Posted on 03/21/2018 12:00:39 PM PDT by Kaslin
RUSH: CNN is all excited today because they learned that Donald Trump and John Kelly were livid after a leak that came from actually a very small group of people — the National Security Council staff — that Trump was not to congratulate Putin in his phone call. Here’s what happened. The national security staff prepares a cheat sheet, bullet-point suggestions, things to remember for Trump as a makes his call to Vladimir Putin. Apparently, the cheat sheet or the memo — the advisory piece — said, “Whatever you do, do not offer congratulations.”
Well, Trump did anyway — and of course there’s a firestorm over this, which is just something we’re gonna add to the list of never-ending hypocrisy here. Obama did the same thing! Obama not only congratulated Putin. Obama actually on an open mic in 2012 before the 2012 election was talking to Putin’s number two guy, the president, Dmitry Medvedev, and the open mic caught Obama telling Dmitry Medvedev, quote, “Tell Vladimir that I’ll have a lot more flexibility after the election. Just be patient.”
And what that was in reference to was Obama promising to begin or to continue reducing our stockpiles of unique weapons. Apparently, Putin was not satisfied that our arms reduction was not happening rapidly enough. So Obama tells Medvedev — and it’s been all over everywhere since 2012! It was video with an open mic, and he tells Medvedev, “Tell Vladimir to be patient; I’ll have more flexibility…” Nobody’s bringing this up. Obama congratulated Putin, and no one’s bringing it up. Now everybody’s talking about, “You just don’t…”
Even Republicans. You’ve got Mitch McConnell and Grassley and a number of other Republican, “Well, it wouldn’t be the first thing I would do. I certainly don’t think I’d be congratulating a dictator on a sham election,” and so forth and so on. So it’s frustrating, folks. It’s just dazzlingly frustration. The Democrats get away with anything and everything. On this social media stuff, or harvesting these people’s data they’re called geniuses. Facebook is applauded for working with Democrats; so is Google.
But now that Trump has found a way to do it, bypass them? Apparently, some great crime has taken place — and man, oh, man, are these people mad at Zuckerberg. Well, anyway, back to the Trump story. Somebody in the White House, on the White House staff — and nobody knows who yet — leaked that prep memo that had as one of its bullet points: Do not offer congratulations to Putin. So this would have been the group of people that are led by General H.R. “Mr. Clean” McMaster.
And there aren’t too many people that would have had access to this memo, this advisory thing that was given to Trump before he made the call to Putin. And CNN reports that Trump and Kelly are furious about it. They’re furious at the leak. I would be too. I would be too. It is obvious that somewhere — maybe a number of places — in the Trump administration, there are saboteurs. I don’t know how else to categorize it. Somebody that would leak this is obviously a saboteur.
There’s somebody obviously or maybe more than one on the National Security Council staff… Their offices are in the Old Executive Office Building just right across a tiny, little street. It’s called a street. There’s enough space for a few cars to park there. But you look at this out of the back of the West Wing. You cross the street to whales called the OEO, Old Executive Office Building, the Eisenhower office building. It’s where the vice president’s office formally is. He doesn’t actually use it. It’s like a museum piece.
But it’s a big building. It’s old, it’s gray, it’s stately and so forth. And that’s where the National Security Council people are. There’s not enough room in the West Wing for everybody. They come over to the West Wing for meetings. Somebody on that staff had to leak this to CNN, which means somebody’s trying to undermine Trump, which means somebody on the National Security Council staff is doing everything they can to undermine and sabotage the Trump presidency. I have no idea who.
I don’t even know all the people on that staff. The only thing I will tell you is that I have — and this is nothing new, either. I have been curious about some of the staffing choices that were made in the first year. I’ve been really puzzled by ’em. We tapped this. Who among us would know enough qualified people for all these various positions? So we would have to take advice from people who do know people, and those people are gonna be swamp dwellers. They’re gonna be members of the establishment.
This is what I think. I think Trump now has begun to size up who he put in there that’s not good, and he’s putting his own people in now that are tied to his agenda that he trusts and so forth. So Trump, according to CNN, was just fuming last night after the Washington Post reported that national security advisers specifically instructed him not to congratulate Putin. The Post reported that the materials read “do not congratulate” in all caps.
“The source told CNN that the incident has again given air to Trump’s long-held belief that members of his [regime] are actively working against him.” No doubt about this. Now, again, I don’t know how widespread this memo was. I don’t know how many people saw it. I don’t know how many people are on the national security staff, the National Security Council staff. And I don’t know how many of them, if any of them, shared it with other people who are friends or colleagues who are not on the national security staff.
Anyway, Trump chose to ignore the advice and he went ahead and congratulated Putin anyway. So we’ll have to wait and see what… But this is something that’s been going on for way, way too long. We know who some of the leakers were. They are gone. But there’s still somebody or a couple of people in the immediate circle of the National Security Council staff they have to go.
Long passed being entertained by the WH hijinks/leaks. The buck stops with POTUS.
Haul them in for polygraphs and fire anybody who refuses.
I think a large part of the problem is allowing the LSM to be quartered and apparently free to roam in the West Wing.
This could be a good opportunity. Give McMaster a short time period to identify and dismiss the leaker or to resign himself.
Start telling juicy bits of info to only one at a time but make it sound like everyone is in on it.
You cross the street to whales called the OEO....
....
Well, I think that first ones to be investigated should be the whales. You just can’t trust cetaceans.
What is it about the egos of insiders, cronies and pols in DC that they feel necessary to constantly have a relationship with the presstitutes?
You know, I’m watching USA right now, An NCIS rerun featuring Tom Hanks son as a remorseless independent counsel determined to take down Gibbs and the rest by any means necessary. It is so much like watching Mueller that it’s scary.
To destroy the hive, one must eliminate the queen. But First you must identify the queen. Do this, strategically and find all the honey you would expect to find.
Trump needs to remind them all: When you draw your sword against the king, you had better throw away your scabbard.
Give them all lie detector tests.
Agree. There's nothing about McMaster's performance in office (at least what we've seen) that would demand that staffers be loyal to President Trump or his agenda.
Another place I'd look is who wrote that one the memo, and who were they with at the time. It looks like it could be a set up.
the National Security Council staff , fire the Obama holdovers now and fire the rest later today
Nice write-up.
Give them all sodium pentathol...
My convoluted idea here is that this Daily Briefing leak is just something for public consumption to throw McMaster out. Kabuki.
Putin knows his “elections” are a sham. We know his elections are a sham. He knows that we know they are sham. Ergo, he knows that any “congratulations” are at most insincere, and at worst a not-so-slight jab at him. BFD.
Now the fact that the call sheet was leaked? Someone needs to be fired and publicly shamed.
“Give McMaster a short time period to identify and dismiss the leaker or to resign himself.”
They’ve already leaked that mcmaster is going to be fired. Now we know why.
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