May 17, 2019

"It now seems the General Flynn was under investigation long before was common knowledge. It would have been impossible for me to know this but..."

"... if that was the case, and with me being one of two people who would become president, why was I not told so that I could make a change?"

Tweeted Trump this morning.

Earlier this morning, in a less sober tone:
My Campaign for President was conclusively spied on. Nothing like this has ever happened in American Politics. A really bad situation. TREASON means long jail sentences, and this was TREASON!

147 comments:

Dave Begley said...

Trump wasn't told about Flynn so that the Deep State could use Flynn as a tool to get dirt on Trump. That was the plan the whole time. And Brennan and Obama hated Flynn.

Michael K said...

The Russia Hoax was originally aimed at Flynn, not Trump.

Ice Nine said...

Trump needs to shut up now and just let the forces that are obviously at work and in high gear, play out. It's prejudicial comments like that from a POTUS that can screw up good cases.

Achilles said...

Long jail sentences?

No.

Traitors hang.

eric said...

I heard from my liberal friends over a year ago that this was worse than Watergate.

Turns out, they may be right.

Robert Cook said...

"Nothing like this has ever happened in American Politics."

Is he kidding? I'd say this is probably SOP.

Nonapod said...

To be fair, Obama warned Trump not to hire Flynn. He didn't say Flynn was being "investigated" though.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

One dares call it treason...

Bay Area Guy said...

Trump needs to shut up now and just let the forces that are obviously at work and in high gear, play out.

I kinda agree with this.

His tweeting "NO COLLUSION, NO OBSTRUCTION" during the Mueller investigation was risky, but turned out great.

Now that it's over, and he has a stellar AG -- doing the necessary work -- he probably should shut the fuck up. I say that with respect for my Commander In Chief:)

Achilles said...

Ice Nine said...
Trump needs to shut up now and just let the forces that are obviously at work and in high gear, play out. It's prejudicial comments like that from a POTUS that can screw up good cases.

Yeah.

Trump should behave just like the democrats and cuck wing republicans do and shut up. His enemies are so reserved and honest. They have been proving that for 3 years in the press with the Russia hoax.

Or maybe he should respond to the traitors and attack them where they attack him?

Is this Chuck?

Browndog said...

No, Trump shouldn't shut the fuck up.

About anything. For any reason.

Robert Cook said...

I'm curious what the "treason" is. Does this mean all political skullduggery is treason? If so, our history (and present day) is populated with traitors beyond counting.

Kevin said...

Now that we've gotten clear on the foreign influence into our elections, we can begin looking into the domestic interference.

That's what the Republicans should be calling it.

Not just spying, but domestic interference into our elections.

And we should be just as concerned about preventing it in the future.

Hari said...

"Trump needs to shut up now and just let the forces that are obviously at work and in high gear, play out. It's prejudicial comments like that from a POTUS that can screw up good cases."

Trump doesn't really care about whether or how long people go to jail. He cares about exposing what he believes has happened. More specifically, he cares about offsetting the press's lack of reporting on this.

eric said...

Bay Area Guy said...
Trump needs to shut up now and just let the forces that are obviously at work and in high gear, play out.

I kinda agree with this.


I disagree.

I'm tired of the pussy footing around.

Reminds me of the Republicans who are always retreating and abandoning allies by saying, "I agree with what he said, but disagree with how he said it."

Ugh.

Yancey Ward said...

Ice Nine, if I thought there was any real chance of any of these people getting arrested and convicted, I would agree with you, but I don't think this.

In the end, I think the best that will happen is that it all gets exposed publicly, and for that to happen, Trump needs to use the bullhorn relentlessly. If he doesn't, the media will bury it under layers and layers of bullshit.

J. Farmer said...

Try as I might, I can't seem to muster much energy to care about this. Similarly, I paid next to no attention to the Mueller investigation and to this day know very little about it. I just assumed the Russian collusion was b.s. and waited for something to change my mind. As yet, nothing has emerged. Similarly, I assume our system is corrupt to the core and run on subterfuge and graft.

Michael K said...

Trump needs to use the bullhorn relentlessly. If he doesn't, the media will bury it under layers and layers of bullshit.

Good point.

Nonapod said...

Does this mean all political skullduggery is treason? If so, our history (and present day) is populated with traitors beyond counting.

Well, using the US intelligence apparatus to investigate a political opponent (and then president) under some flimsy pretense (a spurious dossier) in such a blantant way probably hasn't exactly happened before. I can't say with absolute certainty that a sitting president hasn't ever misused the Federal intelligence apparatus against a political enemy.

hombre said...

Blogger Robert Cook said...
‘"Nothing like this has ever happened in American Politics."

Is he kidding? I'd say this is probably SOP.’

How does an attempt by high ranking federal law enforcement and intelligence officers to frame the President of the United States fit anyone’s definition of “SOP?

M Jordan said...

Trump has upped the rhetoric. For the first time I’m starting to think maybe, just maybe, we’ll see some justice. And even a looming possibility: John Brennan in prison. Dreams can come true, little grasshopper.

tim maguire said...

Robert Cook said...
I'm curious what the "treason" is. Does this mean all political skullduggery is treason?


I don't think you can make this fit the constitutional definition of treason, but it fits the common meaning. This was more than mere skullduggery, this was an attempted coup, a conspiracy to overturn the results of an election. And done for the basest of reasons--they personally didn't like who won.

LA_Bob said...

Largely agree with J. Farmer. It's like getting outraged over the weather.

Christy said...

What's the conventional wisdom in D.C? "The cover-up is worse than the crime!" Trump has just initiated a mad scramble to hide evidence. Who will be caught in the act?

Paul Zrimsek said...

"THE General Flynn"? Did the Duke boys rename their car, or what?

Yancey Ward said...

Robert, this was, at the very core, a coup attempt. There is literally no way the people instigating this really believed that Trump was a Russian stooge. They only pretended to believe this because it served their purpose of keeping Trump from winning, and removing him once he did win the presidency. If the military had tried this, no one would have trouble understanding it as treason.

iowan2 said...

"Trump needs to shut up now and just let the forces that are obviously at work and in high gear, play out. It's prejudicial comments like that from a POTUS that can screw up good cases."dd

Obama spouted off all the time. Treyvon Martin, The Cambridge police that acted stupidly. Those are two cases that are outside federal jurisdiction. He chimed in on a military proceeding, and him, the CiC. When Obama does it, its great leadership. Sounds like the criticism of President Trump is racism.

Early on, candidate Trump tweeted his offices in NYC were tapped. He was right. If he would have kept his mouth shut, who knows what would have happened.

Experts in politics have been telling President Trump to shut down his twitter feed, and shut up about everything, since he descended his escalator in 2015. They have been wrong all along. Now you chime in, ignoring 4 years of history, and get it wrong.

Agreed, a politician should be leaking his opinions through a host of varying sources. President Trump, being the most transparent President since the advent of radio, at least, does his own wet work...because he is not a politician. Something voters have claimed they have wanted since as long as I can remember.

Yancey Ward said...

And let's suppose it is SOP- how best to correct this?

Fen said...

Cook: Welllll our coup attempt failed. But everyone has tried that, lets just MoveOn..

Left Bank of the Charles said...

Trump has supersized collusion as used by the Democrats to treason. It means the same thing, which is to say it means nothing.

Bay Area Guy said...

I say:

"Trump needs to shut up now and just let the forces that are obviously at work and in high gear, play out.

I kinda agree with this."

@eric says:

I disagree.

I'm tired of the pussy footing around.

Reminds me of the Republicans who are always retreating and abandoning allies by saying, "I agree with what he said, but disagree with how he said it."

Ugh.


I rebut. I think you are confusing "means" and "ends." Trump's twitter has, generally, been outstanding. But that doesn't mean it's outstanding in every circumstance.

The primary objective is to get Trump re-elected in 2020 (the end). The question is whether loud tweets about TREASON help achieve this end.

I say they don't. I say bask quietly in the victory against Mueller, focus on the wall and economy, and let AG Barr hammer Brennan, Comey, McCabe and Strzok thru grand jury indictments.

Of course, as always, I could be wrong.

wendybar said...

Once again, Trump isn't wrong...and NO he shouldn't shut up. If he wasn't tweeting, would the MSM ever report any truth?? He forces the other side to be the jack wagons they are. I say keep on tweeting!!!

Ice Nine said...

>>Yeah.Trump should behave just like the democrats and cuck wing republicans do and shut up. His enemies are so reserved and honest. They have been proving that for 3 years in the press with the Russia hoax. Or maybe he should respond to the traitors and attack them where they attack him?
Is this Chuck?

A rather primitive reply. My point was a little more discriminating than that, sorry.
I'm a major Trump fan from the get-go who loves his tweets and his aggressively taking it to the scum who perpetually attack him. I simply think saying what he said in this particular tweet does not serve well the cause of retribution against said scum.

tim maguire said...

Bob said...
Largely agree with J. Farmer. It's like getting outraged over the weather.


The innocent people threatened with jail, with financial ruin, with having their lives reduced to chaos disagree.

Michael K said...

I assume our system is corrupt to the core and run on subterfuge and graft.

I agree but Trump is on the order of Charles Grey, who got the 1832 Reform Act passed into law

His term was a notable one, seeing passage of the Reform Act 1832, which finally saw the reform of the House of Commons, and the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire in 1833. As the years had passed, however, Grey had become more conservative, and he was cautious about initiating more far-reaching reforms, particularly since he knew that the King was at best only a reluctant supporter of reform.

He sounds a little like Trump but his reform lasted.

Grey was the ancestor of Sir Edward Grey, who said ""The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time."

bagoh20 said...

I think Trump needs to tweet more. It gets unequalled attention, and that powerful voice is what is needed. The media is trying all they can to misinform with distractions and lies. Trump is a one-man media source that has the inside info, the correct interests in mind, and no TDS. Fox and Trump are all we have fighting the whole media/political cabal that lied to the nation for 3 years now. If the country had listened more to Trump's tweets instead of all the networks, newspapers, talk shows, magazines and comedians, we all would have known the truth instead of acting like a 300,000,000 patient mental hospital.

Fen said...

"Trump needs to shut up now and just let the forces that are obviously at work and in high gear, play out. It's prejudicial comments like that from a POTUS that can screw up good cases."

Hey, sorry you are getting beat up a bit, I understand how you meant it and was thinking the same thing. Unfortunately we're at a stage where anything that reminds us of surrender is considered surrender.

My disagreement is that before Trump should start erring on the side of caution, I would like him to make aggressive mistakes.

To me, the Republicans are reminding me they are the basketball team that loses by 3 points and has not a single foul between them.



Curious George said...

"Is he kidding? I'd say this is probably SOP."

Really. Give us a few examples.

Dave Begley said...

When these Deep State actors start get indicted and rat each other out things will get really interesting.

Will CNN, MSNBC, NYT and WaPo even report the stories?

MeatPopscicle1234 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Francisco D said...

I just assumed the Russian collusion was b.s. and waited for something to change my mind. As yet, nothing has emerged. Similarly, I assume our system is corrupt to the core and run on subterfuge and graft.

What offends me is the obviousness of the subterfuge. The Kavanaugh hearing is another example of the Dems and the Media treating Americans like fools, which many are.

rehajm said...

On first thought it doesn’t seem to fit a traditional meaning of treason but the more I think about it and can’t figure out how it’s fundamentally different...

MeatPopscicle1234 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mike Sylwester said...

On January 6, 2017, the Federal Government published a document titled Background to “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections”: The Analytic Process and Cyber Incident Attribution in order to prove to the public that Russia had meddled in our 2016 Presidential election. This preposterous document did not prove anything along those lines.

The document's text is 13 pages (pages numbered 1 to 13). More than eight of those 13 pages are about Russia's RT television channel, which broadcasts in the USA and other countries. Apparently, Russia's RT company was a major villain in the US Intelligence Community'yarn about Russian meddling in our election.

On December 10, 2015, Michael Flynn (an adviser to Donald Trump's election campaign) and Jill Stein (the Green Party's candidate) attended a dinner celebrating RT in Moscow. Apparently, their attendance there implicated them -- according to the US Intelligence Community -- in the Kremlin's plot to prevent Hillary Clinton from winning our 2016 Presidential election.

Perhaps the Kremlin used RT to secretly provide contacts and money to Trump's campaign and to Stein's campaign. I think that FISA investigations were initiated against both Flynn and Stein after they attended that RT dinner in Moscow on December 10, 2015.

In addition to attending the RT dinner in Moscow, Flynn was involved personally with a Russian woman -- an emigrant from Russia to England, where she worked as a researcher. I think that that involvement also was used to justify the FISA investigation of Flynn.

Bay Area Guy said...

If I were getting paid really, really big dollars to offer my political advice to Trump, I'd say this:

1. Nadler's stupid little House Committee has shot its wad. They won't impeach. they won't follow up with Barr, they probably won't even get Mueller to testify.

2. The IG Report is the next big shoe to drop. It's gonna give good ammo to AG Barr and USA Durham to pursue Brennan and Comey.

Until the IG Report drops, say nothing. You've already beaten the Get Trump Squad. They failed. Let Barr/Durham finish them off.

That will be $100,000, please.

MeatPopscicle1234 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
iowan2 said...

Trump is a one-man media source that has the inside info

This is a huge point that never gets talked about. The President of the United States has access to all this information un-redacted. He was never under investigation, or he was, it just depends which un-defendable position they are trying to defend at any given time.
President Trump is not flying blind. He has what Barr has. How do you suppose candidate Trump know Trump Tower phones were tapped? Survailed, spied on, what ever? Just a wild accusation? No, Admiral Rodgers told him. President Trump is getting intell. My guess he has found several low level civil servants that are helping, along with demanding findings from his cabinet heads.

dreams said...

"When these Deep State actors start get indicted and rat each other out things will get really interesting.

Will CNN, MSNBC, NYT and WaPo even report the stories?"

I'd like to see Michael Isikoff and David Corn go to prison along with some other media crooks though I know it won't happen.

Narr said...

I have never cared for Trump. My distaste is regional and classist I suppose. He always struck me, from the first time I became aware of him and his works (in the mid-80s when I visited Manhattan fairly often) as what a polite Southerner like myself could view as a New Yawk type: a boorish know-it-all, a rich playboy lout. And those were his good features.

I've cheerfully "thrown away my vote" (voted Libertarian or other outlier) for most of my adult life and did not vote for Trump in 2016, but as bad as he might be the Deep State hijinks--which I suspected from the getgo--are much worse. Assuming we're all here in a few years or decades, this is epochal.

Narr
I ALWAYS assume the organs of state security are actively interested in everything I do

Ice Nine said...

Blogger Fen said...
"Trump needs to shut up now and just let the forces that are obviously at work and in high gear, play out. It's prejudicial comments like that from a POTUS that can screw up good cases."
Hey, sorry you are getting beat up a bit, I understand how you meant it and was thinking the same thing.

Bless you, Fen. LOL - Were that that were close to the worst beating I had ever taken. Didn't think I would have to explain that Trump should not complicate legal action that is going his way. I otherwise want him to keep blasting these Demscum every chance he gets, of course.

Bill Peschel said...

From my wide reading on American history, I can't think of anything similar to a sitting president using the intelligence-gathering and law enforcement wings of the government to attempt to oust an incoming president.

During the Teapot Dome scandal, the owner of the Washington Post got a man inside the Bureau of Investigation to keep an eye on the investigation of the interior secretary. He even installed a telegraph line to his home so he could receive coded messages from his spy.

In fact, revelations about this forced the then-head of the BI out of office, opening the door for a new guy to come in and reform the place. That guy was J. Edgar Hoover.

Achilles said...

Bay Area Guy said...

I say they don't. I say bask quietly in the victory against Mueller, focus on the wall and economy, and let AG Barr hammer Brennan, Comey, McCabe and Strzok thru grand jury indictments.

If the public is outraged and in the streets demanding justice they will be tried for treason.

If the public is apathetic and docile there will be some administrative actions.

You people seem to think that there is some sort of inertia towards justice and freedom. This is wrong.

If good people do nothing evil people win.

These people will not be brought to justice through the normal wheels of the justice system. DC is infested with corruption. Justice will only be done if republican voters get off their fucking asses and demand it.

iowan2 said...

Barrs interview with Hammer at FOX, Barr admits before he took the job he asked lots of questions about the Mueller investigation, and its predicates. He was upset he got few answers, and some contradictions. He knew when he accepted, before he was announced that the left would set out to discredit him. Before he did his first offical acts, he knew he would be the target, drawing fire.

Barr knew the investigation and predicate was all fabricated. He took the job to clean up the DoJ, and the Intell operations.
Barr took the job to take out the trash. To clean up an organization that he loves.

Achilles said...

tim maguire said...

I don't think you can make this fit the constitutional definition of treason, but it fits the common meaning. This was more than mere skullduggery, this was an attempted coup, a conspiracy to overturn the results of an election. And done for the basest of reasons--they personally didn't like who won.

Is Michael Steele a foreign agent? Is Alexander Downing a foreign agent? Is Misfud a foreign agent?

Italy fires top intelligence officials in multiple agencies over spying on Trump

Section 3.
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.


Hillary gave millions of dollars to Steele. I would consider that aid and comfort. They all conspired to illegally spy on and oust our lawfully elected president.

This is all definition of stuff.

Freder Frederson said...

Trump apparently doesn't even know what treason is. What he is accusing people of is sedition. What a moron.

Achilles said...

Freder Frederson said...
Trump apparently doesn't even know what treason is. What he is accusing people of is sedition. What a moron.

Sedition should be included in the charges.

narayanan said...

It's like getting outraged over the weather.

= ?It's like getting outraged over climate catastrophe?

Bay Area Guy said...

@Achilles sez:

If the public is outraged and in the streets demanding justice they will be tried for treason.

If the public is apathetic and docile there will be some administrative actions.


But there is a good, happy, healthy, honorable place between these two positions:

If AG Barr/Durham do their job, and indict -- based on the evidence -- these Deep Staters, there will be justice, and the public will be satisfied.

Comey, Yates, McCabe and Strzok have all been fired. That's a good step in the right direction. AG Sessions was inept and ineffectual. True. But Barr is the real deal -- proven by declining the bogus obstruction charge, and taking the "Contempt" citation in stride.

I say, give Barr a little leeway to take the next step with Brennan et al.

buwaya said...

The outcomes of any cases are less important than the political messages.
What happens to any individual matters only within the political context.

It’s like worrying overmuch about killing a particular enemy infantryman in a global war.

Or one ant, while destroying their nest.

narayanan said...

Treason against the United States, shall consist ... or in adhering to their enemies.

!? doesn't this means a declared state of war exists ?!

robother said...

FBI uncovered an actual Chinese spy on Diane Feinstein's staff. She was immediately briefed and took steps to insulate herself from any betrayal of US secrets. Contrast the Comey/Clapper/Brennan approach, keeping Trump in the dark to set up the last 2 years of Russia Collusion investigation (AKA the "insurance Policy").

Robert Cook said...

"Well, using the US intelligence apparatus to investigate a political opponent (and then president) under some flimsy pretense (a spurious dossier) in such a blatant way probably hasn't exactly happened before."

How do you know?

deepelemblues said...

LBJ spied on the goldwater campaign through the good offices of the CIA and FBI. Four years later, he used them again to spy on both the Humphrey and Nixon campaigns.

Bay Area Guy said...

Lost in Barr's history. He started in the CIA.

“I started off in Washington at the Central Intelligence Agency and went to law school at night while I was working at CIA,” recalled William Barr in a 2001 oral history for the University of Virginia.

Trump’s nominee to be attorney general has what Trump might call “deep state” credentials. Barr came to Langley in 1973. He was a 23-year-old graduate of Columbia with a master’s in political science and Chinese studies. His resume shows he toiled at the CIA by day and attended George Washington University law school at night. The Watergate scandal was ravaging the agency’s reputation and destroying the presidency of Richard Nixon.

A close examination of Barr’s legal career indicates a high tolerance for presidentially sanctioned law-breaking.

Barr spent four formative years in the Intelligence Directorate and the Office of Legislative Counsel. He even made the acquaintance of CIA director George H.W. Bush. In 1977 Barr moved on to a prestigious clerkship for a federal judge and then a series of jobs in private practice and the Justice Department. In 1991, Bush, now president, appointed Barr to be attorney general.

Robert Cook said...

"How does an attempt by high ranking federal law enforcement and intelligence officers to frame the President of the United States fit anyone’s definition of 'SOP?'"

How was anyone trying to frame the President? They were trying to find a basis to investigate whether the President was connected to an obviously phony claim of "Russian collusion." They didn't find anything.

Dave Begley said...

So, it could be argued that Barr is getting payback on Brennan for politicizing the CIA.

My prediction? Brennan will be in Cuba or Iran within a year living the dream.

Robert Cook said...

"Look at all the lefty Trump-haters suddenly feign disinterest and boredom now that the Sword of Damocles is starting to swing in their direction... No big deal... Nothing to see here... Happens all the time... Just standard operating procedure..."


J. Farmer is neither a "lefty" nor a "Trump hater." He voted for Trump and still, I believe, supports him.

gilbar said...

BAG said...
Now that it's over, and he has a stellar AG -- doing the necessary work -

Imagine, just for fun, that when Trump told Sessions, that he wanted him for AG, that Jeff had said:
"I'd have to recuse myself"
and that then Trump had said: "Okay, thanx anyway"
And hired Barr instead????

Not only wouldn't we have had all this crap; we'd have had ANOTHER Republican Senator
Jeff Sessions REALLY screwed the pooch

Robert Cook said...

"Justice is gonna swing like a mother-fucking hammer, and its gonna be brutal....

I doubt it.

John henry said...

I think you might be able to call it treason but agree that it's a stretch.

It does clearly seem to be sedition, though.

18 USC Ch. 115: TREASON, SEDITION, AND SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES


§2384. Seditious conspiracy

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

John Henry

Yancey Ward said...

Freder is correct in one thing- it is sedition, too. Freder is wrong though, on the other point- it was attempted treason, it has failed....so far.

bleh said...

Does anyone really doubt that J. Edgar Hoover routinely used federal resources and man-hours to compile "dossiers" on prominent politicians in both parties who aspired to the presidency? I'm not saying in any way that minimizes what high-level Obama administration officials, including Comey, might have done to "get" Donald Trump. I'm just saying it's not without precedent.

No one exemplified or proved the idea of a "deep state" more than Hoover. He's the reason why we must remain ever vigilant about supervising our law enforcement and national security agencies, which have their own interests and desired policies. The temptation for them is to use their immense powers to get their way and, if necessary, to overrule the preferences of the voters.

Robert Cook said...

"In fact, revelations about this forced the then-head of the BI out of office, opening the door for a new guy to come in and reform the place. That guy was J. Edgar Hoover."

Yeah, talk about a slimy shit.

Yancey Ward said...

And if foreign agents were employed in the attempt, it even fits the definition of treason as defined by the law itself, and not just the common definition of the word.

Robert Cook said...

"So, it could be argued that Barr is getting payback on Brennan for politicizing the CIA."

The CIA has always been political! Never not!

bleh said...

I'm sure Comey, Brennan et al thought they were doing the patriotic thing. So "treason" isn't the right word for it. Of course the "patriotic thing" also just happened to be how they would neuter a duly-elected president and thereby protect their and their agencies' influence over federal policy. It's not so much treason as abject disrespect for elections and political accountability.

Robert Cook said...

"My prediction? Brennan will be in Cuba or Iran within a year living the dream."

Please. My prediction is he will be enjoying retirement here in the U.S.

Henry said...

Look at all the lefty Trump-haters suddenly feign disinterest and boredom now that the Sword of Damocles is starting to swing in their direction

The sword of Damocles doesn't swing.

Browndog said...

The Italian prime minister has suddenly requested resignations from 6 deputy directors of Italian intelligence agencies: DIS, AISI and AISE. This was all after I outed Mifsud in Rome and the president called the Italian prime minister. Italy has flipped and are giving up Brennan.

-George Papadopoulos

Michael K said...

What a moron.

Self identification is always the best.

Using foreign intelligence assets for the purpose of invalidating an American election could easily be called treason.

Cookie is right about one thing. The FBI has been surveilling the president for decades. That's how Felt got Nixon.

Mike Sylwester said...

The FBI's Crossfire Hurricane investigation of Trump's campaign staff was classified as an enterprise counter-intelligence investigation. The so-called "enterprise" working for Russian Intelligence comprised four campaign officials:

* Michael Flynn

* Paul Manafort

* Carter Page

* George Papadopoulos

Papadopoulos was the odd member of this "enterprise", because he lacked the professional relationships to Russia that the other three men had. Papadopoulos was an expert in petroleum issues of the Eastern Mediterranean. In particular, he was advocating that oil pipelines from the Eastern Mediterranean to Europe be routed around -- not through -- Turkey.

I think that Papadopoulos joined Ben Carson's campaign staff and then Donald Trump's campaign staff primarily in order to advocate his opposition to pipelines through Turkey. Essentially, Papadopoulos advocated a weakening of the USA's relationship with Turkey.

I think further that Papadopoulos liked Trump's apparent positions that 1) NATO should be reformed and that 2) the USA should adopt harsher policies toward Muslims. In other words, NATO perhaps should expel Turkey from NATO.

------

Like Papadopoulos, Flynn was involved significantly in issues related to Turkey. However, Papadopoulos advocated anti-Turkey policies, whereas Flynn advocated pro-Turkey policies.

Since Flynn supposedly was a secret agent of Russian Intelligence, perhaps Flynn's pro-Turkey activities were deceptive. Perhaps Flynn too secretly was working -- like Papadopoulos -- to convince Trump to expel Turkey from NATO -- for the Kremlin's benefit.

-----

I think that the US Intelligence Community's FISA investigations of Flynn and Papadopoulos included such a concern about Turkey's role in NATO. Those two advisers to Trump supposedly were working for Russian Intelligence to expel Turkey from NATO.

-----

I think further that Papadopoulos went to talk with Joseph Mifsud because of the pipeline issue. Papadopoulos advocated a routing of the pipelines -- not through Turkey -- through Mediterranean islands. As Malta's most prominent diplomat, Mifsud advocated pro-island policies. Papadopoulos hoped that Mifsud would help him to advocate island routes for the pipelines. Rather than help Papadopoulos, however, Mifsud fed him a yarn about Russia having thousands of Hillary Clinton's e-mails.

Mifsud's yarn was intended to link Papadopoulos to Russian Intelligence in order to justify a FISA investigation of Papadopoulos.

Michael K said...

Papadopolis' book makes quite a bit about the furious reaction he got to his suggestions that Turkey not be included in the route of the pipeline. He was also lured to a meeting with an alleged Israeli agent who was obviously working with the FBI to entrap Papadopolis. That was the guy who gave him $10,000 in cash as a "retainer." Papadopolis was wise enough to give the ten grand to a lawyer in Cyprus. It was an obvious setup because the FBI grabbed him in the airport even before Customs.

The FBI was pissed that he did not have the planted 10 grand on him.

Dave said...

"It's treason then".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3oSAVwcD4U

Someone please, please, put Trump's face on Palpatine. :)

Where is Trooper York?

Michael McNeil said...

How was anyone trying to frame the President? They were trying to find a basis to investigate whether the President was connected to an obviously phony claim of "Russian collusion." They didn't find anything.

They knew from the beginning there was no “Russian collusion.” That was totally a fake charge made it to first obtain the FISA warrant and then the push the momentum of the “investigation” — hoping to turn up something — anything — else that could displace the President. It was totally a frame-up.

rhhardin said...

It's sedition by an official of the government, which is treason of a sort.

Bruce Hayden said...

“President Trump is not flying blind. He has what Barr has. How do you suppose candidate Trump know Trump Tower phones were tapped? Survailed, spied on, what ever? Just a wild accusation? No, Admiral Rodgers told him. President Trump is getting intell. My guess he has found several low level civil servants that are helping, along with demanding findings from his cabinet heads.”

I don’t think that it is low level civil servants, but rather more likely military intelligence (MI). There have been claims that they were the ones who convinced Trump to run. The corruption is mostly in the civilian side (CI) of the Intelligence Community (IC), in particular the DNI, CIA, FBI Counterintelligence Division, the DoJ Counterintelligence Branch, and probably the Obama National Security Advisor. Plus their bosses up the chain in the case of the DoJ and FBI.

One reason that this makes some sense, that this is a fight between MI as the white hats, and CI as the black hats, is the timing of information that has been made available to Trump and his Administration. For example, Gen Flynn becomes Trump’s NSA, and FBI DDir McCabe almost immediately dispatches Strzok and another agent over to meet with him, under false pretenses, in order to take him out in a perjury trap. They lied to him, in order to get him booted as NSA for lying to them. Let me repeat that - the FBI took out Trump’s National Security Advisor in a perjury trap that they had constructed just for him, and used the exact thing (lying) that they claimed he had done to make it work. Why Flynn? A number of reasons, including taking the side of a woman claiming sexual harassment by McCabe. But also, because he was MI’s golden boy, turning the Iraq war around with his approach to intelligence. He went into the WH with ideas that probably would have shaken up the IC, and CI wasn’t going to allow that to happen. What happens almost immediately after Flynn is charged by Mueller? Strzok is taken out and booted from the Mueller investigation by disclosure of his incriminating text messages with Lisa Page. He hangs on at the FBI in a much diminished capacity (very likely so that IG Horowitz can drain him dry), and is then fired.

Another thing - what happened to the NSA after CI and the Obama Administration misused their FISA 702 access to search NSA databases for political purposes? The agency has now apparently been moved fully into the DoD, which means under full MI control.

JackWayne said...

Trump should keep playing by Alinsky Rules. This is the one where you freeze and isolate the target.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Mike S wrote: In addition to attending the RT dinner in Moscow, Flynn was involved personally with a Russian woman

This is #fakenews and part of the plot against Flynn. They were seated together at the dinner specifically so photos could be leaked and that story about an affair concocted. They didn’t know each other and the lady recently wrote a column revealing how she’d been duped into participation and only realized later what was done to Flynn. Echoes of the “Azra Turk” operative who flirted with Papadopoulos in England. How many honeypot missions were run at Trump semi-associates?

Ray - SoCal said...

Trump is moving the Overton Window again, and increasing the pressure on the deep state actors.

Either they support his efforts, or they are backing treason.

And I don't think Trump would use the word treason, unless he believes there is strong evidence that will come out. He has moved the conversation from oh, mistakes happened,to a much more serious one.

Sedition was not used, because it's not a well known word. Treason has more of an emotional meaning.

Foreign Actors in Spygate:

1. English
2. Australian
3. Turkish
4. Israeli
5. Russian
6. Ukrainian
7. Italy

I wonder what other countries were involved?

The Italian firing of the Intelligence Deputies is huge. Supposedly after a call from Trump.

Just think what would happen if Mifsud appeared in the US. It seems the Italian intelligence agencies were hiding him.

Seeing Red said...

Reading about Barr and #41above and did u notice how quiet the Bushies are all of a sudden? Mittens seems to be their sock puppet. Or the GOPE’s sock puppet.

Seeing Red said...

Turkish -it’s the olde world dawning there.

Ray - SoCal said...

Agree!!! That explains why he used the word Treason. Funny Trump using it, TDS Types have been using it against Trump for a while - Karma!

>JackWayne said...
>
> Trump should keep playing by Alinsky Rules. This is the one where you freeze an >isolate the target.

n.n said...

Trump is sustaining a momentum to counter the works of the domestic and foreign "deep state", popular culture, and much of the mainstream and "independent" press.

Gospace said...

Freder Frederson said...
Trump apparently doesn't even know what treason is. What he is accusing people of is sedition. What a moron.


T.C. Mits understands the common meaning meaning of treason, which is not even close to the U.S. legal definition defined in the Constitution.

OTOH, I'm aware of the word "sedition", and can't clearly define it in any manner- and even for the purposes of this discussion, I'm not going to look it up. Sedition is not a word in everyday use, and not a word that most people use. Most people, in common everyday word use- will use treason to mean many things that don't fit the Constitutional definition.

I also know this about the Constitutional definition of treason- it's far, far, far more restrictive than the legal meaning of treason in any other nation in the world. In many other nations- people would already be hanging.

Dave said...

n.n. I mentioned you today. Off topic, but we went to the doctor near a PP office and they had their sales staff out on the road trying to buy product. Don't respond...I will catch you on the appropriate thread. No need to go off topic. Have a good weekend.

Seeing Red said...

The frogs loathe US. They have to have had a hand.

Hold on.

There might be an outside chance to tie in China at least thru the Ozzies.

Either the FrankenKrauts kept their hands off or they didn’t.

Trump just might be able to cut Olde Europe off at the knees.

They chose the form of their destructor.

Let’s see if Prime Minister Zoolander kept out of the fray. We have problems on our Northern Border too.

I wonder if that’s a coincidence?

Seeing Red said...

I don’t think they’ll be able to save Biden with this.

Bruce Hayden said...

Let me add that I don’t think that Military Intelligence always wear the white hats, and Civiian Intelligence the black hats, but since the fall of the USSR, CI has seemingly failed far more than MI. The FBI, partially due to DoJ mismanagement, along with the CIA, totally screwed up preventing the 9/11/01 hijackings. How were they treated for that screwup? They were given additional power including FISA Title VII access to (greatly expanded) NSA databases. Indeed it appears that Title VII was enacted primarily for the FBI’s benefit. The CIA notably failed miserably in Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iran, Iraq, etc, while Obama was in office. They, even more than the National Security groups in the FBI and DoJ desperately need to be cleaned up. On the flip side, our military went through with MI what they seemingly end up going through whenever we go to war (back at least to our Civil War), and that is to replace the peacetime officers with wartime officers, once the America bodies start to stack up. In Iraq, it was Gen Flynn who turned things around. The thing is that the CI community has really never gone through the sort of purges that the military, including MI , go through every time we go to war. Indeed, the FBI seems partially still in the Hoover era, and is still not recording interviews (which gave DDir McCade a chance to sanitize the Flynn interview transcripts). And the CIA if anything, has gotten progressively worse at doing its job, replacing many of its field agents with analysts back at Langley. It has never been held accountable for its consistent screwups over the last several decades, going back at least to the Reagan Administration.

Sebastian said...

"They were trying to find a basis"

No. They were trying to build a basis. We call that framing.

Cuz they had nothing to work with. But the question that has been raised before is why they thought they could get away with it -- with the first spy-ops run at Trump, then with the collusion narrative, then with Mueller, when there was not there there. They gambled. For what benefit did they take the risk? We've discussed the question before, but, in spite of the insights of fellow commentators, I am still not sure.

The first impetus may have been to cover up prior wrongdoing--the longstanding abuse of surveillance for political purposes under O.

The second impetus may have been to stop Trump and create "insurance."

The third may have been to hamstring Trump, and perhaps get him removed. The FISA renewal on Page was especially brazen.

Sure, they did succeed at delegitimating Trump for a while--a great prize. But all these steps involved tremendous risks: that the coup attempt and the gross abuse of government resources and the utter BS of the collusion narrative would be exposed and collapse completely. Plus Brennan et al. sure sounded like true believers. Yet they had nothing, and what little they had was fabricated.

Maybe it was about Flynn, but it sure metastasized in a way that seems to involve at least some miscalculation by the prime deep-staters.

Bruce Hayden said...

Just a note to my last tirade. The FBI is still, in 2019, having its people fill out DD 302 forms every time anyone wants to memorialize conversations. This is very likely the same system that has been in place there since J Edger Hoover was Director there. Much of the rest of law enforcement has been using recorded interviews for decades. And it isn’t that they don’t know about video recording - they apparently are now using body cams in certain situations in the field. Insane for what is billed as one of the premier law enforcement agencies in the world.

Nonapod said...

How do you know?

I don't know for absolute certain (which is why I used the qualifier "probably"). If there's evidence of such an investigation of similar scale happening in the past (specifically an outgoing administration abusing the investigative power of the Federal Government to undermine and possibly overturn the election of an incoming administration) I certainly haven't heard of it.

I get that some people hate Trump. I get that they want him out of office. But it shouldn't be at absolutely any cost. It shouldn't be a deepstate coup. It shouldn't be ignoring any pretense of a rule of law. Some people may think the apparent justifications for the investigation are fully defensible. I do not. Or at least I have yet to see anything that honestly justifies the investigation. A dosier bought and paid for as opposition research and some vaguley questionable activities of a few characters, at least one of which seems to have been entrapped, is nowhere near enough.

And no, dismissing this sort of corruption as nothing new and nothing worth getting excited over is no excuse. I know full well that it's not realistic to wish that there was no corruption. I know there's a long history of corrupt activity in the US and other countries. But that doesn't mean you excuse corruption when it's found. That doesn't mean we shouldn't prosecute clearly corrupt people. We should always work hard to minimize corruption. If we don't, if we allow blatantly open corruption to go unpunished, over time people will lose faith in the system, and we'll end up with what you have in many other countries in the world, a populace that is hopelessly resigned and fearful.

Molly said...

(eaglebeak)

The idea that Trump was collateral damage and the real target was Flynn seems a bit overstated. Flynn's usefulness lay in his role as a Trump advisor, although it's true that Brennan, Clapper--and Obama--hated Flynn.

The fact that Dave Goldman (Spengler) and Michael Ledeen think this doesn't induce me to think it too. Ledeen's okay, but Goldman, whom I knew for many years, many years ago--is more of a poseur.

gadfly said...

On January 27, 2017, Acting Attorney General Sally Yates met with W. H. Counsel Don McGahn to inform him about the potentially criminal conduct of General Michael Flynn, the former national-security adviser, who was forced to resign after lying about conversations with the Russian Ambassador. . . . explained that she had repeatedly warned the White House about Flynn, contradicting the Trump Administration’s story. She recalled that she told the White House counsel, Don McGahn, that “the national-security adviser essentially could be blackmailed by the Russians.”

Trump fired Yates for doing her job on 1/30/17.But there is the evidence, confirmed by Hope Hicks and Steve Bannon testimony, that President Obama advised Trump no to hire Mike Flynn on November 10, 2016. So Hicks and Bannon said that Mike Flynn called up the Russian Ambassador and undermined the policy the President of the United States had just implemented, Trump was already concerned about the warnings that Obama gave him . . . suggest[ing] that Mueller has to believe that Flynn did what he did with Trump’s blessing. Otherwise Mueller would have had abundant evidence that Flynn, while freelancing, hiding that he was freelancing, and lying about it to the FBI, did things that directly benefited the Russian state and undermined US policy.

But Judge Emmet Sullivan, having already declared Flynn to be a traitor, has ordered removal of all Flynn-related redactions in the Mueller Report while the special counsel continues to seek a reduced sentence for Flynn.

So we have yet another lie from Mafia Don.

n.n said...

Dave:

Have a good weekend.

You, too. Have a good weekend, and a less than manic Monday.

Gospace said...

Nonapod said...

I get that some people hate Trump. I get that they want him out of office. But it shouldn't be at absolutely any cost. It shouldn't be a deepstate coup


From the insane comments I see from my remaining liberal friend on Facebook, and a non-liberal never-Trumper, and the insane tweet threads that can be read daily at threaderapp.com, there's a huge contingent of people who think President Donald John Trump should be removed at ANY cost, and by ANY, I mean ANY.

I was going to say a huge contingent of Americans, but then thought, are people who really believe that truly Americans?

J. Farmer said...

@Morkoth4682:

Lolololol....

Look at all the lefty Trump-haters suddenly feign disinterest and boredom now that the Sword of Damocles is starting to swing in their direction


I specifically said I was similarly disinterested in the Mueller investigation.

J. Farmer said...

@Michael K:

I agree but Trump is on the order of Charles Grey, who got the 1832 Reform Act passed into law.

What does Trump’s version of the Reform Act look like?

Michael K said...

The idea that Trump was collateral damage and the real target was Flynn seems a bit overstated

My argument was not that Trump was "collateral damage" but that it began with Flynn. He was the original target but Trump started coming on about early 2016.

gadfly can be safely ignored as an idiot with a bad case of TDS,

narayanan said...

se·di·tion /səˈdiSH(É™)n/
noun: sedition; plural noun: seditions
conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch.

Sedition is anything that is anti-statism.

Americanism =/= statism.

all True Americans are seditionalists.

Michael K said...

What does Trump’s version of the Reform Act look like?

Sorry that's too complex for you. The Reform Act of 1832 restored voting rights to the general public (male and poverty owners at the time). They were the equivalent of "Deplorables."

Michael K said...

property owners. Autocorrect is evil.

MeatPopscicle1234 said...
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MeatPopscicle1234 said...
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MeatPopscicle1234 said...
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Original Mike said...

"property owners. Autocorrect is evil."

Why don't you turn it off?

Michael Fitzgerald said...

My, my, my, it seems that all the cucks and libs have lost all interest in investigating political skullduggery. 3 fucking years of hyperventilating and threatening and chicanery and just like that, they're done with it. Not because Mueller found no collusion, no. They screamed fucking louder for more investigation then. But suddenly, very suddenly, these same twats now say STOP. Why is that?

Bruce Hayden said...

“But Judge Emmet Sullivan, having already declared Flynn to be a traitor, has ordered removal of all Flynn-related redactions in the Mueller Report while the special counsel continues to seek a reduced sentence for Flynn.”

Not quite what happened, but good try reframing reality. Yes, Judge Sullivan essentially called the much decorated Flynn a traitor, based, apparently, on misrepresentations by the prosecution. The judge then later, after discovering the subterfuge, apologized to Gen Flynn. Most recently, Sullivan, upon request by defense counsel, required that they receive a copy of the Mueller report with the Flynn redactions unredacted. This wasn’t at the request of the prosecutors, who knew precisely what was in the redactions (since they worked in the creation of the Report), but the Defendant, Gen Flynn, who didn’t know what had been redacted, on the grounds that defendants must have access to any and all potentially exonerating evidence that the prosecution has (and helping create the Mueller Report, the Prosecutors obviously knew what had been redacted). Of course, this a trick that several of the Mueller prosecutors have been caught engaging in over the years, including the odious Andrew Weissman before Judge Sullivan. But as I said, BS, but nice try.

Mike Sylwester said...

Mike (MJB Wolf) at 1:13 PM
This is #fakenews and part of the plot against Flynn. They were seated together at the dinner specifically so photos could be leaked and that story about an affair concocted. ...

I think that is probably true. I should have written my comment better.

However, I think it's also possible that Flynn got caught in an affair with that Russian woman. Perhaps that is part of the reason why he has not defended himself.

Matt Sablan said...

"as I might, I can't seem to muster much energy to care about this."

-- I specifically care about a few things. Like how Powers credentials were stolen to query sensitive information and illegally obtained. That is a huge security breach. If she's telling the truth.

Gospace said...

Blogger Matt Sablan said...
"as I might, I can't seem to muster much energy to care about this."

-- I specifically care about a few things. Like how Powers credentials were stolen to query sensitive information and illegally obtained.


The Power's credentials that may or may not have been stolen. Of which so far there appears to have been absolutely no investigative curiosity by anyone. Regardless of stolen or not, she should be held accountable for their misuse. She didn't have a need to know about the inquiries. And knowing what I do about government systems- there's close to zero chance she didn't know the inquiries were being done using her credentials, which should have led to her reporting same, with those credentials being cancelled and new ones issued.

A record exists of every time they were used, and where. And the where would be in facilities with entry logs. A competent IT department should be able to figure it out in a single work day.

Robert Cook said...

"I was including you in that generalization as well cookie..."

Oh, I know. But I couldn't care less. I wasn't interested in the attempt to run him out of office on the pretext of "Russian Collusion." I never believed it for a second. I think it started as Hillary's cry-baby way of consoling herself over losing the election, and the Dems took it up as their great (stupid) cause...that, predictably, pooped out, because there was no "there" there.

Howard said...

Trump plays Sgt Schultz, fellatio ensues

iowan2 said...

Concerning the 'Potentialy' criminal actions of Flynn. Meaning I assume, that Flynn was talking to Russian Ambassador about sanctions and such.

When Democrats do things like that they are treated like statesmen of the first order. Like Mr. Heinz/Kerry telling Iran to hold back because President Trump was not going to last out his term.

Or, Mrs. Susan Thornton, the former acting assistant secretary of state in the Trump administration, tells her Beijing audience to stop negotiating until President Trump is removed from office in 2020.

I'm not holding my breath for leftish like gadfly call for these peoples arrest and prosecution under the Logan Act.

Mike said...

Trump is a pathological liar or a doddering old fool. He was warned by Comey. He was warned by Yates. He was warned by Obama. He ignored them.

Big Mike said...

One cannot understand the story of General Flynn until one understands the story of Robyn Gritz. In a nutshell, Robyn Gritz was a top counterintelligence agent with sixteen years' experience in the FBI, until her career was stymied by Andrew McCabe she found herself forced to sue him for sex discrimination. Flynn wrote a letter of support for Ms. Gritz, and McCabe's perjury trap was payback.

I hope when all is said and done that Gritz has her career rahabilitated, Flynn is pardoned and reimbursed by the government, and McCabe is in prison for the rest of his life.

Rory said...

It must be a comfort to the conspirators to realize that even though their story is falling apart, their opposition believes in due process, the rule of law, all that good stuff.

n.n said...

So, Obama spied, Clinton colluded, Biden interfered, DNC denied, and WaPo, CNN et al prosecuted a multi-trimester witch hunt and warlock trial, possibly with treasonous outcomes, in order to cover-up what was a personal vendetta by one of the coup plotters. We live in weird times.

n.n said...

even though their story is falling apart, their opposition believes in due process, the rule of law

Witch hunts, warlock trials, human sacrificial rites, etc., all seem to have a left-wing ideological bent.

narciso said...

less serious, is the assertion by steele, that there is a Russian consulate in Miami, that surkov and truibnikov were sources, that Russian diplomats who were not in the country in the spring of 2016, were somewhat involved with the hacking of the emails, then there is the matter against carter page, where he was a cooperating witness against two Russian intel operatives,

narciso said...

john brennan's company, the analytic group hacked Obama's passports among others, yet this did not bar him from being the counter terror advisor, old habits die hard, he hacked the senate to get a copy of the dan jones constructed interrogation dossier, which was as accurate as the steele one, previously he had burned a Saudi asset inside al queda, in all but name,

Michael K said...

I hope when all is said and done that Gritz has her career rahabilitated, Flynn is pardoned and reimbursed by the government, and McCabe is in prison for the rest of his life.

Ditto. I would like to see Trump pardon him and return him to NSC.

TJM said...

Notice how quiet Obozo the Magnificent has suddenly become? His little world may be caving in on him. He should probably look for a country that has a non-extradition treaty with the US.

narciso said...

that was in 2012, subsequently Michael hastings was investigating how brennan was conducting the drone program, well we know what happened next, general Flynn by contrast reorganized intelligence gathering in Afghanistan, on a province and provincial level, this was the footprint of the surge in that country, till he was overruled by joe biden's advisors who said whackamole was the proper strategy, that and treating Karzai like the enemy, and the Taliban like an ally,

effinayright said...

narayanan said...
se·di·tion /səˈdiSH(É™)n/
noun: sedition; plural noun: seditions
conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch.

Sedition is anything that is anti-statism.

Americanism =/= statism.

all True Americans are seditionalists.
****************

Perhaps you should introduce yourself to some statutes. Here's one:

18 U.S. Code § 2384. Seditious conspiracy

"If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both."

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2384

***********

IOW you're full of it.

Bay Area Guy said...

I'm still amazed that Brennan (age 21) voted for Communist Gus Hall in 1976 -- not Carter, not Ford -- yet still was hired by the CIA.

Talk about a red flag!

Yeah, I did stupid stuff at age 21. Most involved beer and girls. At worst, I got fired from a few jobs. But even at age 21, the thought of voting for a Soviet stooge like Gus Hall, was well beyond the pale.

I woulda gladly voted for Jimmy Carter over Soviet stooge Gus Hall.

Brennan is a flawed, disgusting man.

narciso said...

this was after they used some bogus statements attributed to mccrystal, by that same Michael hastings, to remove him from his post, then they put in Petraeus, before moving him to Langley, and jeh Johnson leaked an investigation, to remove him from command, and also promote himself to head of homeland, from pentagon counsel,

Robert Cook said...

"Trump is a pathological liar or a doddering old fool."

Oh, he's certainly a serial liar and a fool, though I think his lying is more calculated than pathological, (though I suppose it could be both), and I don't think he's doddering.

Bruce Hayden said...

“But Judge Emmet Sullivan, having already declared Flynn to be a traitor, has ordered removal of all Flynn-related redactions in the Mueller Report while the special counsel continues to seek a reduced sentence for Flynn.”

This latter, as I indicated above, was most likely the insistence of Flynn, the defendant, but it wouldn't be beyond Judge Sullivan to order it himself, sua sponte, given his previous experiences with the Mueller prosecutors failing to disclose exonerating evidence to defendants. But maybe more interesting is his minute order the same day ordering the DoJ and FBI to produce ALL audio recordings they have of Flynn. Not just the one of him talking to the Russian Ambassador, which was used in the perjury trap that Sullivan is adjudicating, but including any others that they may have. The important thing to note is that they shouldn’t have any, unless either they were surveilling Flynn illegally, or that they had previously acquired Title I FISA surveillance over Flynn. Which the DoJ has previously denied. Sure, the DoJ could lie here, and tell Sullivan that there weren’t any other recordings, when there were. But AG Barr is looking into this, among other things, and lying to Sullivan there would be a felony. A felony that is likely, given the circumstances, to be prosecuted.

Obama and Yates May have told Trump to be leery of hiring Gen Flynn, but they never told him why. And, according to AG Barr, that is highly suspicious, and highly irregular, in itself. Why were they hiding the investigation they were running on Flynn from Trump?

Oh, and Yates was fired for gross insubordination, which means for NOT doing her job. Her choices were to do her job, or resign (remember Nixon’s infamous Saturday Night Massacre - he gave an order, and both the AG and DAG refused and resigned. #3, SG Bork, complied). Not to refuse a direct order from the President, from whom she derived all of her power as DAG and acting AG. Her job cannot be to refuse to execute direct orders, because she, like all other principal officers, was merely acting as the President’s hands.

Michael said...

My understanding is that the Deep State was out to get Flynn from way back, because he expected performance, candor, accomplishments - and had a low tolerance for bureaucratic baloney. Making it about Trump was just convenient. Better one Flynn than a hundred Brennans or Comeys.

Achilles said...

Bay Area Guy said...

But there is a good, happy, healthy, honorable place between these two positions:

If AG Barr/Durham do their job, and indict -- based on the evidence -- these Deep Staters, there will be justice, and the public will be satisfied.

Comey, Yates, McCabe and Strzok have all been fired. That's a good step in the right direction. AG Sessions was inept and ineffectual. True. But Barr is the real deal -- proven by declining the bogus obstruction charge, and taking the "Contempt" citation in stride.

I say, give Barr a little leeway to take the next step with Brennan et al.



No.

At this point you should have zero trust. Republicans and Democrats in our government have been spying on every American citizen for years. They have been blatantly corrupt. They have been selling us out to China and Russia and Saudi Arabia and Europe any number of other countries.

Bush and Clinton and Obama are all best fucking friends. The last two republican nominees for president, McCain and Romney, are obviously just democrats with an R by their name. There were no small number of "Life Long Republicans" involved in this coup. Comey, Mueller etc. Almost everyone in DC including the top Military brass are corrupt.

The Judicial branch was involved in this criminal fraud as well. The FISC was specifically set up to protect American Citizens from abusive government officials and that court was clearly corrupt as well. They can't just throw their hands up and say "we were lied to!" That is horse shit. They have responsibility.

Barr worked for everyone mentioned above.

I don't mind giving them space to follow the process through because equal justice under the law, due process, presumption of innocence etc. are all foundational principles. But the knowledge publicly available clearly points to the definition of treason and sedition.

There are hundreds of people working at the FBI, CIA, in the Judiciary, State Department, the DOJ, and the Obama administration and the Clinton campaign that tried to destroy our republic.

There is no being quiet about this. They have been giving each other hand jobs and whitewashing each other's corruption for decades. If they wont do their job then they can join their friends.

It is time for consequences.

narciso said...


The urban text:


https://www.google.com/amp/s/apelbaum.wordpress.com/2018/03/17/the-mechanics-of-deception/amp/

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...


Gadfly - read Bruce H at 2:44. And 6:13 - before you scamper back to your leftwing fake newz sites.

tim in vermont said...

I. voted for worse that Gus Hall, I voted for Teddy Kennedy.

cf said...

Thanks Michael K for linking to that excellent exposition from chicagoBoyz in april, "The Russia Hoax was originally aimed at Flynn, not Trump." @10:51 AM (is that you writing, MK? very rich info)

It lays out squarely how and why Obama's folks would aim to destroy Flynn, although I would argue Obama's folks were always moving to destroy anyone they resented, from Gen Petraeus to Gen. Flynn to Donald Trump.

It also easily fleshes out the soldier's reality on-the-ground with such surprising clarity, truly exciting, details of heroic men saving others under seige thanks to "Obama’s Army. Flynn got into this argument."

To be able to seamlessly combine their Flynn-hate with Trump-hate must have made them smirk at the convenience of destroying two birds with the same stones. we'll see.

{God Speed, unsung & berated Heroes, the Serene Police State is not done with us yet.}

Fen said...

Farmer is neither a "lefty" nor a "Trump hater." He voted for Trump and still, I believe, supports him.

Right, he's just not that interested in the attempted coup of the man he voted for and supports. Happens all the time.

There was this guy who championed Jews and warned that Antisemitism was spreading across Europe. But he found harbingers of the Holocaust, like Auschwitz and Dachau, just too boring to be concerned with.

Michael K said...

Thanks, cf. Chicagoboyz is where I go for serious stuff, like World War II RADAR installations .

J. Farmer said...

@Fen:

There was this guy who championed Jews and warned that Antisemitism was spreading across Europe. But he found harbingers of the Holocaust, like Auschwitz and Dachau, just too boring to be concerned with.

I simply have a much different perspective on the challenges facing the nation. As I've said over and over again, I've always considered Trump a hail mary pass. Our problems are simply too entrench and too systemic for any single person to solve. Given the problems facing the country, I consider worrying about this to be the equivalent of fretting over the wine list on the Titanic. Sure, the criticism might be totally correct, but it's still completely beside the point. Every four years, the Establishment throws a couple of mutants at you and tells you to pick one, and suddenly everyone starts putting "I Voted" stickers on themselves and acting like they took part in some great experiment for democracy. I have a slightly different take.