CLEVELAND, Ohio — White House press secretary Sean Spicer insisted that President Trump took “immediate, decisive” action in demanding the resignation of National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Spicer insisted the resignation was demanded because Trump lost trust in Flynn after he misled Vice President Mike Pence about his having spoken to the Russian ambassador about sanctions. Spicer, and the administration he speaks for, are not to be believed, once again.
Trump took “immediate, decisive” action in removing Flynn, more than two-weeks after he was informed by the Department of Justice that Flynn misled Pence about his five phone calls with the Russian Ambassador and that Flynn may be vulnerable to Russian blackmail.
If “eroding trust” was truly the reason for Flynn’s removal, President Trump should resign for failing to inform Pence that Flynn misled him until last Thursday, weeks after Trump was informed.
The New York Times reports that Trump only acted because the story that Flynn mislead Pence leaked to the press. “Aides privately said that Mr. Trump, while annoyed at Mr. Flynn, might not have pushed him out had the situation not attracted such attention from the news media. Instead, according to three people close to Mr. Trump, the president made the decision to cast aside Mr. Flynn in a flash, the catalyst being a news alert of a coming article about the matter. ‘Yeah, it’s time’, Mr. Trump told one of his advisers.”
If Trump was acting decisively and it was really about eroding trust, Flynn would have been removed the week of January 26 when acting Attorney General Sally Yates informed Trump’s counsel Donald McGahn that wire taps had shown Flynn mislead Pence and talked about sanctions with the Russian Ambassador. McGahn immediately informed Trump and a small group of advisors. Pence was not among them.
The DOJ and US Intel picked up the Flynn-Russian phone calls while doing routine surveillance of Russian officials. The calls sent up a red flag because their timing coincided with Obama booting-out Russian diplomats, Putin’s out-of-character passive response and Trump’s fawning tweet about Putin’s response.
“Great move on delay (by V. Putin) – I always knew he was very smart!” Trump had tweeted.
As part of their ongoing investigation into Russian hacking of the DNC and connections to the Trump campaign, the FBI interviewed Flynn about the five phone calls he had made in a single day to the Russian Ambassador. They reportedly came away thinking Flynn had not been fully forthcoming.
Flynn wasn’t fit to be NSA to begin with.
In 2015 Flynn took a paid trip to Russia to speak at a gala for Russia’s state-run media company RT. At the gala he dined with Putin. It seems like he picked up some propaganda tips from RT to pass along to the Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, Kellyanne Conway and Sean Spicer.
General Colin Powell, who served under three presidents, blasted Flynn in email exchanges to his son and another associate. Here are some excerpts from the emails.
“Flynn got fired as head of DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) I asked why Flynn got fired. Abusive with staff, didn’t listen, worked against policy, bad management, etc. He has been and was right-wing nutty every(sic) since.”
“Pattern of behavior which is why he was fired, real question is how he got that far in the Army.”
“Gen. Flynn is a jerk. Got canned of DIA.”
During the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Flynn led the crowd in chants for Hillary Clinton to be “locked up”.
Flynn’s son was fired from the NSA staff by the Trump administration after tweeting a fake news story that the Clinton campaign was running a child-sex ring from the basement of Washington D.C. pizza parlor.
Flynn himself had been known to tweet links to false stories about Clinton.
It’s imperative that the Senate Committee investigating the Russian hacks call Flynn to testify. That possibility is another reason why Trump really didn’t want to fire Flynn. If Flynn was still part of the administration, he would have some protection against testifying. He no longer has that, he knows a lot, and no longer has a reason to be loyal to Trump.
What did Trump know and when did he know it?
Spicer said Trump didn’t care about the nature of Flynn’s call with the Russian Amb. That I can believe, because talking about sanctions fits with Trump’s policy towards Russia, which is complete capitulation to Russia’s agenda.
The New York Times reports that Trump’s presidential campaign and Trump associates “had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election”, based on phone records and intercepted calls.
There has been an ongoing joint investigation by the FBI and intelligence agencies into connections between the Trump campaign and associates, and Russia.
Counter terrorism and intel expert analyst, Malcom Nnce, said on MNSBC ,”This is very, very serious stuff. The FISA warrant authorized the NSA to turn on the full collection power of the United States. There is nothing that will escape that. These people (in the Trump administration) need to start getting lawyers and cutting deals.”
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