Posted on 02/13/2017 7:27:56 AM PST by COUNTrecount
Now Kremlin weighs into Michael Flynn furore saying Trump's National Security Adviser DIDN'T discuss lifting Russian sanctions in call with ambassador
Flynn is currently being investigated by the FBI for his December phone call
He allegedly promised an easing of sanctions imposed by Obama that same day
If proved, he was illegally speaking to a foreign nation as a private citizen
Flynn denied claims, but later said he 'couldn't be certain' the topic wasn't raised
If Flynn did make the promise, he could face a fine or jail under the Logan Act
The Kremlin has weighed in on the Michael Flynn furore by saying Donald Trump's National Security Adviser did not discuss lifting Russian sanctions in a call with the ambassador.
Flynn allegedly held secretive phone calls with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak before Trump stepped into the Oval Office in which he promised the easing of sanctions imposed by Barack Obama.
If he did, that would put him in breach of the 1799 Logan Act, which bans private citizens from negotiating with foreign powers that are in dispute with the US.
But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Flynn and Kislyak had not discussed sanctions on Moscow in the phone call as the Kremlin announced Vladimir Putin and Trump could meet before the G20 summit in July.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
John Kerry was unavailable for comment.
The whole Flynn flap is just more fake news.
Both sides have recordings why all the pretense. Neither side wants to admit they intercepted the calls of a private citizen?
Huckabee Sanders was just on Fox News dodging all questions about Flynn.
I vaguely remember a recent president caught on a ‘hot mic’ telling Russia he would have “more flexibility” after his election...
Remember all the media furor over that? Remember..?
Yeah, me neither.
More Democrat politics of personal destruction.
Shame on all of them.
Don’t care.
Not concerned with a phone call.
Flynn should have known this and therefore been more circumspect, in my opinion. Kind of naive of him really.
“If Flynn did make the promise, he could face a fine or jail under the Logan Act.”
You have got to be shitting me! Where is a British news site getting this nonsense? After all of the corruption surrounding Obama and Hillary, someone is actually talking about prosecuting Mike Flynn for a violation of the Logan Act?
I just hope Trump has enough sense to see this for what it is. Time to circle the wagons; if there’s a recording of the conversation, let’s hear it. Otherwise, STFU!
“Flynn should have known this and therefore been more circumspect, in my opinion. Kind of naive of him really.”
Yes, the key is to believe without question what Big Media is excreting.
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
Feb 2, 2017
UNITED NATIONS — Nikki R. Haley, the new American ambassador to the United Nations, condemned Russia on Thursday for its recent “aggressive actions” in eastern Ukraine.
“We do want to better our relations with Russia,” Ms. Haley said during her first remarks to an open briefing of the United Nations Security Council. “However, the dire situation in eastern Ukraine is one that demands clear and strong condemnation of Russian actions.”
She made it clear that American sanctions imposed after Russia’s annexation of Crimea would remain in place.
During her Senate confirmation hearing last month, Ms. Haley also expressed support for continuing the sanctions and accused Russia of committing war crimes in the Syrian conflict. But her strong criticism of the government of President Vladimir V. Putin put her at odds with President Trump, who has expressed a desire for warmer relations with the Kremlin. ...’
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/world/europe/nikki-haley-trump-ukraine-russia-putin.html?_r=0
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“When Donald Trump and I observe that, as I’ve said, in Syria, in Iran, in Ukraine, that the small and bullying leader of Russia has been stronger on the world stage than this administration, that’s stating painful facts. That’s not an endorsement of Vladimir Putin — that’s an indictment of the weak and feckless leadership of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.”
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Also from the Oct 5, 2016 first VP debate...
QUIJANO (Moderator): I want to turn now to Syria. Two hundred fifty thousand people, 100,000 of them children, are under siege in Aleppo, Syria. Bunker buster bombs, cluster munitions, and incendiary weapons are being dropped on them by Russian and Syrian militaries. Does the U.S. have a responsibility to protect civilians and prevent mass casualties on this scale, Governor Pence?
PENCE: The United States of America needs to begin to exercise strong leadership to protect the vulnerable citizens and over 100,000 children in Aleppo. Hillary Clinton’s top priority when she became secretary of state was the Russian reset, the Russians reset. After the Russian reset, the Russians invaded Ukraine and took over Crimea.
And the small and bullying leader of Russia is now dictating terms to the United States to the point where all the United States of America — the greatest nation on Earth — just withdraws from talks about a cease-fire while Vladimir Putin puts a missile defense system in Syria while he marshals the forces and begins — look, we have got to begin to lean into this with strong, broad-shouldered American leadership.
It begins by rebuilding our military. And the Russians and the Chinese have been making enormous investments in the military. We have the smallest Navy since 1916. We have the lowest number of troops since the end of the Second World War. We’ve got to work with Congress, and Donald Trump will, to rebuild our military and project American strength in the world.
But about Aleppo and about Syria, I truly do believe that what America ought to do right now is immediately establish safe zones, so that families and vulnerable families with children can move out of those areas, work with our Arab partners, real time, right now, to make that happen.
And secondly, I just have to tell you that the provocations by Russia need to be met with American strength. And if Russia chooses to be involved and continue, I should say, to be involved in this barbaric attack on civilians in Aleppo, the United States of America should be prepared to use military force to strike military targets of the Assad regime to prevent them from this humanitarian crisis that is taking place in Aleppo.
There’s a broad range of other things that we ought to do, as well. We ought to deploy a missile defense shield to the Czech Republic and Poland which Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama pulled back on out of not wanting to offend the Russians back in 2009.
QUIJANO: Governor, your two minutes are up.
PENCE: We’ve just got to have American strength on the world stage. When Donald Trump becomes president of the United States, the Russians and other countries in the world will know they’re dealing with a strong American president.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/06/us/politics/vice-president-transcript.html
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And...
PENCE: What we’re dealing with is the — you know, there’s an old proverb that says the Russian bear never dies, it just hibernates.
And the truth of the matter is, the weak and feckless foreign policy of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has awakened an aggression in Russia that first appeared a few years ago with their move in Georgia, now their move into Crimea, now their move into the wider Middle East.
And all the while, all we do is fold our arms and say we’re not having talks anymore.
To answer your question, we just need American strength. We need to — we need to marshal the resources of our allies in the region, and in the immediate, we need to act and act now to get people out of harm’s way.
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March 26, 2015
What do you expect next from Russia?
Sessions: Well, there's a danger that they may continue this overreach. They just solidified power in Georgia, in South Ossetia. That was I think in the last week. Pressure is still on Ukraine. We don't know whether the Minsk Agreement will hold, I don't think it's holding very well now.
We have the Estonians, the Lithuanians, the Romanians, they're very worried. This is reality, I wish it weren't, but I'm afraid it is. It needs to be clear that Russia knows that there will be a high price to pay if this behavior continues.
If Minsk breaks down, at what point does the president have to act and supply Ukraine with lethal weaponry? What is the breaking point? We know from what Victoria Nuland said that the administration hasn't decided yet.
Sessions: From what I understand from this conference, I think it's clear that Germany has said publicly that they will support harsher sanctions and more military support if the Minsk Agreement fails. And that will be key.
Merkel has worked very very hard to establish a relationship with Putin and Russia. It's been a good-faith effort. If it fails, I would hope that Europe and the United States would have to unify and push back more firmly against Russian overreach. ..."
or,
--------------------------------------------------------------
"In a Montgomery speech in March 2014...he [Sen Jeff Sessions] called for international scorn toward Russia for its aggressive actions in Ukraine and, before then, Georgia.
"I believe a systematic effort should be undertaken so that Russia feels pain for this," Sessions said then. "Because if you don't act now to make some sanctions against Russia then why will they believe in the future that we're going to impose sanctions or do anything aggressive if they move forward to take all of Ukraine, all of Georgia?""
Sessions, not that long ago, was calling for more sanctions against an expansionist Russia that was rattling U.S. allies in Europe. And he regularly blamed the Obama administration for what he argued was an overly optimistic and weak foreign policy, including a decision to scale back planned missile defense sites in the Czech Republic and Poland.
“There’s no good solution now. The bottle of milk has shattered on the floor and you can’t put it back together,” the Alabama senator said about relations with Russia in the aftermath of the annexation of Crimea.
Sessions has also pointed to Russia’s record as justification for a robust missile defense system, which has deep roots in north Alabama.
“Russia’s recent actions in Georgia remind us that country, which we once hoped was on a path to greater integration into the global world community, might again be seeking to restore old Soviet ideas of dominance throughout their neighbors and in Eastern Europe, all of which should serve as a motivation to move ahead with the necessary capabilities to defend ourselves and our allies from missile attack, in particular,” Sessions said on the Senate floor in 2008.
Two years later, Sessions voted against the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia, in part because he thought Obama conceded too much ground to the Russians.
“Just signing an agreement on a piece of paper does not create security,” Sessions said. “A consistent, principled, just approach to our legitimate national defense, advocated clearly and forthrightly without misunderstanding, is the best way to have security in this dangerous world.”
or,
https://web.archive.org/web/20161115103421/http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/08/15/sen-jeff-sessions-backs-donald-trump-russia-policy/88796584/
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2014
WASHINGTON – Sen. Dan Coats’ efforts to punish Russia because of Moscow’s move to annex the Crimea region of Ukraine has gotten him banned from the country.
“While I’m disappointed that I won’t be able to go on vacation with my family in Siberia this summer, I am honored to be on this list,” the Indiana Republican said after Russia’s announcement Thursday. ...”
http://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2014/03/20/sen-coats-banned-entering-russia-retaliation-sanctions/6661473/
__________________________________
"President-elect Donald Trump intends to nominate former Indiana Sen. Dan Coats to serve as National Intelligence Director"
"Dan Coats of Indiana has served on the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services Committees."
_________________________________________________________________
Donald Trump slammed President Obama Thursday on TODAY for failing to take a stronger line against President Vladimir Putin in dealing with Ukraine, saying he feared Obama would now make up for lost time with imprudent moves to "show his manhood."
The real estate mogul and reality-TV star, who has criticized Putin for sending military troops into Crimea, said Obama must now take fierce steps to prevent the situation from escalating further.
"We should definitely do sanctions and we have to show some strengths. I mean, Putin has eaten Obama's lunch, therefore our lunch, for a long period of time," Trump said. ..."
http://www.today.com/news/donald-trump-putin-has-eaten-obamas-lunch-ukraine-2D79372098
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Here’s the interview w/ Matt Lauer on YouTube...
Donald Trump (2014): ‘Vladimir Putin Has Eaten Obama’s Lunch’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzURUENf1ns
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LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said NATO was obsolete because it had not defended against terror attacks, but that the military alliance was still very important to him, The Times of London reported.
“I took such heat, when I said NATO was obsolete,” Trump told the newspaper in an interview. “It’s obsolete because it wasn’t taking care of terror. I took a lot of heat for two days. And then they started saying Trump is right.”
Trump added that many NATO members were not paying their fair share for U.S. protection.
“A lot of these countries aren’t paying what they’re supposed to be paying, which I think is very unfair to the United States,” Trump said. “With that being said, NATO is very important to me. There’s five countries that are paying what they’re supposed to. Five. It’s not much.”
2012...Except Obama wasn’t a private citizen...he WAS the president...so called...
The whole thing is stupid.
My point has nothing to do with believing the media, which of course has its own anti-Trump agenda. Rather its about the fact that a phone call with the Russians took place. I don’t recall anyone in the administration denying that.
Sometimes perception (rightly or wrongly) becomes a “reality”. That is what happened in this case.
I once worked on a major defense project; the staff was constantly warned about AVOIDING even the appearance of a conflict of interest and constantly reminded to not allow yourself to be put in any kind of situation that could be remotely perceived as being questionable. The reasons for this extreme caution should be obvious.
This is a self-inflicted problem for Flynn, but now its also a problem for Trump. Flynn knows enough to have known better.
Flynn knew the conversation was being monitored and recorded by U.S. and Russian intelligence. Flynn also knew that Russian Strategic Rockets forces were moved to DEFCON-2 and moving to DEFCON-1. Should Flynn have been more worried about how, as incoming NSA, this conversation will be twisted by the consummately deceitful neocon globalist forces or trying to move Russia back to DEFCON-3/4?
The Russians say he didn't. The TRANSCRIPT of the phone call proves he didn't.
"If proved, he was illegally speaking to a foreign nation as a private citizen "
+1
I can understand the potential gravity of the situation (if true) prompting a phone call, but at the time Flynn was a private citizen. There are laws against this type of thing and everyone knows it. That is the issue. Its an unofficial, back channel conversation that can result in sending mixed signals to our adversaries.
How would you feel about a Democrat who is a private citizen doing something like this? Not trying to be argumentative, just curious.
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