Trump's obsession with secret surveillance backfires

Donald Trump's obsession with the unfounded idea he was being wiretapped by former President Barack Obama, and his concern about rumours he was secretly videotaped by the Russians, now feed strangely into the development that he was secretly recorded by his lawyer and at least one aide. And, notes a CNN analysis, perhaps more incredible than the idea that heads of state would try to spy on each other is that the Trump era is indisputably a time in which a fix-it man dispatched to deal with alleged illicit affairs and a political staffer, both armed with iPhones, hit record while talking to their boss, who now happens to be the US President. ‘No wonder Trump wanted to be alone with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He'd actually have a legitimate concern his own staff might be surreptitiously recording him. Transcripts of his phone calls with other world leaders once leaked to the press and showed him admitting that Mexico would not pay for a border wall, despite what he said in public. One of the more persistent paranoias Trump has put forth repeatedly on Twitter is that his phone calls were secretly recorded by Obama. There's never been any evidence for that charge, although it's clear the FBI had ears on his campaign chairperson for unrelated extracurricular activities with foreign governments.