlines when he alleged the NSA was tapping Trump’s Oval Office phone calls.
Binney further contended at the time that the NSA may have been behind a data leak that revealed Michael Flynn allegedly misled Vice-President Mike Pence and other Trump administration officials about the contents of his phone calls with Russia’s ambassador to Washington.
During the interview on Sunday, Binney addressed alleged illicit NSA domestic surveillance that he says is documented in NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s slides on the agency’s Fairview program, which is supposed to focus on the collection of data from foreign countries’ citizens utilizing switching stations located inside the U.S.
Binney stated:
The slides showing the tap points across the United States where the targets really are the U.S. population and not the foreigners. If they wanted the foreigners all they would have to do is tap the surfacing points for the transoceanic cables. That would be along the coast. You wouldn’t need to tap points distributed with the populations of the company. So that is the main program they are using to collect all this data on the fiber networks.
Binney further stated the NSA could remotely turn on cell phone mics to record offline conversations.
Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.
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