"We asked a federal judge for permission to surveil" former Donald Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, but that's not "spying."

Before that (unmentioned in the op-ed), we infiltrated an informant into the campaign to gather information on its operations, but that's not "spying."

What a strange allergic reaction from Comey, and others associated with US intelligence and counterintelligence operations, to US Attorney General William Barr's simple statement before the US Senate: "Spying on a campaign is a big deal … I think spying did occur. The question is whether it was adequately predicated."

Comey insists that the spying was indeed "adequately predicated," and that for some reason this makes it not spying.

It was spying.