WSJ: Mueller and the Obama Accounting: Obama Owes The Country An Explanation

The Mueller report confirms that the Obama administration, without evidence, turned the surveillance powers of the federal government against the presidential campaign of the party out of power. 

This historic abuse of executive authority was either approved by President Barack Obama or it was not. 

It’s time for Mr. Obama, who oddly receives few mentions in stories about his government’s spying on associates of the 2016 Trump campaign, to say what he knew and did not know about the targeting of his party’s opponents. . . . 

It’s time for this lawyer and alleged passionate defender of the Bill of Rights to explain the actions of his overzealous and overreaching executive branch. 

If he didn’t find out about the wiretapping until after the fact, when exactly did he learn about it and how did he respond? 

What has always seemed clear is that Mr. Obama never actually believed the now-discredited claim that the Trump campaign worked with Russia to rig the 2016 U.S. elections. . . . 

If Mr. Obama never bought into the collusion conspiracy theory, then the question is why he endorsed or allowed the use of federal surveillance tools against the party out of power—a direct threat to the democratic process that is at the heart of our country’s greatness. 

Mr. Obama might have room to deny any knowledge of the details of the surveillance abuses, given the story his FBI director told Congress—if anybody could believe that story. 

The absolute bare minimum that Mr. Obama owes this country is an explanation of the actions of his government in spying on a presidential campaign.