FBI, NSA say Obama wiretapping is just another BIG LIE from President Trump

Cartoonist Adam Zyglis of The Buffalo News is referring to proposed Republican cuts to the Public Broadcasting System, left, and the endless stream of falsehoods and baseless nonsense from President Trump.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Trump administration is singing "Gloomy Monday" after FBI and NSA officials testified there is no evidence that Barack Obama wiretapped Donald J. Trump's campaign headquarters before the election.

In effect, intelligence officials liken President Trump's tweets to so much bird poop.

As the president's approval rating hits a new low, Page 1 of The Record runs down all the bad news for the Liar-In-Chief:

"The FBI and Justice Department do not believe Obama wiretapped Trump.

"The FBI is investigating whether Russia interrfered with the 2016 election.

"The FBI is also looking into links between the Trump campaign and Russia.

"The U.S. did not seek help from the British to conduct surveillance" (1A).

According to the The New York Times' opinion page today:

"He lies the way no American politician has lied before. The occasional untruths that other recent presidents have spoken — often unwittingly — do not compare with the frequency, intensity and deliberateness with which Donald Trump offers falsehoods.

"Monday brought the remarkable spectacle of the director of the F.B.I., James Comey, calling out the president of the United States for being untruthful. Even more remarkable, Comey acknowledged that the F.B.I. was investigating possible collusion between Trump’s presidential campaign and the Russian government."

Front page

The rest of The Record's front page is a waste.

Readers wonder why Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson is reporting for the umpteenth time that Sen. Bob Menendez "expects to be vindicated of corruption charges when he goes on trial in September" (1A).

After all, Jackson has no independent knowledge of the evidence against the senior New Jersey senator; he's just parroting a defense attorney who is paid hundreds of dollars a hour to say just that, as long as he can fool gullible reporters like Jackson to quote him.

Menendez, a Democrat, was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges he took $1 million in bribes in return for using his office to benefit his long-time friend, Florida eye specialist Salomon Melgen.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Menendez's bid to overturn the indictment.

Melgen is on trial in a Florida federal court for allegedly bilking Medicare out of as much as $105 million.

Dog of a story

I'm for keeping animal stories off of Page 1, such as today's piece on Rocco, a dog that calms seniors with dementia.

Human news is far more important.

Today's story is by Jay Levin, the local obituary writer who is one of the 141 North Jersey Media Group employees Gannett is laying off this week.

Levin also was assigned to an "aging beat."

On Monday, most of The Record's front page was taken up by two large photos of a Teaneck father and his son, who were both ordained as rabbis.

But that was just a teaser for the actual story and a third photo, which appeared on the Local news front.

Many readers are wondering whether the Reinsteins got so much attention and space, because Gannett editors were desperate to fill huge holes in their news pages as more and more newsroom employees are let go.