A simple act of cognitive dissonance...

So the big "Russia" story (if there truly is anything big about the Russia story anymore) is that the FBI had went to a FISA court to garner a warrant to wire-tap Paul Manafort. Moving past the debate as to whether or not this proves Trump's assertion that people within his campaign were being spied on... the argument being posed on the left is something like this one:

This news is a big deal primarily because of what it takes to obtain such a wiretap order. The warrant reportedly was issued under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. A FISA warrant requires investigators to demonstrate to the FISA court that there is probable cause to believe the target may be acting as an unlawful foreign agent.

Once again, we are being told that the actual "act" of being wiretapped or being investigated is a sign of obvious guilt. As pointed out previously, it's the classic begging  the question argument. Because we have an investigation, we can assume the underlying questions must be true.

The truth is that there are different instances of "probable cause" and that we should not confuse them. Generally you need "probable cause" to issue an arrest warrant and you would need "probable cause" to bring charges. If in fact, the Government had "probable cause" that Paul Manafort was acting as an unlawful foreign agent, then they would have issued an arrest warrant. Plain and simple.

What they were looking for (and received) was a warrant to put him under surveillance.  It would actually quite dishonest to make an argument that confuses the requirements of that, with the requirements of either being arrested or being charged. The warrant to search or set up surveillance requires only a reasonable suspicion of unlawful activity, not proof of it. The idea is that the warrant would provide the tangible evidence (that they currently do not have).

Now Paul Manafort certainly may be guilty of something. On one side we have reports that Mueller suggested that Manafort to him that he will be indicted (supposedly for criminal activity that predates the campaign). On the other side we have reports that certain people involved are "miffed" that a second warrant against Manafort may have been unjustly garnered by the use of the dubious "Trump dossier".

But the bottom line here folks.

Paul Manafort was under FICA surveillance for nearly two years before it ended due to a lack of anything substantial coming from it. That is proof positive that people can be placed under surveillance for "suspicion" of a crime, rather than evidence of a crime, and walk away without any charges. Moreover, it's proof positive that it actually happened once already to the person in question.

The fact that this simple fact is being "washed over" by the left is a simple case of cognitive dissonance likely fueled by wishful speculation.