Political Roundtable Part XII

[Wizardspride]

Hey Nate, I think there's one thing here that I think we all can agree upon and that is Flynn is the fall guy here...or they hope it stops with Flynn. Flynn was acting on-behalf of Trump. What were his instructions? Other Trump campaign officials were purportedly in-touch with Russian intelligence throughout the campaign. This is bad, really bad.


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I suspect that Flynn is a fall guy. I suspect that Trump had some knowledge of Flynn's communications with Russia, but I also don't think there is anything sinister about that. It probably went something like this:

Flynn: Mr. Trump, some contacts I have within the Russian government are apoplectic about these Obama economic sanctions made during the last week of his Presidency. They're pissed and they want to know if we support this. They thought from your tone during the campaign that you would be trying to improve relations with Russian, not make them worse.

Trump: Well, clearly I don't support this. I'm am trying to improve relations with Russia. If they contact you again, just let them know that these sanctions came from Obama and had nothing to do with my campaign. Maybe it'll prevent them from doing anything rash in the next week.

Flynn: Will do, sir.

Or maybe, Flynn concluded the same thing on his own without first consulting Trump, and then told Trump about it after the Justice Department told Trump that Flynn and the Russians were communicating. Either way, I don't think it's that big of a scandal. Its a modest break from normal protocol made necessary by Obama's highly irregular imposition of sanctions a week before he is out of office.

So Flynn had 5 phone calls with Russian officials that day, so its pretty logical to assume he was doing Shuttle diplomacy for Trump. This is of course is totally at odds from what the Trump administration is saying - to hear them Flynn was doing this on his own.

The problem of course is if the conversations said in essence, "Don't react to the sanctions, we will remove them when Trump gets in office." That would be illegal, and apparently is what we hear the acting Attorney General indicated.

Again, I would agree this is minor compared to continued and ongoing contacts between multiple Trump staff throughout the campaign during the time frame where Russia was attacking our election process. If there is an impeachment out of this, it will come from here.

This is the real "bombshell".


And not just talking to Russian officials but intelligence agents at that....

[Doug_Blew]

Hey Nate, I think there's one thing here that I think we all can agree upon and that is Flynn is the fall guy here...or they hope it stops with Flynn. Flynn was acting on-behalf of Trump. What were his instructions? Other Trump campaign officials were purportedly in-touch with Russian intelligence throughout the campaign. This is bad, really bad.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

I suspect that Flynn is a fall guy. I suspect that Trump had some knowledge of Flynn's communications with Russia, but I also don't think there is anything sinister about that. It probably went something like this:

Flynn: Mr. Trump, some contacts I have within the Russian government are apoplectic about these Obama economic sanctions made during the last week of his Presidency. They're pissed and they want to know if we support this. They thought from your tone during the campaign that you would be trying to improve relations with Russian, not make them worse.

Trump: Well, clearly I don't support this. I'm am trying to improve relations with Russia. If they contact you again, just let them know that these sanctions came from Obama and had nothing to do with my campaign. Maybe it'll prevent them from doing anything rash in the next week.

Flynn: Will do, sir.

Or maybe, Flynn concluded the same thing on his own without first consulting Trump, and then told Trump about it after the Justice Department told Trump that Flynn and the Russians were communicating. Either way, I don't think it's that big of a scandal. Its a modest break from normal protocol made necessary by Obama's highly irregular imposition of sanctions a week before he is out of office.

if the conversation went like that, then why did the administration force Flynn to resign? Is it because Flynn didn't tell the truth to Pence? Neither did Trump.

The **** hit the fan when Flynn resigned/fired. I would think the administration would have only done that as a last resort.

[nate33]

They don't need one. They only need to be recording the Russian agent.

I'm not an expert on this, but the article says that if you find yourself recording an American "there’s a whole process in place to where they have to immediately get rid of the information". That process wasn't followed or was commandeered by someone outside of Trump's chain of command.

I'm slightly more expert on this. They are and have been listening in on Russian agents in the US for like decades. They WILL record those conversations ESPECIALLY if an American is on the other side. They would only need FISA court approval if they wanted to tap Flynn's line.

The fact that we hear of multiple Trump folks contacting Russian agents, when we know the trump folks phones weren't tapped should be worrying to all of us. There is only one set of phones tapped here, and they didn't belong to US citizens.

You didn't address what the article said. It didn't say those discussions couldn't be recorded. It said that if they were recorded and it was determined that an American was a participant, they had to be immediately deleted except in cases of national security when okayed by the appropriate officials.

[closg00]

GOP Intel Chair: ‘Pretty Sure FBI Didn’t Have Warrant’ To Record Flynn

WASHINGTON — House Select Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes called foul on the leaks of classified information relating to conversations between former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and a Russian ambassador.

“Any intelligence agency cannot listen to Americans’ phone calls,” Nunes told reporters Tuesday night. “If there’s inadvertent collection that you know is overseas there’s a whole process in place for that.”

He explained, “It’s pretty clear that’s not the case, so then they could have been listening to someone else and inadvertently picked up an American. If that happens, there’s a whole process in place to where they have to immediately get rid of the information unless it’s like high level national security issue and then someone would have to unmask the name — someone at the highest levels.”

“So in this case it would be General Flynn and then how did that happen. Then if they did that, then how does all that get out to the public which is another leak of classified information,” Nunes added. “I’m pretty sure the FBI didn’t have a warrant on Michael Flynn.”

http://dailycaller.com/2017/02/14/gop-intel-chair-pretty-sure-fbi-didnt-have-warrant-to-record-flynn/#ixzz4Yk5sXjIL

So this has been the deflection, and it's a very bad one that works with Fox News viewers only. The ambassador was being recorded, and looky what they discovered. Imagine the look on NSA's guys face when he realizes that the Russian Ambassador is talking to someone in the Trump campaign.

[nate33]

Hey Nate, I think there's one thing here that I think we all can agree upon and that is Flynn is the fall guy here...or they hope it stops with Flynn. Flynn was acting on-behalf of Trump. What were his instructions? Other Trump campaign officials were purportedly in-touch with Russian intelligence throughout the campaign. This is bad, really bad.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

I suspect that Flynn is a fall guy. I suspect that Trump had some knowledge of Flynn's communications with Russia, but I also don't think there is anything sinister about that. It probably went something like this:

Flynn: Mr. Trump, some contacts I have within the Russian government are apoplectic about these Obama economic sanctions made during the last week of his Presidency. They're pissed and they want to know if we support this. They thought from your tone during the campaign that you would be trying to improve relations with Russian, not make them worse.

Trump: Well, clearly I don't support this. I'm am trying to improve relations with Russia. If they contact you again, just let them know that these sanctions came from Obama and had nothing to do with my campaign. Maybe it'll prevent them from doing anything rash in the next week.

Flynn: Will do, sir.

Or maybe, Flynn concluded the same thing on his own without first consulting Trump, and then told Trump about it after the Justice Department told Trump that Flynn and the Russians were communicating. Either way, I don't think it's that big of a scandal. Its a modest break from normal protocol made necessary by Obama's highly irregular imposition of sanctions a week before he is out of office.

if the conversation went like that, then why did the administration force Flynn to resign? Is it because Flynn didn't tell the truth to Pence? Neither did Trump.

The **** hit the fan when Flynn resigned/fired. I would think the administration would have only done that as a last resort.

Good point. It may well be that Trump and Pence weren't on the same page. Either that, or maybe, Flynn went beyond what Trump okayed him to do. At first, Trump and Pence both believed that Flynn merely communicated that the sanctions had nothing to do with Trump; and later they found out that Flynn went further and flirted with the "diplomacy" line.

[sfam]

I'm not an expert on this, but the article says that if you find yourself recording an American "there’s a whole process in place to where they have to immediately get rid of the information". That process wasn't followed or was commandeered by someone outside of Trump's chain of command.

I'm slightly more expert on this. They are and have been listening in on Russian agents in the US for like decades. They WILL record those conversations ESPECIALLY if an American is on the other side. They would only need FISA court approval if they wanted to tap Flynn's line.

The fact that we hear of multiple Trump folks contacting Russian agents, when we know the trump folks phones weren't tapped should be worrying to all of us. There is only one set of phones tapped here, and they didn't belong to US citizens.

You didn't address what the article said. It didn't say those discussions couldn't be recorded. It said that if they were recorded and it was determined that an American was a participant, they had to be immediately deleted except in cases of national security when okayed by the appropriate officials.

He's throwing up churn to deflect. There is metadata about the calls - which is what we heard the bulk of the data about the constant contact between Trump officials and Russian agents, then there is the recording of the calls. Those are both stored separately in a large data pool that can be queried later. From what we know, the Obama Administration became suspicious when they saw no response from the Russians to their eviction of Diplomats - the Russians always respond in kind, but didn't. Through investigation of this national security question they apparently found the connections and calls with the Russian Ambassador on the 29th or 30th. I'm pretty confident the FBI, CIA and other agencies went through the proper process in this investigation, and I doubt it involved FISA court approval.

This is different from the metadata about constant contact with Trump officials.

[nate33]

FWIW, the Logan Act is so insanely broad that I can't see how it could possibly be constitutional. It has never been used to prosecute someone since its original drafting in 1799. Here's the text of the Logan Act:

Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply, himself or his agent, to any foreign government or the agents thereof for redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such government or any of its agents or subjects.

From Legal Dictionary:

The language of the act appears to encompass almost every communication between a U.S. citizen and a foreign government considered an attempt to influence negotiations between their two countries. Because the language is so broad in scope, legal scholars and judges have suggested that the Logan Act is unconstitutional. Historically, the act has been used more as a threat to those engaged in various political activities than as a weapon for prosecution. In fact, Logan Act violations have been discussed in almost every administration without any serious attempt at enforcement, and to date there have been no convictions and only one recorded indictment.

One example of the act's use as a threat of prosecution involved the Reverend Jesse Jackson. In 1984 Jackson took well-publicized trips to Cuba and Nicaragua and returned with several Cuban political prisoners seeking Asylum in the United States. President Ronald Reagan stated that Jackson's activities may have violated the law, but Jackson was not pursued beyond a threat.

The only Logan Act indictment occurred in 1803. It involved a Kentucky newspaper article that argued for the formation in the western United States of a separate nation allied to France. No prosecution followed.

[bealwithit]

Funny how the Trumpers justified the Wikileaks/DNC stuff by saying that the end result of a sketchy, rogue organization leaking private conversations of American citizens was worth it because of the information we ended up getting out of those emails... yet when this happens we all need our privacy back. We have these calls because as has been reported these aides were talking to people US intelligence already had on their radar. That should be an immediate red flag to even the Trumpers.

And Manafort isn't some clueless stooge. He's worked for dictators and didn't have to resign from the campaign until it was discovered who was paying him. He's a scumbag.

I don't know how Trump supporters can keep justifying this stuff. Flynn, Page, Tillerson, Manafort, changing of Ukraine/Russia policy at the RNC, the dossier becoming more credible to intelligence officials, and now we know they were talking to Russia during the CAMPAIGN.

There's so much smoke you HAVE to investigate for a fire. Otherwise the whole house is gonna burn down.


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[sfam]

Good point. It may well be that Trump and Pence weren't on the same page. Either that, or maybe, Flynn went beyond what Trump okayed him to do. At first, Trump and Pence both believed that Flynn merely communicated that the sanctions had nothing to do with Trump; and later they found out that Flynn went further and flirted with the "diplomacy" line.

The reporting is that Trump definitely knew on the 26th of January but Pence only found out February 14. The obvious question to ask is why Trump left Pence in the dark. This is just a really bad start to a new administration.

Game of Thrones indeed.

[sfam]

It is Obama's Rwanda - closing in on a 1/2 million death mistake.

It's just as much the rest of the world's Rwanda as it is Obama's.

Obama's foreign policy position has been extremely consistent from the beginning - the US is not going to shoulder the load anymore while the entire EU sits on the sideline. Status quo has been that the US will come in and clean up the mess, and nobody else has to do their part. Obama pushed back hard against the Washington foreign policy establishment on this broad issue, and Trump supporters should love it because he PUT HIS FOOT DOWN AND NEGOTIATED A BETTER DEAL

They underestimated Assad. Syria isn't Libya. Russia/China got burned by not vetoing the UN Security Council resolution in 2011.

They made sure the Syrian government wouldn't be overthrown with no fly zones and other similar things to Libya. Diplomatically China/Russia have vetoed everything. Russia has installed S-300 and S-400 anti air defense systems, Moscow has had the Tartus naval base for 50 years and aren't giving that up. With the re conqueror of East Aleppo, the Russians have the Chechen Military Police patrolling the city (perhaps cause of the Sunni Muslim identity).

Iran's only Arab ally is in Damascus and their militias from Iraq/Afghanistan along with IRGC commanders helped Assad's overstretched army.

Russian Air Force and intelligence shifted the conflict completely.

China is providing humanitarian aid in the face of Western blockade of Damascus.

Assad controls all the major cities in the country where 70% of the population live and the rebels are hold up in Idlib province where there's a civil war amongst them (you have the largest Al Qaeda affiliate there) and rebels near the Damascus country side with ISIS in the East and Kurds/other rebels in the north. Turkish army is also in the north.

The policy of regime change was a failure. Obama was never going to overthrow Assad with a covert CIA program. You could destabilize the country, sure. But they miscalculated the support Assad enjoys. Even a US ally like India has relations with Damascus and is against forced regime change. Turkey has shifted policy because they let terrorist groups have free reign on the border.

Assad isn't a saint. He's a brutal dictator. But the crazy thing is with the exodus of the refugees and the support he enjoys from his Alawi sect, the Christians, the Druze, and the Sunni business class, he could win a legit election. The Syrian opposition is fragmented. Who's moderate and who's an extremist? There's also war fatigue and people who oppose the regime don't want state collapse like Somalia had when Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991.

This is a good overview, but I would dispute Assad's support. He was well on his way out, and losing most of his territory until Russia intervened. Bottom line though, you had a relatively modern country, with most citizens well educated and living fine with others of different backgrounds. Now you have a complete nightmarish situation, which most agree Assad bears the majority of the blame, but so too do Russia, Obama, Iran, Turkey and the rest of the Middle east.

[Illuminaire]

Funny how the Trumpers justified the Wikileaks/DNC stuff by saying that the end result of a sketchy, rogue organization leaking private conversations of American citizens was worth it because of the information we ended up getting out of those emails... *snip*
There's so much smoke you HAVE to investigate for a fire. Otherwise the whole house is gonna burn down.

I completely get this. I do favor transparency. I will say that there is one huge difference between the two leaks (so far).

Wikileaks published all the information after scrubbing absolutely necessary things, so the result was a publicly available record that anyone could browse, research, and form their own opinions about.

These intelligence community leaks are almost entirely opaque by comparison. Only select members of the media are getting the actual facts, and all the public is getting is the media interpretation of those facts. We don't get to read the contents of those phone calls and decide for ourselves.

I'm not OK with that. If they want to be noble whistleblowers, provide the information so that people can decide for themselves what is the right understanding of it.

[bealwithit]

Funny how the Trumpers justified the Wikileaks/DNC stuff by saying that the end result of a sketchy, rogue organization leaking private conversations of American citizens was worth it because of the information we ended up getting out of those emails... *snip*
There's so much smoke you HAVE to investigate for a fire. Otherwise the whole house is gonna burn down.

I completely get this. I do favor transparency. I will say that there is one huge difference between the two leaks (so far).

Wikileaks published all the information after scrubbing absolutely necessary things, so the result was a publicly available record that anyone could browse, research, and form their own opinions about.

These intelligence community leaks are almost entirely opaque by comparison. Only select members of the media are getting the actual facts, and all the public is getting is the media interpretation of those facts. We don't get to read the contents of those phone calls and decide for ourselves.

I'm not OK with that. If they want to be noble whistleblowers, provide the information so that people can decide for themselves what is the right understanding of it.

I get that. However there is work being done to release the transcripts of the Flynn call to the public.
Also the public getting their hands on raw data like those e-mails did lead to pizzagate so... not always a good thing.

[Doug_Blew]

Funny how the Trumpers justified the Wikileaks/DNC stuff by saying that the end result of a sketchy, rogue organization leaking private conversations of American citizens was worth it because of the information we ended up getting out of those emails... *snip*
There's so much smoke you HAVE to investigate for a fire. Otherwise the whole house is gonna burn down.

I completely get this. I do favor transparency. I will say that there is one huge difference between the two leaks (so far).

Wikileaks published all the information after scrubbing absolutely necessary things, so the result was a publicly available record that anyone could browse, research, and form their own opinions about.

These intelligence community leaks are almost entirely opaque by comparison. Only select members of the media are getting the actual facts, and all the public is getting is the media interpretation of those facts. We don't get to read the contents of those phone calls and decide for ourselves.

I'm not OK with that. If they want to be noble whistleblowers, provide the information so that people can decide for themselves what is the right understanding of it.

I get that. However there is work being done to release the transcripts of the Flynn call to the public.
Also the public getting their hands on raw data like those e-mails did lead to pizzagate so... not always a good thing.

I would like to point out that we do not know that the leaks are definitively coming from the intelligence community.

The administration has been complaining about internal leaks in the white house.

[Wizardspride]

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

[AFM]

I could welcome a President Pence, he seems like a real straight shooter

[AFM]

also he look like race bannon

[bealwithit]

I'd recommend anyone with a twitter account who is interested in this Russia stuff to follow Malcolm Nance. Smart guy who has been on this for months.

[AFM]

This is what Trump is gonna do when he finds the leakers!



MAGA!

[closg00]

I could welcome a President Pence, he seems like a real straight shooter

Seriously though, this would be the best thing for the country, sweep-out the White Nationalist and start over with normal, sane, Republican government, even if it's Pence.

[gtn130]

It's just as much the rest of the world's Rwanda as it is Obama's.

Obama's foreign policy position has been extremely consistent from the beginning - the US is not going to shoulder the load anymore while the entire EU sits on the sideline. Status quo has been that the US will come in and clean up the mess, and nobody else has to do their part. Obama pushed back hard against the Washington foreign policy establishment on this broad issue, and Trump supporters should love it because he PUT HIS FOOT DOWN AND NEGOTIATED A BETTER DEAL

They underestimated Assad. Syria isn't Libya. Russia/China got burned by not vetoing the UN Security Council resolution in 2011.

They made sure the Syrian government wouldn't be overthrown with no fly zones and other similar things to Libya. Diplomatically China/Russia have vetoed everything. Russia has installed S-300 and S-400 anti air defense systems, Moscow has had the Tartus naval base for 50 years and aren't giving that up.

Iran's only Arab ally is in Damascus and their militias from Iraq/Afghanistan along with IRGC commanders helped Assad's overstretched army.

Russian Air Force and intelligence shifted the conflict completely.

China is providing humanitarian aid in the face of Western blockade of Damascus.

Assad controls all the major cities in the country where 70% of the population live and the rebels are hold up in Idlib province where there's a civil war amongst them (you have the largest Al Qaeda affiliate there) and rebels near the Damascus country side with ISIS in the East and Kurds/other rebels in the north. Turkish army is also in the north.

The policy of regime change was a failure. Obama was never going to overthrow Assad with a covert CIA program. You could destabilize the country, sure. But they miscalculated the support Assad enjoys. Even a US ally like India has relations with Damascus and is against forced regime change. Turkey has shifted policy because they let terrorist groups have free reign on the border.

Assad isn't a saint. He's a brutal dictator. But the crazy thing is with the exodus of the refugees and the support he enjoys from his Alawi sect, the Christians, the Druze, and the Sunni business class, he could win a legit election. The Syrian opposition is fragmented. Who's moderate and who's an extremist? There's also war fatigue and people who oppose the regime don't want state collapse like Somalia had when Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991.

I wish I could +1 this more than once.

Didn't know Nate was such a globalist when it comes to the Obama administration's foreign policy