Posted on 02/19/2017 8:02:29 AM PST by SJackson
"The abrupt resignation of the national security adviser, Lt.-Gen. Mike Flynn, plunged the Trump administration into turmoil."
Rarely can a much anticipated official visit have been so eclipsed by a convulsion taking place behind the scenes.
People have poring over every word and gesture of the meeting in Washington between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump
The encounter offered an opportunity to discover not just the new American policy toward Israel but also to get the measure of this unsettling president. However, the back story told rather more about Donald Trump than was on display at the love-in with Netanyahu – and it wasn’t very reassuring.
The abrupt resignation of the national security adviser, Lt.-Gen. Mike Flynn, plunged the Trump administration into turmoil. Flynn resigned because the White House said he had lost the president’s trust.
Flynn’s offence lay in failing to inform Vice President Pence that Flynn might have discussed with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, sanctions against Russia imposed by the Obama administration. As a result, Pence mistakenly told CBS News that no such discussion had taken place.
That was obviously an embarrassment, but quite what merited Flynn’s resignation remains clouded in ambiguity. The administration insists he broke no laws. The discussion transcripts remain classified. There have been reports that they could be read in different ways.
At Bloomberg, Eli Lake reported he’d been told by a White House official with knowledge of these conversations that Kislyak raised the sanctions with Flynn, who merely responded that the Trump team would be taking office in a few weeks and would review Russia policy including sanctions.
Was this really enough to warrant being forced out? In the fog of claims and counter-claims swirling round the Beltway, we can have no idea at present what really happened.
But even if Trump was at fault, that doesn’t mean he’s not at the same time the victim of something worse.
Several accounts have surfaced to suggest something far more sinister may be going on: a creeping coup against the president by the “deep state,” the intelligence officials and the rest of the permanent administrative class, of which the Flynn ouster was just the start.
In The Washington Free Beacon, Adam Kredo claimed multiple sources for his report that Flynn’s ouster was the culmination of a secret, months-long campaign to handicap the Trump administration’s efforts to disclose secret details of the nuclear deal with Iran which president Obama had kept hidden.
These black-ops attack had targeted Flynn because he was such an implacable opponent of this deal. Now Obama loyalists in the administration were deluging compliant journalists with stories aimed at destroying Flynn’s credibility.
These leaks fed the frenzied narrative that Trump was somehow in the pocket of Vlad- AS I SEE IT • BY MELANIE PHILLIPS imir Putin. Flynn’s supposed weak spot was the suspicion that he had strangely close ties to Russia. Certainly, he had raised many eyebrows when he spoke at the 10th anniversary gala in 2015 for the propaganda TV station Russia Today.
But Flynn is a super-hawk with Russia in his sights. In his 2016 book Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies, co-authored with Michael Ledeen, Flynn warned of “an international alliance of evil movements and countries that is working to destroy us... We face a working coalition that extends from North Korea and China to Russia, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua.”
Moreover, there is clear evidence that those who leaked the information which brought Flynn down had themselves broken the law.
If intelligence officers monitor conversations with a foreign individual which involve an American national, they are legally required to protect that American’s identity unless he is also the subject of their investigation.
Crucially, the FBI had said Flynn was not under investigation, and yet last January it reportedly also said it had reviewed his phone calls with the Russian ambassador.
Now the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes, says he wants the FBI to conduct an assessment of recent media leaks. “If, in fact, the press reports are right, someone made the decision to deliberately listen to General Flynn’s phone calls and that is, I think, unprecedented, unwarranted and flat-out wrong.”
So in the light of all this evidence that Flynn may have been the victim of not just Washington in-fighting but an illegal and malevolent campaign, why did Trump throw him under the bus? If Flynn did mislead Pence, that is clearly important. Trust, as the White House said, is crucial. The president cannot afford to have a scintilla of doubt that his national security adviser is transparent to him at all times.
But that raises the further question of why Trump sat on the information that Flynn had misled Pence until the Flynn balloon went up.
Trump has met his first big test and he hasn’t come out of it well. He appears to have allowed a key appointee, someone whose reputation he made use of to bolster his own presidential credentials, to be brought down by smear and character assassination.
Both Israel and the moderate Arab states will doubtless have registered this with concern.
Having dared to believe that finally America had a president who would face down Iran and assert American strength, they may now be wondering whether he might just crumble.
Much depends on how Trump now behaves, and whether he takes action against the apparent illegality and even treason taking place within the intelligence world and political establishment. The fight will be ferocious, not least within the Republican Party.
Whatever the truth of this episode, a war to the death is now on for the soul of America. Is Trump up to it? We’re about to find out.
The Deep State - Black State - uses word hints like 'Trump needs to pivot' toward them... It's NOT that Trump doesn't hear the corrupt ones - it's that he's intentionally choosing NOT to join with them in their battle against the American people. We know them by their words... they use the same ones... We know them by their actions... and lies.
Melanie Phillips is another plummy-voiced Brit who works out of her home in London and lately makes videos with a teenage American who asks her questions about Trump and American politics. Strange, to say the least. Her beat is usually Jewish/Israeli stuff.
Lying article.
Fake news.
Agree 101%
Once again, actual facts are not even slowing down the neo-communist coalition of evil and they are unfettered in their desperate victory dance over Flynn.
Here vhttp://melaniephillips.com/the-unthinkable-prospect/ it is clear she totally supports President Trump as well as absolutely nails the left.
But here’s the thing. In both Britain and America, something is crashing and burning right now. It’s called the democratic left. Both Britain’s Labour party and America’s Democratic party are in disarray. Caught flat-footed by Brexit and Trump, they have absolutely no idea what do do to regroup. The reason is they have turned people off in droves. And they still don’t understand why.
And from the same article...
Something similar happened in the US. There people rose up against a political and intellectual elite in favour of someone who spoke directly to their interests and promised to keep his word to them. He has now indicated that he will act against this elite in many ways, including withdrawing presidential patronage and funding. This threatens to cut them off at the knees.
In their desperation, opponents of Brexit and Trump have ramped up the rhetoric of demonisation along with street protests as an alternative form of legitimacy. But the more they resort to these deeply questionable tactics, the more they will reinforce the Brexiteers and Trump voters in their certainty that they got their decision right. And the more they will also persuade more undecided voters that, much as they may dislike Trump and worry about Brexit, the other lot are far worse.
So, I don't know what is up with that headline about "turmoil."
Snaring readers?
.
This is more believable to me than the official version because the official version stinks.
I think it was a mutually agreed upon decision because Flynn perceived he was a distraction and would continue to be. I think the most important thing to Mike Flynn is the success of the DJT presidency
No doubt that's what happened, but...
I keep wondering, what if it was Pence who misspoke on CBS and the mistake was his, not Flynn's?
Either way, Flynn would have to go in order to save the VP Pence.
Whatever the case may be, Team Trump is not going to lose on this deal.
They are turning the loss into a win by using it to out the leakers here, there, and everywhere, while further increasing the public's justifiable distrust in the one stream media's version of the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Impressive.
media hype...good thing few people watch and listen to them. My wife watches the news until Scott Pelly, who looks like he has been sucking on lemons, comes on.
The author of this piece asks a lot of questions and answers and none of them.
He was targeted, obviously.
But it’s still his fault he’s gone. He shouldn’t have mislead the Vice President. Hard to justify how that can be tolerated.
well, we just don’t know enough of what happened. Not trying to put a band aid on this it’s just a lot of speculation about secret stuff.
Google Melanie Phillips = Lefty
You might look into Ms. Phillips. She authored an important book called Lodonistan. She is NOT a staff writer for the JP.
I do think that was a big part of the problem. Which imo was a reason to keep him.
“Whatever the truth of this episode, a war to the death is now on for the soul of America.”
They certainly don’t take the loss of an election well.
Pretty funny !
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I will do that. Thanks
I cant tell if the author liked to hear himself talk or is in line for extra credit on an English exam... he could have said the same thing in three paragraphs
Melania Phillips seems to be unbiased. Is she in Trump’s (America’s) best interest? Right now almost all media is suspect.I am still looking for hidden agendas. Good reporters still are controlled be their editors. Who finances these media outlets? Many mix lies with truth and it’s up to us to discern which is what...Thanks again for your insight and Keep the Faith.
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