What else was happening in 2011? Well, how about the election campaign of 2012? Was it possible the Obama administration spied on Romney in 2011-2012 and used the same proven techniques against Trump?
The Obama administration secretly won permission from a surveillance court in 2011 to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency’s use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails, permitting the agency to search deliberately for Americans’ communications in its massive databases, according to interviews with government officials and recently declassified material.