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Thespotlight is now onPresident Barack Obama and his administrations allegedsurveillance ofthe Trump campaign, as well as his aides reported efforts to spread damaging informationaboutTrump throughout government agencies to facilitate laterinvestigations and, possibly, leaks to the media.

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On Sunday morning, the White House released a statement indicating that the president would ask the congressional committees investigating Russian hacking theories to add the question of whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016.

Media outlets continued to repeat that the story wasbased on no evidence, though the evidence was plain.

President Donald Trump originallytweeted about the alleged surveillance which radio host Mark Levin called a silent coup by Obama staffers keen toundermine the new administration on Saturday. Levins claims, reported at Breitbart News early Friday, were in turn based on information largely frommainstream outlets, including theNew York Timesand theWashington Post. Heat Street was one non-mainstream source, but the BBC also reported similar information in January. So, too, did the UKGuardian, which is a mainstream source (albeit with a decidedly left-wing slant, hardlyfavorable to Trump).

All day Saturday, former Obama staffers tried to put out the fires. A spokesperson for President Obama responded and Obama aide Valerie Jarrett tweeted:

A cardinal rule of the Obama Administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice.As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor anyWhite House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen.Any suggestion otherwise is simply false.

As Breitbart News Matthew Boyle noted, however, it was a non-denial denial. It is worth examining the statement in detail.

Note that this sentencedoes not disputeany of the key factual allegationsat issue: that the DOJ approached the FISA court for permission to spy on Trump aides; that surveillance, once granted, continued after no evidence was found of wrongdoing; that the Obama administration relaxed National Security Agency rules to facilitate the dissemination of evidence through the government; and that Obama staffers allegedly did so, the better to leak damaging (and partial) information to the media.

In addition, there is reason to doubt the claim that the White House never interfered: theNew York Timesreported in January that intelligence reports based on some of the wiretapped communications had been provided to the White House.

Moreover, the first part of the sentence raises doubts about Lewiss entire statement. Lewis could simply have said: NoWhite House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the DOJ. That would have been a clear denial. Instead, hereferred toa cardinal rule that supposedly existed.

All that does is create deniability for the rest of the White House in the event that evidence turns up that someonewas, in fact, involvedwith a Department of Justice probe. (No doubt Obama will be outraged to find out if someone broke the cardinal rule, and will claim to havefoundout through the media, rather than directly.) The Obama communications operation is notoriouslycareful with the way denials are worded.

As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor anyWhite House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen.

This is a meaningless denial, since the FISA court deals with communications with foreigners, with U.S. citizens potentially swept up in the investigation. It would have beenpossible for the DOJ to approach the FISA court with a request to monitorforeignentities allegedly communicating with the Trump campaign, using those intercepts as a wayto monitor the Trump campaign itself. According to news reports cited by Andrew McCarthy, that couldhave been precisely what happened.

And, again, this sentence does not deny that someone in the Obama administration may have ordered such surveillance.

Any suggestion otherwise is simply false.

What we have here is a blanketdenial craftedto protect President Barack Obama himself,but allowing him to admit later once the facts emerge that his administration was, in fact, up to something. In addition,the Democrats have been adept at constructing elaboratechains of communication to create plausible deniability for higher-ups. That is how the bird-dogging scheme through which left-wing activists instigated violence at Donald Trumps rallies was arranged for the Clinton campaign. (The organizer behind that scheme visited Obamas White House 340times, meeting Obama himself 45 times.)

As theNew York Times supposedly the paper of record recently reported, there is no evidence that the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to influence the election. But there is ample evidence that the outgoing Obama administration could have used intelligence agencies to carry out a political agenda against Trump. The media, as Mark Levin pointed out again on SundaysFox and Friends, simply refuse to report their own earlier reports.

Even without Trumpsmore sensational accusationsof wiretapping, it is, so far, undisputedthat there have been manyleaks of classified information to damage Trump, and that the Obama administration took steps that couldhavemade such leaksmore likely. (Charles Krauthammer who is skeptical of deep state theories called this the Revenge of the Losers on Friday.)Those are serious allegations that the former administration is likely going to have to explain to Congress.

But if the Obama administration did order surveillance of the Trump campaign during the election; and if Obama or any other White House officials knew about it (or created a plausible deniability scheme to allow such surveillance while preventing themselves from knowing about it directly); thenthere is an even bigger problem.

It would then seem that the Russia hacking story was concocted not just to explain away an embarrassing election defeat, but to cover up the real scandal.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the most influential people in news media in 2016. His new book,How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

Formatting has been changed to improve clarity.

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DeepStateGate: Democrats' 'Russian Hacking' Conspiracy Theory Backfires - Breitbart News