Posted on 02/19/2017 11:41:03 AM PST by Kaslin
WASHINGTON -- Gen. Mike Flynn provided the first scalp in the Trump administration in record time -- he served as White House National Security Adviser for 23 fleeting days before he resigned Monday night. In the eyes of President Donald Trump, Flynn could be his team's first casualty of "fake news."
As Trump told reporters at his epic press conference Thursday, he asked for Flynn's resignation because Flynn didn't tell Vice President Mike Pence that he may have discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador during the transition period. Pence then told CBS' "Face the Nation," that of course Flynn had not discussed possibly lifting sanctions with the ambassador.
Flynn "didn't have to do that, because what he did wasn't wrong," Trump maintained.
Some critics contend that any discussion of sanctions with Russian officials would have been a felony under the Logan Act, which prohibits citizens from freelancing on foreign policy to prevent them from undermining the policies of an incumbent president. The thing is, no American has ever been prosecuted under that dubious law.
But if reporters are concerned about violations of the law, Trump continued, they ought to look at the federal officials who leaked his phone conversations with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. The calls are supposed to confidential, but someone leaked them. Trump added, "The same thing happened with respect from Gen. Flynn."
You see, a Justice Department and intelligence official had notified the White House legal counsel that Flynn had not leveled with administration higher-ups about what Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and he discussed. (How did intelligence officials know what Flynn and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak discussed? They apparently stumbled onto the conversation because they tapped Russian communications.)
Flynn resigned, according to Trump, because he misled Pence. But the timing -- weeks after the White House had been alerted and on the day the Washington Post reported on the disclosure -- suggests that Flynn had to go, not because he misled Pence in a very public way, but because he got caught doing so.
And yet, Trump has a point on the leaks. As Bloomberg columnist and national security expert Eli Lake wrote, "Selectively disclosing details of private conversations monitored by the FBI or NSA gives the permanent state the power to destroy reputations from the cloak of anonymity. This is what police states do." It's not pretty when bureaucrats decide to use their power to undermine elected officials.
The Flynn revelation follows a trail of leaks and questionable stories. Most notably, there is the smarmy and discredited Buzzfeed post of a so-called dossier on Trump and his associates' fictional ties with Russia.
The New York Times could not corroborate the same dossier and did not report on it. Yet the Times just ran a front-page story with the headline, "Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contact With Russian Intelligence."
The sources were unnamed -- "four current or former American officials" -- but named four individuals, including Flynn, reportedly under investigation. Otherwise the story provided a feast of innuendo: "The officials would not disclose many details, including what was discussed on the calls, the identity of the Russian officials who participated, and how many of Mr. Trump's advisers were talking to the Russians. It is also unclear whether the conversations had anything to do with Mr. Trump himself."
That's mighty thin gruel for the Gray Lady's front page. As far as Trump is concerned, the story is part of the glut of "fake news" fabricated to credit Russian intelligence for Wikileaks of emails from Hillary Clinton associates and thus discredit his win in the Electoral College.
The Wikileaks emails were embarrassing -- especially for former CNN contributor Donna Brazile, who passed on presidential debate questions to the Clinton camp -- but it's hard to see those small-change revelations determining the outcome of the election.
Washington and the news media are divided between those who are convinced the Russians helped Trump win -- which would de-legitimize his victory -- and those who, like Trump Thursday, are convinced the Russian spin is bogus.
The news media have run many stories that hint that Putin's Russia wanted to help Trump win. To date, however, no story has firmly established that Russia did more than make mischief.
That could change. "There's no hard facts yet about who talked to the Russians" or what they might have said, noted Lanny Davis, former special counsel to President Clinton. Davis sees "a lot of sourcing without facts."
But then, he added, "These kinds of stories drive out facts."
Or they fizzle.
Either way, Flynn is out.
It isn’t the Trump’s team first scalp, it’s the Democrat’s first scalp.
And yet McCain's antics overseas are no problem at all for these so-called "critics".
Agreed. It helps to understand a concept before you try to utilize it.
“I don’t know how to post a link on FR...but a few days ago somebody posted a blog by Thomas Wictor....HE explains that Flynn was a part of a operation to catch the “leaker” red handed as it were with something that sounded like it was out of a Tom Clancy novel but seems to have worked. It’s called the Barium Meal or the Canary Trap...I am sure intrested folks can find it on here on keyword or just look for Thomas Wictor’s blog ....
Fascinating..”
I saw that yesterday. It sounded very believable and plausible. I was much less ready to believe it after reading the rest of the guy’s website. He was a little... scattered, shall we say. And I didn’t see any sources for his info, but may have missed it. I took it as his own speculation. It was still interesting to read, though. And I hope he’s right.
+1
Seems pretty obvious to me, but many don’t get it.
I couldn’t tell: Is that writer speculating, or did he claim to have this knowledge from a source? Just wondering.
He isn’t speculating.
Notice how quiet the mediots and the liberals basically have been recently.
Nothing from them about Comey’s visit to the $inators.
Yeah I went back to sight today and it says ERROR...I can go to the guys face book or something but the link to that story and his whole websight disappeared it gets curiouser and curiouser...i am sure there are screen shots of it out there...but it seems wiered maybe something like shadow banning or something on Twitter is being used on internet or sights are just being scrubbed by guys with ear buds and black suburbans..whoa we have our own men an black stuff on FR..LOL!
Freegards
LEX
Here you go:
LEAKERS BEWARE: DONALD TRUMP HAS UTTERLY DEFEATED THE DISLOYAL COTERIES OF THE US INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY
President Trump has defeated Democrats in the intelligence community (IC) who were leaking classified information to the press. Such leaks have been a problem for many presidents, but Trump is the first who took a proactive approach and set up a sting operation that identified the leakers.
It’s highly illegal to leak classified information. It’s also illegal to PUBLISH this information, but Trump is too smart to try and prosecute reporters.
I thought that Trump would fire members of the IC until the leaks stopped, but the president solved the problem with a much more imaginative and deadly approach: He fed the IC false information. When this information was published, Trump was able to identify individual leakers.
How?
Each group or individual, who leaked was given a different version of events. This is CLASSIC spycraft. If nine individuals are told nine different stories, and then each of those stories is published, you know the identity of each person who talked to the press.
It’s called a “barium meal,” after the medical test used to detect problems in the gastrointestinal tract. Soft tissues don’t show up on X-rays. Barium salts are “radio-opaque,” meaning that they show up in a radiograph or X-ray.
Author Tom Clancy called it a “canary trap.” You give multiple sources multiple versions of events. When the sources repeat their version word for word, you can identify each leaker individually.
Magic
In World War II, “Magic” was the code name for the code-breaking done by the US Army’s Signals Intelligence Service (SIS) and the US Navy’s Communication Special Unit. Japanese military code was called “Purple.” Although Magic had been able to break much of Purple, some things were still a mystery.
Magic determined in early 1942 that the Japanese were close to carrying out a major attack. However, the location of the attack—which the Japanese called “AF”—could not be figured out. Therefore the Americans carried out a barium test: Using an underwater cable, they contacted Midway Island, telling the base to broadcast a radio message “in the clear” that the desalinization plant had broken down.
The Japanese immediately sent a coded message to their forces that the desalinization plant at AF had broken down.
Now the Americans knew that the target of the impending attack was Midway Island. The greatest admiral in the US Navy—Frank Jack Fletcher—was sent out to meet the Japanese before they arrived.
Excerpted go to link below for full story!
http://www.thomaswictor.com/leakers-beware/
BOL! First Scalp is a Racist, Bigoted Native/American “Term”!
She quotes Lanny Davis last? But doesn’t say where she found that quote? He just pops up out of nowhere in this article. The writer chose to give a Clintonista the last word, thus revealing her slant.
The sight has “disappeared” Grandpa Dave now I find that unusual to say the least...i need to order more tinfoil..but that was a very well thought out story that Wictor postulated and MY guess is parts of it were RIGHT
which is why its GONE now...curiouser and couriouser!
Freegards
LEX
Error establishing a database connection
That is now showing and wasn’t earlier.
Off to a prior commitment,
I'm not so sure anymore. Now there's been a problem where one of Flynn's appointees had to be let go for anti-Trump remarks.
Are they sure it’s just dems doing the leaking? McCain has become 100% unhinged in his animosity to Trump’s presidency.
Let us see the transcript, so, we can decide for ourselves. The fact there are transcripts says someone broke the law.
I will add an alternative scenario: Flynn was a high value target for a sting of jOkeass malfeasance, ensnaring ObOzO’s two highest ranking intelligence officers. Watching these two frog marching will be a pleasure for enduring 8 years of Obummer.
Deare
Bkmrk.
It looks like his last entry before what we saw yesterday (and what GDave is posting) was this “farewell” of sorts, saying he was quitting his blog due to lack of ad revenue. It’s dated 8-30-16. He must have come back to post that one thing, then for whatever reason, it was pulled. Hmmm...
http://www.thomaswictor.com/metastatic-blog-terminal/
Sure wish I had copied the last part of his speculation, the section at the bottom of that piece where he got back to the subject of a sting against the leakers.
Instead of b for bold you also use strong and for italics you also use em
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