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First, the President lacks the authority to issue any such order to the NYT. A judge may issue a subpoena to the NYT but that authority is vested in the judiciary and not a proper exercise of executive power. But more to the point, if the administration makes a national security claim in pursuit of the identity of this anonymous official, then that would validate the claims made against the President. The subversion alleged by the op-ed and excerpts from Woodward’s book is premised upon the claim that the President is either addled or else irredeemably incompetent. One of the claimed acts of subversion involved removing an unsigned order from the President’s desk and trusting that there would be no follow up question from the chief executive. Does anyone believe this actually occurred? Undoubtedly, no! Yet, so-called allies of President Trump continue to alleged subversion or sedition or a deep state. Why? Do you believe the President to be incompetent, or stupid, or woefully ignorant? Because if subversion such as this has occurred, then the President must be at least one of those things. This is a separate matter entirely from the Russia nonsense. The President is under no political pressure to acquiesce to his senior aides openly disregarding his orders. If such subversion occurred, then the offenders would have been immediately fired. Since no such firings occurred, we must conclude that none of this alleged subversion occurred. If you insist on believing that the President is the victim of subversion, then kindly explain what evidence you have that the President is stupid or incompetent!

Sigh...A trap can only be set, the target still has to decide to take the bait. President Trump categorically denied any collusion. If there was no collusion, then there can be no entrapment. An entrapment scheme requires the solicitation of illegal activity by a government agent. Had the Trump campaign been approached by solicitation of illegal activity by an individual representing themselves to be an agent of a foreign government, the Trump campaign would have been obligated to report that solicitation to the FBI. This obligation is not necessarily a legal obligation. A citizen approached by individuals representing themselves as agents of a foreign government attempting to interfere in our elections would have an unambiguous moral obligation to report such a solicitation. No such report was made by the Trump campaign.

In the absence of a report of an illegal solicitation, one must either dismiss the allegations of an entrapment scheme or else be prepared to confront some extremely uncomfortable implications. If you believe that the FBI sought to entrap the Trump campaign then you must believe that the entrapment was successful. There really is no other plausible conclusion. We know of Trump Jr’s expressed interest in receiving information represented as part of the Russian government’s efforts on behalf of the Trump campaign. We also know that the campaign did not report being approached by individuals representing themselves as foreign agents. Given the known facts, it is apparent that any entrapment scheme would have been successful.

All of which is to say that if you believe there was an FBI entrapment scheme, you must believe the Trump campaign believed it was colluding with the Russian government and that the categorical denials of said collusion were lies. Furthermore, a claim of entrapment is only a defense against the crimes the entrapment scheme induced. Therefore, if you believe there was entrapment then you believe President Trump obstructed justice. This is an inescapable conclusion unless you believe the President was unaware of the activities of his own campaign. If entrapment occurred, then the President would have believed he colluded with the Russians. His categorical denials would then be lies. If he lied about his knowledge of what he believed to be collusion then his actions regarding the investigation can not be viewed as anything but obstruction. Furthermore, the admission that the President dictated the response to the media regarding the Trump Tower meeting would amount to both obstruction and witness tampering as defined by federal statute.

Do you believe any of that? I believe the President’s categorical denial. So why is this being pushed? If the allegations of entrapment are true, then Trump would have a moral duty to resign. If this is going to be the defense, then Pence should start boxing up his stuff since he will be upgrading his residence in short order. The defense to this Russian nonsense should be an unqualified claim of innocence. So far it has been. So why the hell are we pushing this thread? Entrapment equals collusion, pure and simple. I swear, the most dire threat to this administration are all the ADHD addled so-called allies that are incapable of staying on script. Not every news cycle needs a new conspiracy. If innocence is not the President’s defense, then the President is indefensible. Think things through people.

Gestational exposure to teratogenic agents prevents normal embryonic development by either disrupting normal gene expression, as with thalidomide, or through tissue damage caused by acute toxicity, as with fetal alcohol syndrome. Children who are born with congenital defects caused by drugs and alcohol still possesses a normal genome and are able to produce developmentally normal offspring. That is because during the epigenome is reset during embryonic development. There are some alterations that are resistant to this reset but there is no evidence that would suggest marijuana related alterations are hereditary.

In fact, the data cited makes it fairly obvious that these problems have a social cause or involve hereditary characteristics that cause antisocial behavior rather than as a result of epigenome alterations caused by antisocial behavior. It is no surprise that teenagers who display extreme antisocial behaviour tend to become adults who display extreme antisocial behaviour. Any children raised by these unstable people have bad outcomes because they are in a situation that doesn’t really have a happy ending.

Now, if they can produce data that demonstrates an adverse impact on the grandchildren of high functioning heavy marijuana users then there might be something to this. But I wouldn’t hold my breath. Marijuana use isn’t new and yet the most important determinant on childhood outcomes remains parental income not parental drug use. The problem is nurture not nature and it is not even a close call.

Exactly! So much of the current problems are caused by a dismaying lack of message discipline and continuity. There is alleged to exist an anti-Trump cabal within the FBI. Yet Comey and McCabe, both alleged members of this cabal, are fired for conduct detrimental to Clinton during the campaign. Those things both can’t be true. There is an unequivocal denial of any Trump campaign contact with the Russian government. Then there is the belated admission of the Trump Tower meeting. There is an unequivocal denial of any knowledge of the Stormy Daniels NDA. Now there was knowledge of the payment but maybe not the reason for it which is totally believable because who doesn’t fire off 6 figures worth of checks in monthly instalments without bothering to ask what the money is for? The pattern is becoming increasingly dismaying; unequivocal denial followed by a slightly more equivocal denial, followed by an admission in the form of “yea, that happened but it wasn’t what it looks like and besides here are my lawyers explaining why this thing we lied about happening for months wasn’t necessarily a crime so why is everyone so upset?” The central defense against the swirling indictments of the Mueller investigations is “this is all a hoax, we did nothing wrong, just trust us.” But if we are being honest with ourselves, what credibility is left? This Stormy Daniels thing is so dismaying because it was so transparent a lie but the President insisted on that lie for months. Making it worse is that there was no reason to lie. We are familiar with our President’s past, we know no one would mistake him for our deacon. But none of that mattered to us, we voted for him anyway. He could have just admitted the obvious when the Daniels thing first came out and we would have shrugged our shoulders and moved along. But he lied and lied and is trying to lie about the lie. Just like with the Trump tower meeting when there first were no meetings with Russia, then this one meeting but it was only about adoption, and then finally the truth. The investigations around the President will fundamentally hinge on the question of credibility and right now who can honestly believe what the President says? We didn’t vote for a politician but it is becoming increasingly clear that we elected one.

Except that MBS isn’t actually concerned with corruption, he is concerned with consolidating power. Some of the people targeted may indeed be corrupt, but their actual crime was merely being in the way. The idea that MBS is anti-corruption is a laughable bit of propaganda, especially since if it weren’t for the epic corruption of his family no one would have ever heard of MBS. Kushner didn’t need to tell MBS who he needed to sideline to protect his succession so recklessly sharing intel would be beyond stupid. Though with everything we have seen from Jared and his father the Kushner family does seem to specialize in beyond stupid so maybe this is true.

The random dude from California who plead guilty to helping the Russian fraudulently conceal foreign transactions might have confessed for want of resources. The rest of them have had the resources and connections to enable them to present a vigorous defense at trial. It should be clear by now that Flynn, Papadopoulos and Gates do not anticipate that President Trump will be able to issue them pardons. This may mean that they believe that Mueller has evidence that will deny the President the political space in which to issue pardons. This would be something like evidence that Manafort coordinated with the Russians during his time at the helm but the coordination was limited to Manafort. Such a finding would vindicate the President but make it politically dangerous to issue pardons. There are of course other possibilities of varying flavors of plausibility. But there is a reason these men are pleading guilty and that reason is that someone is guilty of something and something big. These pleas aren’t for probation after all, Gates agreed to a nearly 5 year recommendation. That is not I’m innocent but think of the children time. That is I am guilty as sin but let me tell you about my friend who I can prove is even more guilty time. They all know who the friend is and what he did and they are all running scared. We are not nearly worried enough.

It’s not difficult to see Mueller’s play here. Manafort was a participant in that Trump Tower meeting with the Russian attorney. The official line is that the e-mail correspondence concerning information from the Russian government was in fact a ruse to secure a meeting to discuss the current issues surrounding Russian adoptions. What Mueller wants is one of the meeting participants to say that the adoption claim was a lie and that the meeting was used to coordinate the Russian efforts with the Trump campaign. Trump Jr. is not an option, so Mueller has Manafort and Kushner. Kushner being family the obvious choice is Manafort. So you pile up the charges against Manafort. Now that his partner has flipped the screws are getting really tight. What happens now depends on the character of Manafort. He is facing potential decades. Many of the charges against him are also state crimes. The acceptance of a federal pardon can be used as evidence of guilt in a state court. In accepting a pardon you are admitting guilt, so it’s an effective confession to state crimes punishable by decades in prison. He only has two ways out. Win at trial or testify that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government. His chances of winning at trial just got torpedoed by Gate’s betrayal. Manafort has all the incentive in the world to say the words that Mueller has been waiting for, truth be damned. I don’t think Manafort is a man of honor and I think he will tell the lie. And a similar trap is being prepared for Kushner as well. These are dangerous times for the administration and the country.

If you believe you are an innocent man being railroaded you plead not guilty and fight it out in court. Martyrdom is not supposed to be pleasant, but it is what is necessary to retain righteousness. Flynn is a twice admitted liar. He resigned because he lied to the Vice President. He entered a guilty plea because he lied to Federal investigators. If you examine the history of the sentencing Judge you will become aware that it is his custom to issue an order to disclose favorable evidence to the defense in all cases that come before him. This is a result of his experience in the Senator Stevens corruption case which saw prosecutorial misconduct go unpunished on the technicality that their conduct was contrary to case law but not contrary to any order by the court of jurisdiction. By entering a guilty plea, Flynn has confessed to the information alleged in the indictment. Having acknowledged his criminal conduct Flynn has effectively made a declaration as to the absence of any potential exculpatory evidence. As a practical matter, the opinions of the FBI agents immediately following the interview of Flynn are irrelevant. Flynn is the only person who can know definitely if he lied, and he has admitted to being a liar. Any FBI opinions to the contrary speak only to Flynn’s skill at deception which is hardly a character trait one wants examined ahead of sentencing. Should Flynn successfully withdraw his plea then his confession and all subsequent cooperation with Mueller will be admissible and will be used to convict him and the government will seek the maximum sentencing. Absent a pardon he is done. A guilty plea means a guilty man. If he feels like he copped too early that is something he just has to live with. Just like all those Bundy Ranch defendants that took pleas before the government case got shredded, they remain felons serving time. If you believe in your innocence, fight for it. If you don’t want the risk of a trial don’t complain about the consequences. Flynn is a criminal. He will likely serve time. He has admitted to willfully deceiving the country he had sworn to defend. And his actions have harmed the Trump administration. He is unworthy of our pity or mercy.

Well technically Ukraine is not Russia, but they are a bit...intertwined. What should be concerning to us is the pattern that has emerged from these guilty pleas. Papadopoulos, Flynn and now this lawyer have all admitted to making false statements material to a federal investigation. All of the lies concerned their interactions with agents of the Russian government. According to these 3 men they intentionally made statements they knew to be false regarding their own conduct. All of the lies involved their interaction with the Russian agents. There needs to be an answer as to why that would be. It is beyond implausible to suggest that while these men deliberately lied they were otherwise not engaged in any underlying untoward conduct. People just don’t lie to cover up their innocence, it just doesn’t make sense. And we need to dispense with the misconception that confusion as to something like the color trousers one wore on the morning of June 1, 2016 is sufficient to cause one to be indicated for making false statements. The key word in the statue is material. They made statements they knew to be untrue and they did so deliberately. By entering a plea of guilty they acknowledge they lied, therefore it is no longer speculation or allegation but cold hard fact. So why did they lie? If the whole Russia investigation is a hoax how do you get so many confessed criminals. How do you get so many lies all made to obscure interactions with the same entity? Our defense is fatally flawed, and yet we double down. If there was a deep state operation against the Trump campaign to fabricate Russian connections through the Steele dossier then there should be no other sources that suggest contact between the Trump campaign and Russia. We know there are many such sources. The Trump tower meeting, Papadopoulos running his mouth, and now the “unwitting” contacts alleged in the Friday indictments. If this was a deep state set up, then it has succeeded such that it is indistinguishable from the real thing. We need to protect the President and that protection needs to be based on reality. Manafort is the perfect fall guy, we should acknowledge Russian interference and pin it all on Manafort. Though honestly, we have dug ourselves such a deep hole it may be too late. Our strategy has been a house of cards built on sand and it is coming undone. Providence has blessed us with a once in a lifetime opportunity and we are squandering it by chasing after charlatans and deceivers. I pray that God will lift up the righteous around the President and that he will take heed of better counsel and fulfill the tasks God has appointed. For if we fail in this moment I despair of the judgement to come.

Yeah the problem is that Flynn has confessed in detail to the crime, that is how a guilty plea works. The current Judge is on record as to his policy of automatically issuing a Brady order as a result of his experience in the Sen. Stevens corruption trial. The bar for vacating a guilty plea on the basis of actual innocence is incredibly high. Prosecutorial misconduct alone is usually insufficient. You must also demonstrate misconduct or gross incompetence of defense lawyers. Furthermore, the speculation as to what exculpatory evidence might exist centers on a supposed judgement by interviewing agents that Flynn’s comments in his FBI interview were truthful. The opinion of the agents of his truthfulness are of course contradicted by the confession of Gen Flynn who has admitted to knowingly and deliberately making false statements. When you have already said you did it, there can be no exculpatory information. At this point, it’s mitigating circumstances related to sentencing. Flynn can be pardoned, until then he is an admitted criminal.

If only the President has this power then how is it that the House of Representatives has the ability to vote to release this memo over the objection of POTUS? Did you even read the Gavel decision? The constitution provides this protection, any law claiming to abridge this constitutional provision is quite obviously unconstitutional. I don’t know why this is confusing you.

The classifed Pentagon Papers were entered into the record by Sen. Gravel in 1971. In response, the DOJ impaneled a grand jury to investigate and issued a subpoena for an aide to the Senator. In a 5-4 opinion the Supreme Court dismissed the subpoena finding that the Speech and Debate clause of the constitution protected the Senator from criminal or civil liability and from questioning elsewhere than in the Senate, with respect to the events occurring at the subcommittee hearing at which the Pentagon Papers were published. The entire review process that we are currently discussing was instituted by law in response to the Gavel episode.

Probably is. Doesn’t matter though.

Absolutely not illegal. Pentagon Papers case is unambiguous in this matter. The House can move to expel him with a 2/3 concurrence. But he can’t be prosecuted, in fact he can’t even be investigated.

Exactly, this was their plan. They had nothing but now they get to spin whatever they have and amplify it by acting like the administration is trying to suppress the “truth.” It was a trap that should have been avoided.

The Democrats are going to just release it anyway, they have no legal obligation to protect classified information that relates to their duties as a member of Congress. Information learned during an investigation by an oversight committee is plainly a legitimate legislative function so the only consequence for publishing the memo would be a House ethics investigation. The Democrats won’t vote for censure or expulsion so really there is no consequence. Now the Democrats will spin this as information the President doesn’t want you to see, they should have just approved it.

So the mission is critical and/or dangerous enough to require a breach and extract with overwhelming force yet not so critical and/or dangerous enough to not be publicly broadcast on the internet? I can’t imagine the problem with disclosing pending operations against an alleged treasonous cabal that you believe has already orchestrated an incredibly sophisticated and complex conspiracy involving senior members of US intelligence agencies. It’s almost as if the very fact that someone is publishing this information proves that the author of this information has no experience in the subject area to which the claim unique knowledge and/or access.

Members of Congress are not subject to the laws regulating the dissemination of classified information. The constitutional protections in this are are quite expansive and robust. This is obliquely referenced in the cover letter accompanying the Nunes memo when the White House Counsel mentions the “trust” the Executive places in Congress when transmitting classified information. In addition to the explicit constitutional protection enjoyed by legislators, there are also separation of power considerations. The classification scheme is determined by the Executive. Therefore it is uncertain that a member of Congress would be obligated to abide what is essentially an arbitrary determination by the executive. If it were otherwise, the executive would be able to erode the oversight authority of the legislative through wanton classification of information it would rather not have publicly discussed. Further, it would constrain the examination of matters of public concern that are exposed in the press via whistleblowers. To demonstrate the danger, consider the antiterrorism drone program. Basically every article anyone has read concerning the program was and is classified. If the executive can control what members of Congress can do with classified information then the executive would be able to constrain public discussion of the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Same goes for a lot of what Wikileaks puts out. So yes, the President is mistaken in alleging that a crime was committed because what was alleged by the President is not and can not be a crime.

This is becoming embarrassing. These are two veteran employees of the FBI. They were communicating using FBI issued phones with archiving software of which they were aware. The idea that these two individuals would plot treason via text message is just stupid. These were work phones. FBI work phones. FBI agents wanting to plot anything illegal would not communicate by text at all and certainly not using an FBI phone on an FBI service contract. That is how you get caught, instantly. There is 100% nothing illegal discussed in those texts. And we already know that because if you use text messages on an FBI phone to organize a criminal conspiracy you face consequences substantially more severe than a reassignment. The good guys have had these messages for awhile. The focus on the deleted messages means there is nothing else there. And if they find the other messages there will be nothing there either. Because these people aren’t stupid. This story is useful politically because it allows us to discuss bias, there wasn’t actually any conspiracy. Or if there was, the evidence isn’t in any text message. I mean really, anyone can download encrypted apps onto a burner phone. But senior federal investigators would use text, on work phones. If the enemy is that stupid, what is wrong with us?

Wait, what? That Treehouse article claims that information collected through unauthorized surveillance was passed outside the government, organized into what is now called the Steele dossier, which was then used as the basis to secure legal FISA warrants. Does the author of this piece not comprehend the implications of this claim? Because if someone is going through the trouble to launder illegally gathered evidence then it would mean that the evidence wasn’t fabricated. If you are fabricating a narrative, why expend the effort and assume the additional risk necessary to make “evidence” admissible? Fabricators would hardly welcome the additional scrutiny of legal proceedings, they just want to advance a certain narrative at the most advantageous time. If your goal is electioneering then a trial years after the election is meaningless, and yet we are asked to believe that individuals accepted this additional risk with no reward?

The enthusiasm with which some of us are diving into this rabbit hole is alarming. If the Treehouse is correct, then the Steele dossier is not a work of fiction but rather laundered evidence, illegally obtained but accurate. Does anyone believe that to be the case?