Posts Tagged ‘FBI’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 5, 2017 at 12:08 am
“We do not need a reckless President who believes she is above the law.”
As chants of “Lock her up!” spread across the floor of the Republican National Convention, Michael T. Flynn voiced his agreement. “Lock her up—that’s right.”
Movie-star handsome, the former United States Army lieutenant general and director of the Defense Intelligence Agency was clearly enjoying his moment as a keynote speaker.
Clapping his hands, he continued: “I’m gonna tell you what. It’s unbelievable—unbelievable.
“I have called on Hillary Clinton to drop out of the race, because she—she—put our nation’s security at extremely high risk for their careless use of a private email server.
Michael Flynn at the Republican convention
“Lock her up–lock her up. You guys [the audience] are good. Damn right—that’s exactly right. There’s nothing wrong with that.
“You know why we’re saying that? We’re saying that because if I—a guy who knows this business—if I did a tenth of what she did, I would be in jail today.”
That was July 18, 2016.
Six months and two days later, he was riding even higher: On January 20—the day Donald J. Trump became President—Flynn took office as the nation’s 25th National Security Adviser.
Two days later, The Wall Street Journal reported that Flynn was under investigation by U.S. counterintelligence agents for his communications with Russian officials.
On February 8, Flynn flatly denied having spoken to Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak in December, 2016, about removing the sanctions placed on Russia by the outgoing Obama administration.
The sanctions had been placed in retaliation for Russia’s efforts to manipulate the 2016 Presidential election.
On February 13, The Washington Post reported that Acting Attorney General Sally Yates had warned Trump in late January that Flynn had lied about his contacts with Kislyak—and that he could be blackmailed by Russian Intelligence.
Sally Yates
Flynn was forced to resign that same day–after only 24 days as National Security Adviser.
Officially, the reason given was that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence. But Flynn’s deception had already been known—via the warning to Trump by Yates.
Only after Yates’ warning became known to the media was Flynn forced to resign.
Even worse for Flynn: The same Washington Post story reported that, in December, 2015, he had appeared on Russia Today, the news network that American Intelligence agencies consider “the Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet.”
He had also received more than $45,000 as a “speaking fee” from the network for a talk on world affairs. At the gala where Flynn received the fee, he sat next to Vladimir Putin for dinner.
Flynn did not file the required paperwork for the trip. Nor did he report the “fee” to the Pentagon.
On March 30, The Wall Street Journal reported that Flynn had offered to testify to the FBI or the Senate and House Intelligence committees in exchange for immunity from prosecution. So far, neither the FBI nor the Congressional Intelligence committees has agreed to such a deal.
Meanwhile, as a Presidential candidate and President, Donald Trump has steadfastly denied the revelations about collaboration between members of his 2016 Presidential campaign and Russian Intelligence agents.
Donald Trump
He has repeatedly attacked the “fake news” media reporting these revelations. Chief among his targets: CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post.
He has also derided the Intelligence agencies responsible for America’s security.
On October 7, 2016, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint statement blaming the Russian government for the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails. Its motive: “To interfere with the US election process.”
Two days later, Trump publicly stated: “But I notice, anytime anything wrong happens, they like to say the Russians are– Maybe there is no hacking. But they always blame Russia.”
On March 4, Trump unleashed a series of tweets accusing former President Barack Obama of tapping his Trump Tower phones prior to the election: “How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”
One month later, Trump has offered no evidence to support that accusation. Nor have the FBI and Justice Department provided any. Yet Trump has refused to apologize or retract the libel.
Former Obama White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest has his own take on Trump’s motivation. Appearing on the March 5 edition of ABC’s This Week, he said:
“We know exactly why President Trump tweeted what he tweeted.
“Because there is one page in the Trump White House crisis management playbook. And that is simply to tweet or say something outrageous to distract from the scandal, and the bigger the scandal, the more outrageous the tweet.”
In time, the epitaph for the Trump administration may prove to be a bitter parody of The Muppet Movie song, “The Rainbow Connection”:
Why are there so many
Tales about Russians
And Right-wingers taking bribes?
Russians are Commies
And have lots of rubles
For traitors with something to hide.
So I’ve been told
And some choose to believe it.
It’s clear as the old KGB.
Someday we’ll find it
The Russian Connection–
The bribers, the traitors–you’ll see.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 4, 2017 at 12:16 am
Slightly more than two months after taking office, President Donald Trump has become haunted by “the Russian connection.”
Throughout 2016, the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency (NSA) found numerous ties between officials of the Trump Presidential campaign and Russian Intelligence agents.
And many of those he has appointed to office have strong ties to the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
One of these is Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. In 2013, as the chief executive of ExxonMobil, he was presented with the 2013 Order of Friendship award. He had just signed deals with the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft. Its chief, Igor Sechin, is a loyal Putin lieutenant.
Rex Tillerson
Another such official is Attorney General Jeff Sessions. During the 2016 campaign, Sessions–then serving as a surrogate for Donald Trump’s campaign–twice spoke with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
But during his Senate nomination hearings, Sessions denied that he had had “communications with the Russians” during the campaign.
The discovery of numerous contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russian Intelligence agents led the FBI to launch an investigation into Russia’s efforts to influence the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election. That investigation is still ongoing.
And the House and Senate Intelligence Committees have launched their own investigations into the same.
On March 30, Clinton Watts, an expert on cyber warfare, testified before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. As part of his testimony, he presented a prepared statement on “Disinformation: A Primer In Russian Active Measures And Influence Campaigns.”
FROM WATTS’ STATEMENT: Russia certainly seeks to promote Western candidates sympathetic to their worldview and foreign policy objectives. But winning a single election is not their end goal.
Russian Active Measures hope to topple democracies….from the inside out [by] creating political divisions….
[Their ultimate goals are] the dissolution of the European Union and the break up of the North American Treaty Organization (NATO).
Achieving these two victories against the West will allow Russia to reassert its power globally and pursue its foreign policy objectives bilaterally through military, diplomatic and economic aggression.
Trump has repeatedly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin. On December 18, 2015, Trump appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Its host, Joe Scarborough, was upset by Trump’s praise for Putin:
SCARBOROUGH: Well, I mean, [he’s] also a person who kills journalists, political opponents, and invades countries. Obviously that would be a concern, would it not?
TRUMP: He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader. Unlike what we have in this country.
SCARBOROUGH: But again: He kills journalists that don’t agree with him.
TRUMP: I think our country does plenty of killing, also, Joe, so, you know. There’s a lot of stupidity going on in the world right now, Joe. A lot of killing going on. A lot of stupidity. And that’s the way it is.
On July 22, 2016, Wikileaks released 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments hacked from computers of the highest-ranking officials of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Early reports traced the leak to Russian hackers.
At a press conference in Doral, Florida, Trump declared: “Russia, if you are listening, I hope you are able to find the 33,000 emails that are missing–I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
This was nothing less than treason–calling upon a foreign power, hostile to the United States, to interfere in its Presidential election.
On December 16, 2016, FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. agreed with a CIA assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election in part to help Donald Trump win the White House.
Trump, however, has steadfastly denied any such role by Russia: “I think it’s ridiculous,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” “I think it’s just another excuse. I don’t believe it….No, I don’t believe it at all.”
On October 19, 2016, Trump’s admiration of Putin became a major target for his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
This occurred during their third and last Presidential debate.
CLINTON: … that the Russians have engaged in cyber attacks against the United States of America, that you encouraged espionage against our people, that you are willing to spout the Putin line, sign up for his wish list, break up NATO, do whatever he wants to do, and that you continue to get help from him, because he has a very clear favorite in this race.
So I think that this is such an unprecedented situation. We’ve never had a foreign government trying to interfere in our election.
We have 17–17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military, who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyber attacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin and they are designed to influence our election. I find that deeply disturbing. And I think it’s time you take a stand…
TRUMP: She has no idea whether it’s Russia, China, or anybody else.
CLINTON: I am not quoting myself.
TRUMP: She has no idea.
CLINTON: I am quoting 17…
TRUMP: Hillary, you have no idea.
CLINTON: … 17 intelligence–do you doubt 17 military and civilian…
TRUMP: And our country has no idea.
CLINTON: … agencies.
TRUMP: Yeah, I doubt it. I doubt it.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 3, 2017 at 12:56 am
Clinton Watts is a consultant and researcher on cyberwarfare. He has served as
- A U.S. Army infantry officer;
- An FBI Special Agent on a Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF);
- The Executive Officer of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point (CTC); and
- As a consultant to the FBI’s Counter Terrorism Division (CTD) and National Security Branch (NSB).
In a statement he prepared for the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, he outlined cyberwarfare measures that Russia used to influence the 2016 Presidential campaign.
He delivered this on March 30. Part of this reads as follows:
Through the end of 2015 and start of 2016, the Russian influence system….began pushing themes and messages seeking to influence the outcome of the U.S. Presidential election.
Russia’s overt media outlets and covert trolls sought to sideline opponents on both sides of the political spectrum with adversarial views toward the Kremlin. The final months leading up to the election have been the predominate focus of Russian influence discussions to date.
Clinton Watts
However, Russian Active Measures were in full swing during both the Republican and Democratic primary season and may have helped sink the hopes of candidates more hostile to Russian interests long before the field narrowed.
The final piece of Russia’s modern Active Measures surfaced in the summer of 2016 as hacked materials from previous months were strategically leaked.
On 22 July 2016, Wikileaks released troves of stolen communications from the Democratic National Committee and later batches of campaign emails. Guccifer 2.0 and DC Leaks revealed hacked information from a host of former U.S. government officials throughout July and August 2016.
For the remainder of the campaign season, this compromising material powered the influence system Russia successfully constructed in the previous two years.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump–as both Presidential candidate and President–has steadfastly refused to acknowledge the efforts of Vladimir Putin’s government to ensure his election.
Consider his exchange about this with Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton during the third and final Presidential debate on October 19, 2016:
CLINTON: So I actually think the most important question of this evening, Chris, is, finally, will Donald Trump admit and condemn that the Russians are doing this and make it clear that he will not have the help of Putin in in this election, that he rejects Russian espionage against Americans, which he actually encouraged in the past?
Those are the questions we need answered. We’ve never had anything like this happen in any of our elections before.
CHRIS WALLACE: Well?
TRUMP: That was a great pivot off the fact that she wants open borders, OK? How did we get on to Putin?
[After insisting that Clinton wants “open borders” and “people are going to pour into this country,” Trump deigned to address Wallace’s question.]
TRUMP: Now we can talk about Putin. I don’t know Putin. He said nice things about me.
If we got along well, that would be good. If Russia and the United States got along well and went after ISIS, that would be good. He has no respect for her. He has no respect for our president.
And I’ll tell you what: We’re in very serious trouble, because we have a country with tremendous numbers of nuclear warheads–1,800, by the way–where they expanded and we didn’t, 1,800 nuclear warheads. And she’s playing chicken.
FROM WATTS’ STATEMENT: This pattern of Russian falsehoods and social media manipulation of the American electorate continued through Election Day and persists today.
Many of the accounts we watched push the false Incirlik story in July now focus their efforts on shaping the upcoming European elections, promoting fears of immigration or false claims of refugee criminality.
They’ve not forgotten about the United States either. This past week, we observed social media campaigns targeting Speaker of the House Paul Ryan hoping to foment further unrest amongst U.S. democratic institutions, their leaders and their constituents.
As we noted two days before the Presidential election in our article describing Russian influence operations, Russia certainly seeks to promote Western candidates sympathetic to their worldview and foreign policy objectives.
But winning a single election is not their end goal. Russian Active Measures hope to topple democracies through the pursuit of five complementary objectives:
- Undermine citizen confidence in democratic governance;
- Foment and exacerbate divisive political fractures;
- Erode trust between citizens and elected officials and democratic institutions;
- Popularize Russian policy agendas within foreign populations;
- Create general distrust or confusion over information sources by blurring the lines between fact and fiction.
From these objectives, the Kremlin can crumble democracies from the inside out creating political divisions resulting in two key milestones:
- The dissolution of the European Union and
- The break up of the North American Treaty Organization (NATO).
FROM THE TRUMP-CLINTON DEBATE:
TRUMP: … from everything I see, [Putin] has no respect for this person.
CLINTON: Well, that’s because he’d rather have a puppet as president of the United States.
TRUMP: No puppet. No puppet.
CLINTON: And it’s pretty clear…
TRUMP: You’re the puppet!
CLINTON: It’s pretty clear you won’t admit…
TRUMP: No, you’re the puppet.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on March 31, 2017 at 12:16 am
Want to report a crime to the FBI? First you’ll have to prove you deserve to even see an FBI agent.
Step 1: Visit a Federal building where the FBI has a field office. To enter, you must show a driver’s license or State ID card.
If your name is on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” list, you won’t show it at all (let alone visit any FBI office).
And if you aren’t a notorious criminal or terrorist, handing over a driver’s license or State ID card with the name “John Smith” isn’t going to tell the security guard anything relevant about you.
It’s simply an invasion of your privacy in the name of security theater.
Step 2: You must remove
- Your belt;
- Your shoes;
- Your watch;
- Your wallet;
- All other objects from your pants pockets;
- Any jacket you’re wearing;
- Any cell phone you’re carrying.
All of these must be placed in one or more large plastic containers, which are run through an x-ray scanner.
Step 3: Assuming you avoid setting off any alarm system, you’re allowed to enter.
Step 4: Take an elevator to the floor where the Bureau has its office and walk into a large room filled with several comfortable chairs that sit close to the floor.
Step 5: Approach a window such as you find in a bank–made of thick, presumably bulletproof glass.
A secretary on the opposite side greets you, and asks why you’ve come.
Step 6: State your reason for wanting to speak with an agent. If the secretary thinks it’s legitimate, she requires you to show her your driver’s license or State ID card.
Step 7: Slide this through a slot in the glass window. Then she makes a xerox of this and hands the card back.
Step 8: Then you must fill out a single-page card, which requires you to provide your:
- Name;
- Address;
- Phone number;
- Social Security Number;
- The reason you want to speak to an agent.
Of course, you can refuse to fill out the card. But then the secretary will refuse to let you meet with an agent.
So the FBI has no qualms about requiring others to give up their privacy. But its director, James B. Comey, believes the public actions of police should be hidden from citizens’ scrutiny.
Addressing a forum at the University of Chicago Law School on October 23, 2015, Comey offered a series of possible reasons for the recent surge in crime rates in America.
Click here: FBI — Law Enforcement and the Communities We Serve: Bending the Lines Toward Safety and Justice
“Maybe it’s the return of violent offenders after serving jail terms. Maybe it’s cheap heroin or synthetic drugs. Maybe after we busted up the large gangs, smaller groups are now fighting for turf.
“Maybe it’s a change in the justice system’s approach to bail or charging or sentencing. Maybe something has changed with respect to the availability of guns….”
Then Comey offered what he thought was the real villain behind the rise in crime: Cellphones aimed at police.
FBI Director James B. Comey
“In today’s YouTube world, are officers reluctant to get out of their cars and do the work that controls violent crime? Are officers answering 911 calls but avoiding the informal contact that keeps bad guys from standing around, especially with guns?
“I spoke to officers privately in one big city precinct who described being surrounded by young people with mobile phone cameras held high, taunting them the moment they get out of their cars. They told me, ‘We feel like we’re under siege and we don’t feel much like getting out of our cars.’
“I’ve been told about a senior police leader who urged his force to remember that their political leadership has no tolerance for a viral video.
“So the suggestion, the question that has been asked of me, is whether these kinds of things are changing police behavior all over the country.
“And the answer is, I don’t know. I don’t know whether this explains it entirely, but I do have a strong sense that some part of the explanation is a chill wind blowing through American law enforcement over the last year. And that wind is surely changing behavior.”
The FBI has
- Lobbied Congress for an electronic “key” that would allow it to enter a cyber “back door” to eavesdrop on even those emails protected by encryption systems;
- Monitored electronic bugs and wiretapped phones–as well as social media sites like Facebook and Twitter;
- Treated law-abiding citizens like criminal suspects before they can even seek help from an agent; and
- Repeatedly preached to Americans that if they have nothing to hide, they should have nothing to fear from police surveillance.
But according to the FBI, citizens who aim cameras at cops in public places constitute a clear and present danger. This holds true even if they don’t interfere with the ability of police to make arrests.
They make heavily armed police feel so threatened that many officers are refusing to carry out their sworn duties.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 30, 2017 at 12:10 am
On March 28, a White House press conference turned into a battlefield.
The contestants: White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer vs. April D. Ryan, the White House correspondent and Washington bureau chief for American Urban Radio Network.
Ryan noted that President Donald J. Trump would soon receive a visit from Condoleeza Rice, the former Secretary of State under President George W. Bush. She also noted that, in 2006, Trump had “called her a negative name.”
Although she didn’t utter the word, it was “bitch.”
Spicer: But at some point, the reality is that this president continues to reach out to individuals who’ve supported him, who didn’t support him, Republicans, Democrats, to try to bring the country together and move forward on an agenda that’s gonna help every American. That’s it. Plain and simple.
Donald Trump
[Actually, it isn’t “plain and simple.” Since taking office, Trump has made no effort to “reach out to individuals…who didn’t support him.” Nor has he tried “to bring the country together.”
[On March 4, he libeled Barack Obama in a series of tweets, accusing the former President of illegally wiretapping his phones at Trump Tower. Since making that accusation, Trump has offered absolutely no proof to back it up.
[Nor has the Justice Department or FBI come forward with such evidence.]
So, if you’re asking what we’re doing, I think we continue to do it. Which is to bring groups together that have been supportive of him, that haven’t been supportive of him, but that to share a goal which is finding common ground on areas of national security, of personal security, of economic security, of job creation, of safer communities, of education, of healthcare, that can unite us as a country and make the country stronger.
[It’s ironic that Spicer would say the administration’s goal is “finding common ground on areas” such as “healthcare.” Trump’s version of “repeal and replace” for “Obamacare” totally ignored any input by Democrats. On March 23, the House failed to pass Trumpcare because Republicans couldn’t agree to support it.
[Following her face-off with Spicer, Ryan had a message of her own for The Washington Post: “This is just par for the course, unfortunately. But I’ll be back. I’ll be back.”]
* * * * *
Trump’s admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin has been well-established–by himself.
On the December 18, 2015 edition of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Trump said: “He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader. Unlike what we have in this country.”
The program’s host, Joe Scarborough, noted: “Well, I mean, [he’s] also a person who kills journalists, political opponents, and invades countries. obviously that would be a concern, would it not?”
TRUMP: “I think our country does plenty of killing, also, Joe, so, you know. There’s a lot of stupidity going on in the world right now, Joe. A lot of killing going on. A lot of stupidity. And that’s the way it is.”
Vladimir Putin
On July 22, 2016, Wikileaks released 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments hacked from computers of the highest-ranking officials of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Early reports traced the leak to Russian hackers.
At a press conference in Doral, Florida, Trump declared: “Russia, if you are listening, I hope you are able to find the 33,000 emails that are missing–I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
This was nothing less than treason—calling upon a foreign power, hostile to the United States, to interfere in its Presidential election.
As President, Trump has defended the leader of the Communist world against hostile journalists and American Intelligence agencies.
On February 5, he gave an interview to Fox News host Bill O’Reilly. As startled viewers watched, there occurred this exchange:
O’REILLY: “Do you respect Putin?”
TRUMP: “I do respect him but—”
O’REILLY: “Do you? Why?”
TRUMP: “Well, I respect a lot of people but that doesn’t mean I’m going to get along with him. He’s a leader of his country. I say it’s better to get along with Russia than not.
“And if Russia helps us in the fight against ISIS, which is a major fight, and Islamic terrorism all over the world —that’s a good thing. Will I get along with him? I have no idea.”
O’REILLY: “But he’s a killer though. Putin’s a killer.”
TRUMP: “There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What do you think—our country’s so innocent? You think our country’s so innocent?”
Trump launched his Presidential campaign on June 16, 2015.
According to The New York Times, by late October, 2016, he had aimed nearly 4,000 insulting tweets at 281 targets.
Among those insulted:
- Women
- Blacks
- Hispanics
- The news media
- Asians
- Muslims
- The disabled
- Prisoners-of-war
- The Pope
Considering his hair-trigger temper and willingness to insult virtually anyone, Trump’s careful, even fawning attitude toward Vladimir Putin stands out.
Following Trump’s February 5 remarks on Putin, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said it best:
“I want to know what the Russians have on Donald Trump. I think we have to have an investigation by the FBI into his financial, personal and political connections to Russia, and we want to see his tax returns, so we can have truth in the relationship between Putin, whom he admires, and Donald Trump.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 29, 2017 at 12:05 am
It was the verbal equivalent of a prizefight.
In one corner was April D. Ryan, the longtime White House correspondent and Washington bureau chief for American Urban Radio Network.
April D. Ryan
By MahoganyBooks [CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
In the other corner was Sean Spicer, White House press secretary for President Donald J. Trump.
Since taking office on January 20, Trump has been ensnared in a series of revelations about collaboration between members of his 2016 Presidential campaign and Russian Intelligence agents.
The FBI, CIA and National Security Agency have officially stated that Russian Intelligence played a major role in trying to sway the election for Trump.
Trump has repeatedly attacked the “fake news” media reporting these revelations. Chief among his targets: CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post.
On March 28, disgusted with the administration’s stonewalling and outright lying, reporter April Ryan directly confronted Sean Spicer at a White House press conference.
The result was explosive.
April Ryan: With all of these investigations, questions of what is, is? How does this administration try to revamp its image two and a half months in? You’ve got this Yates story today, you’ve got other things going on. You’ve got Russia. You’ve got, you’ve got wiretapping. You’ve got —
Sean Spicer: No, we don’t have that. You’ve …
Ryan: There are investigations on Capitol Hill–
Spicer: No, no, no. I get it. But you keep — I’ve said it from the day that I got here until whatever that there is no connection. You’ve got Russia. If the president puts Russian salad dressing on his salad tonight, somehow that’s a Russian connection.
Sean Spicer
But every single person. No. Well, no, that’s … I appreciate your agenda here. But the reality is … oh no, no. Hold on, no, at some point, report the facts. The facts are that every single person who has been briefed on this subject has come away with the same conclusion. Republican, Democrat.
[This is a lie. In fact, the more digging that goes on, the more embarrassing revelations turn up of collusion between high-ranking administration officials and Russian agents or monies.]
So, I’m sorry that that disgusts you. You’re shaking your head. I appreciate it. But, but …
Ryan: … I’m trying to understand …
Spicer: But understand this. At some point, the facts are what they are. And every single person who has been briefed on this situation with respect to the situation with Russia, Republican, Democrat, Obama-appointee, career, have all come to the same conclusion.
[Another lie. The FBI is now investigating contacts between Russian Intelligence agents and members of the Trump Presidential campaign.]
At some point, April, you’re gonna have to take no for an answer with respect to whether or not there was collusion.
Ryan: How do you change the perception of, of…
Spicer: We’re going to keep doing everything we’re doing to make sure that the president’s — that what the president told the American people he was going to do, to fulfill those pledges and promises that he made, to bring back jobs, to grow the economy, to keep our nation safe.
That’s what he’s been focused on since day one. We’re going to keep focusing on that every single day.
[In short: We’re going to continue to lie and deny.]
Ryan: Condi Rice [Secretary of State under President George W. Bush] comes Friday. Condi Rice did not support this president. She did not go to the convention. She comes, what is on the agenda?
And how is their relationship? Has it healed since 2006 when he used a very negative word to describe her?
Condoleeza Rice
[The word was “bitch.” In 2006, Trump told an audience at a Learning Annex convention speech: “Condoleezza Rice, she’s a lovely woman, but I think she’s a bitch. She goes around to other countries and other nations, negotiates with their leaders, comes back and nothing ever happens.”]
Spicer: So here’s what I’ll tell you. It’s interesting that you ask those two questions back to back. On the one hand you’re saying what’re we doing to improve our image? And then here he is, once again, meeting somebody that hasn’t been a big supporter of his. Hold on ...
Ryan: He called her a negative name in 2006.
Spicer: But, April, hold on. It seems like you’re hellbent on trying to make sure that whatever image that you want to tell about this White House stays, because at the end of the day. Let me answ ….
Ryan: … call her that name. I am just reporting what —
Spicer: Okay, but, you know what, you’re asking me a question and I’m going to answer it. Which is, the president, I’m sorry, please stop shaking your head again.
But at some point, the reality is that this president continues to reach out to individuals who’ve supported him, who didn’t support him, Republicans, Democrats, to try to bring the country together and move forward on an agenda that’s gonna help every American. That’s it. Plain and simple.
[Actually, it isn’t “plain and simple.” And additional proof of this will be offered in Part Two of this series.]
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on March 20, 2017 at 12:53 am
On March 4, in a series of unhinged tweets, President Donald J. Trump accused former President Barack Obama of tapping his Trump Tower phones prior to the election:
“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!”
“Is it legal for a sitting President to be ‘wire tapping’ a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!”
“I’d bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!”
“How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”
President Barack Obama
Trump offered no proof to substantiate his libelous claims.
There are three plausible theories about what prompted Trump’s accusations.
Theory #1: They were prompted by Right-wing media outlets that had been pushing wiretapping claims in recent days.
On March 2, Right-wing radio host Mark Levin claimed that Obama had used “powers of the federal government to surveil members of the Trump campaign.”
Referring to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his newly disclosed meetings with Russia’s ambassador in 2016, Levin asked: “Today’s reporting on Sessions having a chance meeting with the ambassador–where did that information come from? Look at the timing of it. Was Obama surveilling top Trump campaign officials during the election?”
On March 3, the Fascist media site Breitbart News echoed that charge. Its story was based on Levin’s show and offered no evidence to back up its accusations.
Trump could have first contacted the directors of the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency–the agencies which are authorized to conduct such an operation. He could have asked them, “Did you wiretap me?”
They could have quickly and confidentially given him an answer. And if it was “Yes,” they would have been able to provide him with the records to document it.
That would have been the action of a rational President. But Trump chose to act like a child–or, worse, an unbalanced adult.
After reading the Breitbart story, Trump impulsively chose to go on Twitter and make libelous accusations.
Theory #2: Trump, under scrutiny for ties between his campaign and Russia, sought to deflect attention by making an outrageous accusation.
Donald Trump
Former White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest has his own take on Trump’s motivation. Appearing on the March 5 edition of ABC’s “This Week”, he said: “We know exactly why President Trump tweeted what he tweeted.
“Because there is one page in the Trump White House crisis management playbook. And that is simply to tweet or say something outrageous to distract from the scandal, and the bigger the scandal, the more outrageous the tweet.”
Earnest served as White House Press Secretary under President Obama from 2014 to 2017.
He added: Obama could not have legally ordered a wiretap: “The President of the United States does not have the authority to unilaterally order the wiretapping of an American citizen.”
Theory #3: Trump is too mentally unbalanced to hold the Presidency–and command of America’s nuclear arsenal.
Trump’s shoot-first-and-never-mind-the-consequences approach to life has been thoroughly documented.
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, he fired nearly 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions. The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them.
Among these targets were:
- His Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton
- His fellow Republican Presidential candidates
- Actress Meryl Streep
- News organizations
- President Barack Obama
- Comedian John Oliver
- Obamacare
- Singer Neil Young
- The state of New Jersey
- Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
And during his first two weeks as President, Trump attacked 22 people, places and things on his @realDonaldTrump account.
Trump’s vindictiveness, his narcissism, his compulsive aggression, his complaints that his “enemies” in government and the press are trying to destroy him, have caused many to ask: Could the President of the United States be suffering from mental illness?
One who has dared to answer this question is John D. Gartner, a practicing psychotherapist.
John D. Gartner
Gartner graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University, received his Ph.D in clinical psychology from the University of Massachusetts, and served as a part time assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Medical School for 28 years.
During an interview by U.S. News & World Report (published on January 27), Gartner said: “Donald Trump is dangerously mentally ill and temperamentally incapable of being president.”
Gartner said that Trump suffers from “malignant narcissism,” whose symptoms include anti-social behavior, sadism, aggressiveness, paranoia and grandiosity.
“We’ve seen enough public behavior by Donald Trump now that we can make this diagnosis indisputably,” says Gartner, who admits he has not personally examined Trump.
In 1965, Fletcher Knebel, the best-selling author of Seven Days in May, raised the then-unthinkable question: “What would happen if the President of the U.S.A. went stark-raving mad?”
He did so in his novel, Night of Camp David.
In 1965, the idea that an American President might become insane was thought so outlandish it could only appear in a novel.
Fifty-two years later, it’s no longer unthinkable. For millions, it’s a terrifying reality.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 9, 2017 at 1:44 am
On December 14, 2016, NBC News reported that “U.S. intelligence officials now believe with ‘a high level of confidence’ that Russian President Vladimir Putin became personally involved in the covert Russian campaign to interfere in the U.S. presidential election.”
According to senior Intelligence officials, Putin had several motives:
- Waging a vendetta against Hillary Clinton, whom he has long disliked;
- Publicly disgrace the United States by revealing corruption at the heart of its politics; and
- “Split off key American allies by creating the image that [other countries] couldn’t depend on the U.S. to be a credible global leader anymore.”
The CIA believed that Putin wanted to elect Donald Trump. The FBI wasn’t so certain, feeling that Putin might have simply wanted to do as much harm as possible.
Even so, an air of unreality clung to all of this.
On June 2, 2016, before an audience in San Diego, California, Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had noted Trump’s strange attraction to dictators:
“And I have to say, I don’t understand Donald [Trump’s] bizarre fascination with dictators and strongmen who have no love for America.
“He praised China for the Tiananmen Square massacre; he said it showed strength.
“He said, ‘You’ve got to give Kim Jong Un credit’ for taking over North Korea–something he did by murdering everyone he saw as a threat, including his own uncle, which Donald described gleefully, like he was recapping an action movie.
“And he said if he were grading Vladimir Putin as a leader, he’d give him an A. Now, I’ll leave it to the psychiatrists to explain his affection for tyrants,” said Clinton.
Vladimir Putin
On December 18, 2015, Trump appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Its host, Joe Scarborough, was upset by Trump’s praise for Putin:
SCARBOROUGH: Well, I mean, [he’s] also a person who kills journalists, political opponents, and invades countries. obviously that would be a concern, would it not?
TRUMP: He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader. Unlike what we have in this country.
SCARBOROUGH: But again: He kills journalists that don’t agree with him.
TRUMP: I think our country does plenty of killing, also, Joe, so, you know. There’s a lot of stupidity going on in the world right now, Joe. A lot of killing going on. A lot of stupidity. And that’s the way it is.
SCARBOROUGH: I’m confused. So I mean, you obviously condemn Vladimir Putin killing journalists and political opponents, right?
TRUMP: Oh sure, absolutely.
And Trump went far beyond handing out compliments.
On July 22, 2016, Wikileaks released 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments hacked from computers of the highest-ranking officials of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Early reports traced the leak to Russian hackers.
And Trump’s reaction?
At a press conference in Doral, Florida he declared: “Russia, if you are listening, I hope you are able to find the 33,000 emails that are missing–I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
This was nothing less than treason–calling upon a foreign power, hostile to the United States, to interfere in its Presidential election.
As President, Trump has defended the leader of the Communist world against hostile journalists and American Intelligence agencies.
Donald Trump
On February 5, he gave an interview to Fox News host Bill O’Reilly. As startled viewers watched, there occurred this exchange:
O’REILLY: Do you respect Putin?
TRUMP: I do respect him but—
O’REILLY: Do you? Why?
TRUMP: Well, I respect a lot of people but that doesn’t mean I’m going to get along with him. He’s a leader of his country. I say it’s better to get along with Russia than not. And if Russia helps us in the fight against ISIS, which is a major fight, and Islamic terrorism all over the world —that’s a good thing. Will I get along with him? I have no idea.
O’REILLY: But he’s a killer though. Putin’s a killer.
TRUMP: There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What do you think—our country’s so innocent? You think our country’s so innocent?
O’REILLY: I don’t know of any government leaders that are killers.
TRUMP: Well—take a look at what we’ve done, too. We made a lot of mistakes. I’ve been against the war in Iraq from the beginning.
O’REILLY: But mistakes are different than—
TRUMP: A lot of mistakes, but a lot of people were killed. A lot of killers around, believe me.
Trump launched his Presidential campaign on June 16, 2015. According to The New York Times, by late October, 2016, he had aimed nearly 4,000 insulting tweets at 281 targets.
Among those insulted:
- Women
- Blacks
- Hispanics
- The media
- Muslims
- The disabled
- Asians
- The Pope
- Prisoners-of-war.
Considering his hair-trigger temper and willingness to insult virtually anyone, Trump’s careful, even fawning attitude toward Vladimir Putin stands out.
No wonder House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said, following Trump’s February 5 remarks on Putin:
“I want to know what the Russians have on Donald Trump. I think we have to have an investigation by the FBI into his financial, personal and political connections to Russia, and we want to see his tax returns, so we can have truth in the relationship between Putin, whom he admires, and Donald Trump.”
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In History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 6, 2017 at 12:01 am
On July 20, 1944, members of the Wehrmacht high command failed to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a bomb hidden in a briefcase.
But two setbacks prevented the conspirators from succeeding.
First, Hitler survived the bomb blast.
Second, the plotters failed to seize the key broadcast facilities of the Reich.
This allowed Hitler to make a late-night speech to the nation, revealing the failed plot and assuring Germans that he was alive. And he swore to flush out the “traitorous swine” who had tried to kill him.
Adolf Hitler
Mass arrests quickly followed.
Among the first victims discovered and executed was the conspiracy’s leader, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. Standing before a makeshift firing squad at midnight, he cried: “Long live our sacred Germany!”
At least 7,000 persons were arrested by the Gestapo. According to records of the Fuehrer Conferences on Naval Affairs, 4,980 were executed.
Had the conspiracy succeeded, history would have turned out differently:
Thus, history can be altered by the appearance or disappearance of a single individual.
Which brings us back to Donald Trump.
Donald Trump
Since becoming President on January 20, Trump has:
- Infuriated “Obamacare” patients: Trump authorized the directors of Federal agencies to waive requirements of the Affordable Care Act–which provides medical insurance to 22 million Americans–to the “maximum extent permitted by law.”
- Infuriated the CIA: Appearing at CIA headquarters on his first full day in office, Trump addressed about 400 case officers. Standing before the star-studded memorial wall honoring 117 CIA officers who had fallen in the line of duty. Trump ignored their sacrifice. Instead, he boasted of the size of his Inaugural crowd and how many times he had appeared on the cover of Time.
- Infuriated Muslims: Commenting on the 2003 Iraq war during his remarks at the CIA, Trump said: “So we should have kept the oil. But okay. Maybe you’ll have another chance….”
- Infuriated American Intelligence and military agencies: A Trump executive order allows the Director of National Intelligence and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to attend the Principals’ Committee only when it pertains to their “responsibilities and expertise.”
- Infuriated Jews and civil rights advocates: Senior Adviser and Chief Strategist Steve Bannon–an anti-Semitic white supremacist–will now wield influence over the National Security Council, Homeland Security Council and Principal’s Committee. When Bannon–previously executive chair of Breitbart News, a Right-wing website–was appointed senior adviser to Trump, former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke called the selection “excellent.”
- Infuriated Medicare patients: During the 2016 campaign, Trump said he would allow Medicare to negotiate down the price of prescription drugs. At his January 10 press conference he charged that pharmaceutical companies were “getting away with murder.” But after meeting with pharmaceutical lobbyists on January 31, Trump said: “I’ll oppose anything that makes it harder for smaller, younger companies to take the risk of bringing their product to a vibrantly competitive market. That includes price-fixing by the biggest dog in the market, Medicare.”
During the 2016 Presidential campaign, Trump infuriated one group of voters after another, including: Hispanics, homosexuals, blacks, lesbians, Muslims, women, Asians, the disabled, prisoners-of-war.
As President, he has continued to anger highly influential groups. Some of these–such as “Obamacare” and Medicare patients–can retaliate only with their votes. And that won’t affect Trump until the 2020 Presidential election.
But other groups he has antagonized–such as the military and Intelligence communities–can do far more than vote against him.
Both have access to vast amounts of secret–and highly embarrassing–information. And both are expert in leaking choice bits of this to favored members of the media.
The Trump administration is only two weeks old and already this truth is on full display.
Anonymous military officials are blaming Trump for the death of a Navy SEAL during a January 29 raid on Al Qaeda in Yemen. According to Reuters, Trump approved the raid without sufficient intelligence, ground support or adequate backup preparations.
As for the CIA: This agency has been overthrowing heads of state for decades.
In 1953, its coup removed Mohammad Mosaddegh, the prime minister of Iran. In 1954, another coup did the same for Guatemalan president Jacobo Árbenz. In 1970, Chile’s president, Salvadore Allende, fell victim to a CIA-instigated plot.
Millions of Americans believe the CIA engineered the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. James W. Douglass’ 2008 book, JFK and the Unspeakable, charges that the CIA murdered Kennedy because he wanted to end the Cold War after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Like the despised Roman emperor Tiberius, Donald Trump lives by the motto: “Let them hate me, so long as they fear me.”
Niccolo Machiavelli counseled better: “A prince should make himself feared in such a way that if he does not gain love, he at any rate avoids hatred: for fear and the absence of hatred may well go together.”
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In History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 3, 2017 at 12:49 am
On July 20, 1944, a one-eyed, one-armed man tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler
Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg had served with the Wehrmacht in Poland (1939), France (1940) and the Soviet Union (1941). And he had been seriously wounded in its service.
Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg
Nevertheless, he now acted as the prime mover for the conspiracy among a growing number of German high command officers to arrest or assassinate Germany’s Fuehrer.
Most of the conspirators wanted to arrest Hitler and surrender to British and American forces–well before the much-feared Russians gained a foothold in Germany.
But Stauffenberg wanted him dead: A live Hitler might eventually be rescued by his Nazi colleagues.
But–how to do it?
Hitler was a closely-guarded target. He was surrounded by fanatical bodyguards who were expert marksmen. He often wore a bulletproof vest and a cap lined with three pounds of laminated steel.
Adolf Hitler
But his single greatest protection–he claimed–was an instinct for danger. He would often suddenly change his schedule–to drop in where he was least expected. Or to suddenly depart an event where he was scheduled to stay a long time.
On November 9, 1939, this instinct saved his life. He had been set to give a long speech at a Munich beer hall before the “Old Fighters” of his storm troopers.
Sixteen years earlier on that day, in 1923, Hitler had led them in a disastrous attempt to overthrow the Bavarian government. Police had put down the effort, killing and wounding about a score of storm troopers in the process.
Hitler himself had later been arrested, tried and convicted for treason–and sentenced to a year’s imprisonment.
But instead of proving to be the end of Nazism, the “Beer Hall Putsch” turned Hitler into a national celebrity. And it launched his career as a legitimate, ultimately successful politician.
So Hitler was expected to speak to his longtime supporters for a long time that evening. Instead, he suddenly cut short his speech and left the beer hall.
Forty-five minutes later, a bomb exploded inside a pillar–before which Hitler had been speaking.
Since then, a series of other assassination attempts had been made against Hitler. All of them involved time-bombs. And all of the would-be assassins were members of the German General Staff.
In one case, a bomb secretly stashed aboard Hitler’s plane failed to explode. In another, an officer who had a bomb strapped to himself unexpectedly found his scheduled meeting with Hitler called off. He had to rush into a bathroom to defuse the bomb before it went off.
So now it was the turn of von Stauffenberg. He would carry his bomb–hidden in a briefcase–into a “Hitler conference” packed with military officers.
But Stauffenberg didn’t intend to be a suicide bomber. He meant to direct the government that would replace that of the Nazis.
His bomb–also rigged with a time-fuse–would be left in the conference room while he found an excuse to leave. After the explosion, he would phone one of his fellow conspirators with the news.
Then, the coup–“Operation Valkyrie”–would be on.
Anti-Nazi conspirators would seize control of key posts of the government. The British and Americans would then be informed of Germany’s willingness to surrender. Provided, of course, that the Russians did not have a say in its postwar future.
The Wehrmacht and Schutzstaffel (SS) had killed millions of Russians. Many had died in combat. Others had been murdered as captives. Still more had been allowed to die by starvation and exposure to the notorious Russian winter.
So the Germans–both Nazi and anti-Nazi–knew what they could expect if soldiers of the Soviet Union reached German soil.
On July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg appeared at Hitler’s well-guarded military headquarters in East Prussia. Like all his other outposts, Hitler had named it–appropriately enough–“Wolf’s Lair.”
“Wolf’s Lair”
Stauffenberg entered the large, concrete building while the conference was in session. He placed his yellow briefcase next to Hitler–who was standing with his generals at a heavy oaken table.
Then Stauffenberg excused himself to take an “urgent” phone call.
At 12:42 p.m. on July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg’s briefcase bomb erupted.
But the Third Reich didn’t come to an end–because, as if miraculously, Hitler had survived.
Hitler shows off the site of the explosion
What had happened?
First, the conference location had been changed–from a wooden building to a concrete one. The concrete absorbed much of the blast.
Second, owing to the summer’s heat, Hitler had ordered all the windows–about ten–opened to let in a breeze. This allowed much of the force of the blast to be dispersed.
Third, and perhaps most important: Stauffenberg had carefully placed his briefcase near Hitler, who was standing next to a heavy oaken support of the conference table.
But after Stauffenberg left the room, Colonel Heinz Brandt, who stood next to Hitler, found the briefcase blocking his legs. So he moved it–to the other side of the heavy oaken support.
When the bomb exploded, Hitler was partially shielded from its full blast. Brandt died, as did two other officers and a stenographer.
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TURNING THE WHITE HOUSE INTO THE RED HOUSE: PART THREE (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 5, 2017 at 12:08 am“We do not need a reckless President who believes she is above the law.”
As chants of “Lock her up!” spread across the floor of the Republican National Convention, Michael T. Flynn voiced his agreement. “Lock her up—that’s right.”
Movie-star handsome, the former United States Army lieutenant general and director of the Defense Intelligence Agency was clearly enjoying his moment as a keynote speaker.
Clapping his hands, he continued: “I’m gonna tell you what. It’s unbelievable—unbelievable.
“I have called on Hillary Clinton to drop out of the race, because she—she—put our nation’s security at extremely high risk for their careless use of a private email server.
Michael Flynn at the Republican convention
“Lock her up–lock her up. You guys [the audience] are good. Damn right—that’s exactly right. There’s nothing wrong with that.
“You know why we’re saying that? We’re saying that because if I—a guy who knows this business—if I did a tenth of what she did, I would be in jail today.”
That was July 18, 2016.
Six months and two days later, he was riding even higher: On January 20—the day Donald J. Trump became President—Flynn took office as the nation’s 25th National Security Adviser.
Two days later, The Wall Street Journal reported that Flynn was under investigation by U.S. counterintelligence agents for his communications with Russian officials.
On February 8, Flynn flatly denied having spoken to Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak in December, 2016, about removing the sanctions placed on Russia by the outgoing Obama administration.
The sanctions had been placed in retaliation for Russia’s efforts to manipulate the 2016 Presidential election.
On February 13, The Washington Post reported that Acting Attorney General Sally Yates had warned Trump in late January that Flynn had lied about his contacts with Kislyak—and that he could be blackmailed by Russian Intelligence.
Sally Yates
Flynn was forced to resign that same day–after only 24 days as National Security Adviser.
Officially, the reason given was that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence. But Flynn’s deception had already been known—via the warning to Trump by Yates.
Only after Yates’ warning became known to the media was Flynn forced to resign.
Even worse for Flynn: The same Washington Post story reported that, in December, 2015, he had appeared on Russia Today, the news network that American Intelligence agencies consider “the Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet.”
He had also received more than $45,000 as a “speaking fee” from the network for a talk on world affairs. At the gala where Flynn received the fee, he sat next to Vladimir Putin for dinner.
Flynn did not file the required paperwork for the trip. Nor did he report the “fee” to the Pentagon.
On March 30, The Wall Street Journal reported that Flynn had offered to testify to the FBI or the Senate and House Intelligence committees in exchange for immunity from prosecution. So far, neither the FBI nor the Congressional Intelligence committees has agreed to such a deal.
Meanwhile, as a Presidential candidate and President, Donald Trump has steadfastly denied the revelations about collaboration between members of his 2016 Presidential campaign and Russian Intelligence agents.
Donald Trump
He has repeatedly attacked the “fake news” media reporting these revelations. Chief among his targets: CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post.
He has also derided the Intelligence agencies responsible for America’s security.
On October 7, 2016, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint statement blaming the Russian government for the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails. Its motive: “To interfere with the US election process.”
Two days later, Trump publicly stated: “But I notice, anytime anything wrong happens, they like to say the Russians are– Maybe there is no hacking. But they always blame Russia.”
On March 4, Trump unleashed a series of tweets accusing former President Barack Obama of tapping his Trump Tower phones prior to the election: “How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”
One month later, Trump has offered no evidence to support that accusation. Nor have the FBI and Justice Department provided any. Yet Trump has refused to apologize or retract the libel.
Former Obama White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest has his own take on Trump’s motivation. Appearing on the March 5 edition of ABC’s This Week, he said:
“We know exactly why President Trump tweeted what he tweeted.
“Because there is one page in the Trump White House crisis management playbook. And that is simply to tweet or say something outrageous to distract from the scandal, and the bigger the scandal, the more outrageous the tweet.”
In time, the epitaph for the Trump administration may prove to be a bitter parody of The Muppet Movie song, “The Rainbow Connection”:
Why are there so many
Tales about Russians
And Right-wingers taking bribes?
Russians are Commies
And have lots of rubles
For traitors with something to hide.
So I’ve been told
And some choose to believe it.
It’s clear as the old KGB.
Someday we’ll find it
The Russian Connection–
The bribers, the traitors–you’ll see.
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