Flynn

[Rommie]

So I know all administrations have aides they fire along the way etc, but this seems far more crazier than usual. Wonder how far it will go or if they'll bury this?

[Tarragon]

Democrats and others smell blood in the water. They don't have enough seats to force hearings on Flynnghazi, which will only fuel more speculation. The public will assume that Republicans are not having hearings because what they suspect they'll find is even worse than what people already assume.

I wonder... If Putin had Kompromat on Flynn to blackmail him, are they using it for a long game? Or do they not expect Trump to last anyway and are using it now while they can, just to make all US politics as messy as possible?

[vendic]

I must admit I have no idea what you two are on about.

My first thought was Errol.

[Sigma_Orionis]

I must admit I have no idea what you two are on about.

My first thought was Errol.

Errol Flynn was my dad's favorite actor when he was growing up.

As for Michael T. Flynn, couldn't happen to a nicer guy

According to this, Priebus and Bannon have a "Solid Working Relationship", which IMHO means "Bannon can't afford to boot Priebus....... YET"

[pumpkinpi]

Flynn is a Skylander, voiced by Puddy from Seinfeld.

http://skylanders.wikia.com/wiki/Flynn

[Thumper]

So basically the Flynn that is currently in the news is the worst example of Flynns anywhere?

[Tarragon]

I must admit I have no idea what you two are on about.

My first thought was Errol.

Errol Flynn was my dad's favorite actor when he was growing up.

As for Michael T. Flynn, couldn't happen to a nicer guy

According to this, Priebus and Bannon have a "Solid Working Relationship", which IMHO means "Bannon can't afford to boot Priebus....... YET"

Well, we've always known what "In Like Flynn" looked like. Now we know what "Out like Flynn" looks like.

[Swift]

Democrats and others smell blood in the water. They don't have enough seats to force hearings on Flynnghazi, which will only fuel more speculation. The public will assume that Republicans are not having hearings because what they suspect they'll find is even worse than what people already assume.

The Dems may not have the seats, but the Pubs do and they are apparently going for it.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/14/politics/republicans-want-flynn-investigations/index.html?adkey=bn

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday it's "highly likely" the Senate intelligence committee will investigate former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn's discussions with the Russian ambassador.

"I think the fundamental question for us is what is our involvement in it, and who ought to look at it," the Kentucky Republican said. "And the intelligence committee is already looking at Russian involvement in our election. As Sen. (Roy) Blunt has already indicated, it is highly likely they will want to take look at this episode as well. They have the broad jurisdiction to do it."

The Senate's second-ranking Republican and other GOP senators have called for an investigation into the episode, building on a string of investigations underway on Russian interference in the US elections. Sen. John Cornyn told reporters Tuesday that the Senate standing committees with oversight of intelligence needs to investigate.

Asked by CNN if he wanted the Senate's committees to investigate Flynn, Cornyn replied: "Yes."

But Cornyn, the Senate majority whip, was not ready to say Flynn should testify before Congress.
"I think it's symbolic of somebody with a distinguished military career making a bad mistake," Cornyn said of Flynn.

Flynn resigned from his position as national security adviser Monday following reports that the Justice Department warned the Trump administration last month that he misled administration officials about the nature of his conversations with the Russian ambassador and whether they addressed the issue of sanctions.

The conversations occurred before he was an official government employee, causing some to fear that he was potentially vulnerable to blackmail by the Russians for covering up details of the exchanges. It is illegal for unauthorized private citizens to negotiate with foreign governments on behalf of the US.

Gob in his infinite wisdom only knows how Strump will react to his own party investigating him.

Given the ethics-free climate of the current White House, I suspect this is only the beginning, and we're what... three weeks in.

[SciFiFisher]

I suspect that they threw Flynn to the wolves in the hope that it would distract the wolves from other issues such as just how much Kompromat the Russians have on Mr Trump. And his campaign. A quiet little story that didn't get much exposure last week was an article that says the U.S. intelligence communities have confirmed that part of the Trump dossier is indeed true. In the interest of full disclosure the parts that are not confirmed are the juicy ones. about the hookers and Trump buying a trainload of Viagra infused Vodka while visiting Russia.

So far it's two or three candidates who have withdrawn, a couple who have been confirmed by the skin of their teeth, and several firings. And we are not even into week four of our new presidents reign of incompetence and kleptomania. Trust me, a lot of this will probably turn out to be cover for the kleptocracy to fleece the treasury.

[Cyborg Girl]

Trump's people were in touch with the Kremlin from early in the campaign:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/us/p ... .html?_r=0

Note, this is the front-page item today in every newspaper I've looked at.

Still betting the Republicans refuse to investigate though. Their game IMO is going to be to keep stalling; they probably figure that, once they and Trump have fucked around with voting sufficiently, they'll be impossible to remove from office. It won't matter if 60% of the public despises them, because nobody will be able to vote them out.

And yes, I'm being pessimistic. Pessimism has been the name of the game the past year.

(Also, see Putin again for an example of what I'm talking about re: voting. Russia has elections... as a way to give the ruling party an air of legitimacy. Same could happen here.)

[Sigma_Orionis]

The lady doth protest too much, methinks

[Rommie]

I think it's important to remember that politics moves a tad more slowly than our 24 hour news cycle. For example, the courts took a few weeks to get rid of the immigration executive order debacle, just because that stuff takes time. Similarly, Congress is now starting an investigation into the Mar-A-Lago Situation Room debacle, which is a step in the right direction.

I wouldn't dismiss them investigating the Flynn stuff just because the first reaction was to say they wouldn't. Even in a few hours this has gotten far larger and more serious a situation that can't be ignored.

Also, my cynical take? It's pretty clear the Republicans wanted Trump because they wanted to push through their agenda, but he's a complete disaster and doesn't even care about the important Republican things like lowering taxes in his agenda. His VP, on the other hand, is one of them. Kick Trump out, and Pence is going to seem normal in comparison. So it wouldn't surprise me if they turn on Trump, it's starting to look like they have a lot to gain from it.

[gethen]

Also, my cynical take? It's pretty clear the Republicans wanted Trump because they wanted to push through their agenda, but he's a complete disaster and doesn't even care about the important Republican things like lowering taxes in his agenda. His VP, on the other hand, is one of them. Kick Trump out, and Pence is going to seem normal in comparison. So it wouldn't surprise me if they turn on Trump, it's starting to look like they have a lot to gain from it.

Sounds about right to me, particularly because much has been made of the fact that Flynn supposedly lied to Pence about his discussion with the Russian ambassador. Also, there's been speculation as to why Trump himself did not tell Pence that Intelligence agencies told him Flynn had lied about those conversations way back on January 26th. Pence allegedly did not find out about those allegations until this week. So Trump's decision to keep Flynn on right up until news organizations found out about the compromising conversations does not seem to taint Pence.

And, of course, why did Trump lie in the first place? Was he just hoping no one would find out his staff members had been talking to Russian officials? Were he and his staff so naive as to be unaware that those conversations were probably recorded?

Finally, I've been wondering why, if the FBI has known for months that Trump campaign staffers had been talking to the Russians, and also knew that the Russians had been attempting to influence our election to get Trump elected, why were they silent about that during the election, but released a batch of hacked emails from Clinton's people during the last week of the campaign? Smells pretty bad from here.

[SciFiFisher]

And, of course, why did Trump lie in the first place? Was he just hoping no one would find out his staff members had been talking to Russian officials? Were he and his staff so naive as to be unaware that those conversations were probably recorded?

Finally, I've been wondering why, if the FBI has known for months that Trump campaign staffers had been talking to the Russians, and also knew that the Russians had been attempting to influence our election to get Trump elected, why were they silent about that during the election, but released a batch of hacked emails from Clinton's people during the last week of the campaign? Smells pretty bad from here.

Certain members of the intelligence community were raising red flags that were ignored IIRC. I think at first no one really believed that it was more than one or two people. Or that it was mostly about minor stuff. We have been getting a lot of this in a manner sort of like a Chinese torture. A few drops at a time. After a while you start to realize the drops add up to buckets and buckets of information.

And we still have people who are convinced that it’s OK because the Russians revealed bad behavior on the part of Hilary and the DNC. There is even an article out that claims all these leaks are OK even if they are felonies. We need them because it’s the only way we will be able to discover the truth. That same article actually compares Trump’s administration and claims that Obama’s was just as bad or worse about lying and keeping secrets.

Meanwhile everyone seems to be ignoring the elephant in the room. Which is that it is looking a lot like Trump and his people committed Treason or something close to it by circumventing the constitution and the legal election processes of the U.S. so that Trump could win the election.

My guess is that the Republicans want to stay in control of the process so they can go through the motions of doing a thorough investigation. That is why Mitch didn’t agree to an independent panel to investigate the Russian allegations right from the start. Meanwhile, Bannon is trying to consolidate power in the white house. Ryan, who was vehemently anti-Trump, has suddenly become a very slippery defender of Trump. When asked about the Flynn situation and broader implications he replied “They took care of that situation by firing Flynn”. I.e. I refuse to look at the elephant. This is not the elephant I am looking for. The question I have is what happened to Ryan being Anti-Trump? What did they offer him or what do they have on him? Part of it may be that when he turned on Trump his polls in his home district went down by 20 points or more.

The Republicans can talk all they want. But, right now they are still voting in lock step for everything Trump wants. Even McCain hasn’t yet voted against any of Trump’s nominees or his ideas. Until they start putting their votes where their mouths are all they’re doing is planting sound bites so they can claim they did the right thing. Or at least said it.

And to answer your first question last: Yes, Trump lied. He is used to lying and getting away with it. Even when he was recorded in the past it didn’t matter. Hell, we have a recording of the lousy scumbag bragging about sexually harassing and assaulting women. And he basically said “Well, it was just locker room talk. You know, the sort of thing that men do. We all do it”. And a significant number of women voters still voted for him because they were convinced that Hilary was worse. They knew he lied. He is such a scumbag that until recently he had to go overseas to make most of his deals because no one here with any significant sense or brains would do business with him. He couldn’t even borrow money in the U.S. He lies and he just doesn’t care that people knows he lies. Because he thinks its a perfectly acceptable strategy for winning.

[vendic]

Sounds like the perfect politician!