There was no spying, there was no spying, there was no spying, there was no spying...

Okay, there was spying, but we had good reason. Okay, we had reason. Sort of.

Anyone really remember why Watergate was such a huge scandal?
Because Nixon was using his power to spy on his political opponents!

But the professor was more than an academic interested in American politics — he was a longtime U.S. intelligence source. And, at some point in 2016, he began working as a secret informant for the FBI as it investigated Russia’s interference in the campaign, according to people familiar with his activities.

The role played by the source is now at the center of a battle that has pitted President Trump against his own Justice Department and fueled the president’s attacks on the special counsel’s investigation. In a Thursday tweet, he called the probe “a disgusting, illegal and unwarranted Witch Hunt.”

In recent days, Trump and his allies have escalated their claims that the FBI source improperly spied on the campaign.

“Reports are there was indeed at least one FBI representative implanted, for political purposes, into my campaign for president,” he tweeted Friday. “It took place very early on, and long before the phony Russia Hoax became a ‘hot’ Fake News story. If true — all time biggest political scandal!”  (link)

Here is the reality, whether anyone on the left "really" wants to admit it. There should be almost no reason what-so-ever where the administration in power actually plants/infiltrates intelligence sources into the opposition Presidential campaign. To the degree that this reason might exist, it should only be at the most extreme and obvious situations where it would literally be malfeasance on the part of the intelligence community to ignore. In the other 99.99% of the time, discretion is the better part of valor.

Controversial informant Stefan Halper previously
 accused of spying in the 1980 Presidential campaign.

Having the Intelligence community secretly monitor your political opponents are things we expect from Vladimir Putin and Russian authorities, or Richard Nixon. We certainly don't expect them from modern era American leadership (especially after Watergate). We certainly would not put up with the Trump intelligence community spying on his next political opponent. Why would we put up with this happening in 2016.

Let's also be clear here. The intelligence source in question made contact with the Trump campaign, not the other way around. This was not someone posing as a Russian agent, attempting to entrap them. This was a guy who was likely feeding Page and Papadopoulos with ten times more information (real or not) than they had themselves.

The "proof is in the pudding" and "put up or shut up" are sayings that come to mind here. If there was good reason to be spying on members of the Trump campaign, they better show that they got something very tangible for their efforts. Either Carter Page or George Papadopoulos better be actual Russian agents, rather than the effective nobodies that they appear to be. Because if they are the effective nobodies that they have always appeared be, then there was zero reason to be spying on them.