How long does a smoking gun have to smoke before someone picks it up?  With all the gorilla dust being tossed about by Democrats and the media, including some on Fox News, that there is no evidence that the Obama administration deliberately surveilled Team Trump, an Obama administration State Department official, who later worked for the Hillary Clinton campaign, admitted that was going on.

Dr. Evelyn Farkas, a non-resident fellow at the vehemently anti-Russia Atlantic Council and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia in the Obama administration.  According to Politico, she was the Pentagon's top Russia official, resigning in 2015.

With the exception of Sean Hannity, who talked at length Wednesday night about her incriminating March 2 interview with MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski, few have noted that she not only admitted that the Obama administration was conducting surveillance of Team Trump, but was feeding that information to "people on the Hill."

She spoke to MSNBC in an interview available on YouTube:

"I was urging my former colleagues, and frankly speaking the people on the Hill, it was more actually aimed at telling the Hill people, get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can, before President Obama leaves the administration," Farkas, who is now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said. (FoxNews March 29, 2017)

"Because I had a fear that somehow that information would disappear with the senior [Obama] people who left, so it would be hidden away in the bureaucracy … that the Trump folks – if they found out how we knew what we knew about their … the Trump staff dealing with Russians – that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we no longer have access to that intelligence."

If they found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff?  That is an admission that confirms President Trump's claims about Obama administration surveillance of Trump Tower.  Evelyn Farkas should be the first witness or at least the next witness in any congressional investigation.  Just how is a low-level Pentagon official privy to that information?  How loose were the intelligence agencies under Obama that information deliberately collected, not "incidentally" collected, were passed around like the sports section of the morning paper?  If the collection was incidental, why the concern about sources and methods?  How many "people on the Hill" were privy to Team Trump's private communications?

Farkas's admission was prompted by a question about a New York Times article, "Obama Administration Rushed To Preserve Intelligence On Russian Election Hacking."  After all, if that information included surveillance of the Trump transition team, it might prove politically useful.

After her stint in Obama's Pentagon, Farkas made an interesting career move:

Farkas would go on to serve as a foreign policy advisor to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, telling the New Yorker earlier this month that she thought Hillary Clinton "got it" when it came to issues regarding Russia.

What Hillary Clinton "got" included perhaps information from the surveillance of the Trump campaign.  It could have been the source of her campaign focus on linking the Trump campaign with Russia, ironically redirecting any eyes that may have been looking over her approval of a deal giving Russia control of 20 percent of our uranium supply.

It was not just Trump who was under Obama surveillance.  Farkas served an Obama administration that shamelessly spied on world leaders, starting with German chancellor Angela Merkel:

President Barack Obama knew of the organization's spying on German Chancellor Angela Merkel – and approved of the efforts, a National Security Agency official has reportedly told a German newspaper.

The Economic Times writes the "high-ranking" NSA official spoke to Bild am Sonntag on the condition of anonymity, saying the president, "not only did not stop the operation, but he also ordered it to continue."

The Economic Times also reports the official told Bild am Sonntag that Obama did not trust Merkel, wanted to know everything about her, and thus ordered the NSA to prepare a dossier on the politician.

Farkas does not like Donald Trump and has been writing pieces trashing his credibility and fitness for office while leading the chorus on Trump's alleged collusion with Russia.  She was a perfect fit for the Clinton campaign.  As Kenneth R. Timmerman observed in The Hill:

So she joined the Hillary Clinton campaign as an advisor, noting that Mrs. Clinton "got it" on Russia.

(Exactly why anyone thought Mrs. Clinton would get tough on Russia when she approved the sell-off of America's uranium deposits to Kremlin interests while Secretary of State, then sat back as the beneficiaries of those deals funnelled over $100 million into the Clinton Foundation coffers, continues to baffle me).

Ms. Farkas has appeared repeatedly in media outlets and op-ed pieces, peddling her bill of goods questioning whether Donald Trump has been "compromised" by Russia.

Last month, she called for an independent investigation into Trump administration ties to Russia in mid-February 2017, saying the core question was, "Are you susceptible to blackmail from a foreign entity or individual?" ...

Funny how MSNBC consistently introduces her as a Russia expert and former Pentagon official, but fails to mention that she was a Hillary Clinton campaign advisor.

She launched her Russia smear of Donald Trump in an April 2016 column in Politico, titled: "Trump and Putin: Two Liars Separated at Birth?" Once again, a left-wing media outlet failed to disclose her relationship to the Clinton campaign.

Evelyn Farkas could be the John Dean of the Obama surveillance scandal.  John Dean revealed the secrets of Watergate that helped topple Richard Nixon.  Farkas has inadvertently revealed the Obama administration's secret – that a sitting president was conducting surveillance of the team of his successor.  From Hillary's emails to pay-for-play at the Clinton Foundation to Obama's illegal surveillance, this was in fact the most corrupt administration in American history, more worthy of Venezuela than our great democracy.

Daniel John Sobieski is a freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investor's Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine, and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.