These fucking people:
House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz told Fox News’ “The First 100 Days” Wednesday night that he would ask the Justice Department’s inspector general to investigate leaks of classified information that led to the resignation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
The Utah Republican told host Martha MacCallum that “no matter where you are on the political spectrum, you cannot have classified information migrating out into a non-classified setting.”
Chaffetz’s letter to Inspector General Michael Horowitz, which was also signed by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., described “serious concerns about the potential inadequate protection of classified information” and requested “that your office begin an immediate investigation into whether classified information was mishandled” in the Flynn case.
Flynn resigned Monday night after a series of media reports purportedly detailed his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. about sanctions levied against Moscow by the Obama administration. The reports indicated Flynn had given Vice President Mike Pence “incomplete information” about the calls, leading Pence to deny discussion of sanctions took place.
Earlier this week, Chaffetz sent a letter to the White House questioning security protocols at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida after the president and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe discussed North Korea’s recent ballistic missile test in a public setting.
jesus christ
Baud
Information wants to be free
To attack Hillary
In every other way
Information wants to stay.
Mathguy
The house is burning down and they want to arrest the person that reported it. Nice.
laura
How do you expect the Administration to conduct a proper “Night of the Long Knives” without a score card?
priorities and all . . .
debbie
Whores.
Major Major Major Major
In unrelated news, Berkeley’s anti-Milo protests were so effective at silencing him that he’s Bill Maher’s main guest this week so they can talk about how colleges ‘suppress free speech’. Bravo, idiots who can’t control your own damn protests/support smashing ATMs because somethingsomething punching Nazis.
lollipopguild
These are people who will be stubbornly stupid until the very last second.
Ruckus
@Mathguy:
No…..
They set the house on fire and are pissed that someone is reporting on them being arsonists. They could give a shit about the actual fire. Unless it gets put out.
Major Major Major Major
@Mathguy: I saw a picture of the “this is fine” dog but the speech balloon said “the real problem here is the smoke detector.”
albertZ
Not saying I’m a fan but even Rethug Senators (other than Cruz) hate this band of Teabagger Congressional Carpetbaggers. Time for the Senate to do their job and throw anus face to the dogs.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: You don’t think he would have ended up on Maher’s show anyway?
Loneoak
@Major Major Major Major: I’m pretty sure Maher deserves the bulk of the blame here. It’s his own damn fault that he’s enamored with anti-Muslim bigots.
Manyakitty
@Major Major Major Major: That pretty much cements my view of Maher as a worthless douchebag.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: not right now. The whole point of his tour is to get people to burn things so he ends up on things like Maher’s show. Berkeley was kind enough to accede.
Lyrebird
@Mathguy: Yes, that’s even more accurate than that Calif Rep’s (Schiff?) line about Trumpian reasoning – your spouse heard from someone else about your cheating on them & the defense is “but it’s about the leak!”… sorry no linky, just exhausted.
I hope Chaffetz’ career is one of many ruined by this Republican Administration on its way down, and that the fall can happen before they even get to invade Grenada, forget anything bigger.
Soonergrunt (mobile)
It’s Chaffetz. He threw his own daughter under the bus for Trump. Of course he’s running interference for Trump.
Having said that, I am uncomfortable with people leaking classified info to harm the sitting President.
Almost as uncomfortable as I am with the likelihood that the sitting President is compromised by a foreign intelligence service, knowing that the Republican Congress will do nothing about it.
Ruckus
Cole, my take is that there is only one thing to say, and at the top of your lungs.
FUCK!!!!
Ben Vernia
Chaffetz’ choice of the DOJ Inspector General is an odd one, and is probably intended as a jab at the IG for opening an investigation into Comey’s 11th-hour pre-election letter. A typical leak investigation would be conducted by the FBI and DOJ Criminal or National Security Divisions.
Hunter Gathers
Peak Wingnut.
We’re living through it right now.
And you fucking know it.
Baud
@Soonergrunt (mobile): Agree. And since no one except us was offended by what they did to Hillary, I’m not wasting time worrying about what they are doing to Trump.
Mathguy
@Hunter Gathers: There is no peak wing nut. Cole tried to make that call and look how that turned out.
Starfish
There is a song about this.
Mike J
@Major Major Major Major: They didn’t bring him on after one of his cultists shot a guy in Seattle, just to watch him die.
D58826
One more possible violation of emolument clause. Seems Trump has been trying to get copyright protection for his brand in China w/o any luck. He flips on his China position and now supports one china. Copyright granted. Surely just a coincidence.
https://twitter.com/pescami/status/832061921838956544
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Maybe Chaffetz should hire some plumbers to plug the leaks.
oh wait…..
chopper
this is just perfect. i mean, this is GOP mendacity all rolled up in a perfect little package.
Major Major Major Major
@Hunter Gathers: oh god no don’t say that…!
@Baud: I’ve been wrestling with the question of when a move like this (if indeed it keeps escalating until Trump is gone) by the IC is acceptable. And I think we may be there. It’s up to congress now. And if they don’t act…
dr. bloor
@debbie: @Major Major Major Major: Bill Maher is still a thing?
hilts
I’m tuning up a tiny violin for Jason Chaffetz’s latest case of butthurt. He’s another Republican member of Congress who’s nothing more than a worthless sack of protoplasm.
Keith P.
What information was classified? IIRC the conversation was between a private citizen (at the time) on vacation in another country (Dominican Republic) talking on the phone with a Russian official. It’s already common knowledge that the NSA can tap foreign calls (it was covered on the news quite extensively a few years back).
dr. bloor
Bannon and his Merry Band of Ivans might skate, but Sid the Science Kid is in deep shit.
Timurid
A (theoretically) possible counterattack by trump:
He finds a federal judge crooked/partisan enough to write a bunch of vague, open-ended warrants.
Small armies of FBI and other federal law enforcement types descend on Langley and Ft. Meade, looking for evidence of the dreaded leaks.
Hilarity ensues.
Ruckus
@Soonergrunt (mobile):
How you doing?
In a normal world I’d agree with your being uncomfortable. I would be as well. But this is not a normal situation. He is not even close to being a “normal” republican president. It seems to me that we pay lots of people and buy lots of surveillance stuff to make sure that someone isn’t colluding with an enemy. What else can be done when it is the president and/or his hand picked people besides leak it? Is the FBI going to arrest him? Can they? Is the house going to bring impeachment charges? (They are after all only slightly smarter than he is) Will the senate do it’s duty if the house does it’s? And lastly if IC doesn’t leak it will it ever see the light of day?
James Powell
@Major Major Major Major:
There’s something about Maher that makes him want to be loved by or in with the RW stars of the moment. He wants to be the guy on “The Left” who the RWers say nice things about. I don’t really know why.
Ian G.
@Major Major Major Major:
If Congress is willing to be as much a check on Trump (who has declared the press, Democrats, Muslims, Latinos, the courts etc to be Enemies of the State) as Iraqi parliament was on Saddam Hussein, then I’m fine with IC destabilizing him. If we don’t live in a democratic republic under the rule of law anymore, then we live somewhere where a coup d’etat is a legit form of politics.
Vhh
Recall key facts of Watergate scandal:
1. Nixon ordered the formation of the Plumbers, former CIA agents, to stop danaging leaks. This led ultimately to the fateful DNC burglary.
2. Nixon later ordered the CIA [via Haldeman] to obstruct the FBI’s investigation of the whole affair. The CIA refused and exposed this obstruction of justice, the coverup that was worse than the crime.
Conclusion: the GOP are scared shitless to try such a maneuver, that can easily backfire [and probably will, eventually].
Kristine
Senate’s moving forward with investigations, though. Warning: HuffPo link.
“It’s sad that the deliberative body is moving with urgency, and that the urgent body is moving deliberatively,” he said. (He being Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.))
Major Major Major Major
@James Powell: many white men have a terrible case of “well actually,” he’s just one of the more famous liberalish ones.
Regnad Kcin
@James Powell: Typical short-guy mentality.
I say this at 5’6″
Timurid
@Timurid: Oh, fuck, I may not have been off by that much…
Adam L Silverman
@Timurid: Not going to happen. Rather, from what I’ve read from people connected to the civilian IC, there have been a series of meetings regarding concerns that one of his supporters will read a tweet and decide to go the armed at Comet Pizza route at one of the facilities.
Keith P.
@James Powell: For a while, I thought he was a RW parody act, kind of like Colbert. Most of his jokes are shit, and he gets applause by either promoting weed or telling someone off who isn’t actually there (“George Bush, you know who grinds my gears? Yyyyyoooou!”)
And didn’t the dude bang Ann Coulter for a while? That should be end-of-story right there.
rikyrah
@D58826:
Uh huh
Uh huh
amk
joe mccarthy must be kicking himself in the grave for being born in the wrong witch hunt era.
p.a.
Their game may succeed for 4 or even dog forbid 8 years, but it doesn’t look like it has legs currently: -55% to +40%. If this trendline continues the fellow traveler knee-jerk bigots, self-aware hypocrits and liars will slink away (see Bush, Geo. W.), leaving only the true believer, actual morans as supporters. Don’t think (don’t want to think) there’s enough of ’em in the population to support a successful political party or movement.
Timurid
@Adam L Silverman: Yeah, who needs warrants when you’ve got pink slips.
Nothing more Russian than a good old fashioned purge. I’m actually surprised it’s taken him this long to consider the ‘fire everything that moves’ gambit.
cmorenc
This is the same Jason Chaffetz who said on October 7, 2016:
So how has Chaffetz managed to avoid eye contact with his 15yo daughter for four months now?
Adam L Silverman
@Timurid: If you think the leaking is bad now. Also, given how badly Cerberus has run Freedom Group/Remington Outdoors, this guy couldn’t fix a sandwich.
SRW1
@Soonergrunt (mobile):
Shit has all the making of a constitutional crisis with lasting structural damage. The only semi clean way out would be for Chaffetz to actually do his damn job for once instead of the kabuki dances he presided over in the last Congress.
Adam L Silverman
@Timurid: That’s not going to happen either. The Intelligence Community is made up of two sets of personnel: uniformed military and civil servants. Its not easy to just fire either of those, even if the latter are Title 10 excepted service.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
The question is if next president will pardon Trump, given that treason (working with foreign power to subvert election) is much higher bar than Watergate.
Mnemosyne
@dr. bloor:
Just wait until Chaffetz finds out that Doc McStuffins is Black. And isn’t even a real doctor!
Dog Dawg Damn
Welp, Chaffetz is now on record as planning to investigate THE LEAKS!!!@!#%#%.
The Leaks! Not the collusion with Russia. The Intel Comm. leaks.
Timurid
@Adam L Silverman: His job will be to wreck, not to fix.
hilts
@cmorenc:
By thrusting his head incredibly far up Trump’s fat ass.
Peale
Well I guess we’ll see what a one state solution will look like. Next up, an Israel with only Jews.
rikyrah
@Dog Dawg Damn:
Hmmph.
The leaks.
They dig themselves deeper.
So.be.it.
sukabi
@Keith P.: just speculating here, but perhaps drumpf had his Russian “steal the election” ops classified after taking the oath, therefore the treason has been classified.
Adam L Silverman
@Timurid: He can’t just wreck it. The IC can only be restructured through an act of Congress. Making him the President’s Special Advisor for Intelligence and Intelligence Community Reform isn’t going to get him very far.
dr. bloor
@cmorenc:
I’d be confident in stating that the fifteen-year-old is probably taking the lead on that.
Timurid
Then he’ll just pick out a nice monkey wrench (help them draft the bill), hand it to the compliant goons in Congress and let them swing it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Dear god. Is Josh Marshal gonna do Dignity Wraith Awards?
(on topic because “these fucking people” )
* who is dead, it was a statue, just to be clear
** again, dead, statue
Lyrebird
There are some remining Republicans with principles. Here’s one..
(warning – autoplay of ads)
@Ruckus: I think that some of the leakers are probably staunch conservatives — ones with principles that is — and they’ve been giving the admin LOTS of hints and warnings, all ignored.
Whoever is doing this is being more careful than Wikileaks folks about not randomly exposing people (blowing their cover), and I am grateful they’re trying to keep this a rule-of-law-ish land.
seaboogie
@James Powell: Maher makes me want to take a shower, and explicitly NOT with him – clever can’t provide sufficient cover for the underlying smarm…and as a woman – I find him extra-creepy.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: Well, actually, that isn’t really the case.
Keith P.
@cmorenc: Seeing as how Chaffetz is riding the Trump Train now, he probably avoids eye contact by staring at her chest.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kristine: “In Berlin the situation is serious but not desperate; in Vienna, the situation is desperate but not serious.”
Adam L Silverman
@Timurid: I’m guessing this is addressed to me in response to my last reply. Simply: won’t make it past the 60 vote cloture in the Senate.
rikyrah
@Soonergrunt (mobile):
Good to see you.?
p.a.
@Dog Dawg Damn: Isn’t that a pretty dangerous game anyway? Unless they muzzle the Dems on the committee or they all channel Lieberman, can’t anyone before the committee as a hostile witness, i.e. leaker, be prompted by questioning to expose relevant damaging information? Or can committee ‘investigate’ in camera due to ‘national security’ concerns to protect the admin?
Omnes Omnibus
@Timurid: Please stop the doom porn.
rikyrah
@Timurid:
A hedge fund manager vs The Spooks….
Hmmmmm
Lyrebird
@rikyrah:
Silly aside, but do you remember “Things that Make You Go Hmmmm”, C&C Music Factory I think?
amk
@Timurid: The lil fingered know nothing has already lost two of his ‘czars’ and it’s not even a month yet, ffs. You think whatever moron this moron ‘appoints’ is gonna take down the entire IC?
Lyrebird
@Ruckus: PS: earlier comment was supposed to include this:
…and I hope all o’ your health treatments are doing what they need to do!
Omnes Omnibus
@Lyrebird: Yep.
Bupalos
Don’t know what to say? I say awesomesauce. There is pretty much zero benefit to Republican controlled investigations and zero chance they are going to deliver us from this evil. On the other hand, there is a really good chance they are going to have an escape pod ready when the self-destruct sequence commences.
A quick impeachment sounds great, but when you actually game that out I don’t think we get all that big a win out of it when the smoke clears. The big win on the table here is tie the entire republican agenda to Trump before he goes down in flames. Yeah, there are big risks involved there too. But it’s probably worth it.
MCA1
Am I crazy here, or is “investigating the leaks” likely to just lead to (a) MOAR LEAKS BIGLY, and (b) leaks about how much McConnell and Ryan knew, until morale improves through the beatings? I’m kind of tempted to just say “Please proceed, Representative.” Adam, feel free to disabuse me of this notion, but I also imagine it’s going to be hard to figure out who, amongst a bunch of professional spies, is feeding the press information, right? Won’t they scatter like cockroaches but find new and better ways to continue leaking stuff?
Again, concerned citizens need to take it to the streets and f’ing besiege this guy every time he sets foot in Utah. McMullin should file to primary him tomorrow, and a well-funded Dem should start releasing ads during the six o’clock news in Salt Lake every night about how Chaffetz is a coward doing Drumpf’s evil bidding.
Elizabelle
OT: Half of a gorgeous orange-gold moon out there tonight. Clear skies.
And Trump can’t do one thing to fuck it up. Gonna concentrate on things the orange one cannot ruin.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Bupalos: Yep. Tie them to Trump. Take the House in 2018. Take the Senate and White House in 2020.
Starfish
@Major Major Major Major: Maher is responsible for choosing his guests. He is choosing someone who has nothing intelligent to say. Some people are cancelling their appearances because Maher is giving a platform to Milo.
Redshift
A guest on NPR today (I’m guessing from a bit of digging that it was David Ignatius, but I’m not sure) said that despite Trump’s certainty that the IC is leaking, this information could well have been legitimately passed to the intelligence committees or other officials and leaked from there. (Adam, do you agree?) So conducting a witch hunt against the intelligence agencies might not find the leakers, even if it were conducted competently, which it won’t be, because Trump.
Timurid
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m not talking about a purge with actual bullets. At least not yet.
It might go something like:
Hedge Fund High Inquisitor and friends conduct their audit in the most demeaning manner possible.
They leak their ‘discoveries’ to get the public agitated.
The fake news machine spins for a while.
Trump uses their ‘findings’ to draft legislation disruptive to the agencies and departments he sees as a threat.
Of course at the rate things are moving, there might not be time for this.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@MCA1: word on the Obama Bros podcast was the McMullen is planning to run for Governor of Utah
sukabi
@Adam L Silverman: that may be the point. Fuck up the spy services so bad there isn’t any coherent plan or policy in place and let the looting begin. Who’s going to leak if the people left are just there to protect the king?
Bupalos
@seaboogie: Agreed. The guy is (very) badly warmed over George Carlin. “Smarm” is exactly the right term, I’m always uncomfortable with the point, however valid, when he’s the guy who is making it.
p.a.
Daily gobsmack: it’s the new normal!
A day without outrage is like a day without sunshine.
Baseball hot dogs apple pies and Russian spies…
Elizabelle
@Soonergrunt (mobile): Howdy. Hope all is going well in your quarter of the world. Good to see you here.
Lyrebird
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh thank you! Had never seen the video, that was tasty. You take care o’ yourself, ‘kay? Gotta tone down my snark consumption to get more sleep.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Starfish: I’m livid with Bill Maher.
Free Speech is not the freedom and right to spew hatred everywhere without repercussion, as everyone here knows.
Milo is basically just a troll who uses hate speech to fund his gay chemsex tour of the U.S. He’ll get deported when the meth runs out.
Major Major Major Major
@Starfish: and good for them. You still shouldn’t punch your enemy when he’s begging you to punch him.
Soonergrunt (mobile)
@SRW1: not gonna happen.
PK
Well what’s to stop the US intelligence agencies sharing the information with other countries and have information be leaked that way. Congress can’t investigate other countries’ agencies. At least not until we go to war and take them over.
Adam L Silverman
@MCA1: I think that it will only fuel the war between the President and the IC. And, remember, we’ve known since January that the ICs of our allies and partners are conducting their own investigations to protect their own sources, assets, personnel, and their state’s interests. Those folks can leak too.
Jeffro
@Elizabelle:
True! We have to enjoy the little things and take care of ourselves.
The ISS went directly overhead earlier this evening (a 6 minute crossing!) and of course even though it’s the 20th time, I dragged the kids out to the sidewalk to see it. Good to be reminded of the positive things!
Adam L Silverman
@Redshift: Yes, but if its Ignatius saying this, its interesting, as he’s often the go to for high level intel sources.
Adam L Silverman
@Timurid: Again, not going to happen. The IC will protect itself.
Omnes Omnibus
@Timurid: I’ve been reading your comments throughout this thread. You are talking doom everywhere. You may need a break from the news and the internet for a while. We need everyone ready and steeled for the fight to come over the next few years. We also have to have faith that we can make it through this. Or a “Fuck it, I am gong down fighting” mindset. Do what you need to do and let’s fight on. But doom saying doesn’t help.
Mike J
@PK:
Newsweek says European countries already have tapes of Trumpsters on the phone with Russia. We don’t explicitly know if they collected sigint themselves or if somebody with a good working relationship with them assisted.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Bupalos: every once in a while he burns a right-winger good, but what everyone else said– smarmy and creepily misogynist– and also often surprisngly uninformed and lazy, especially for someone whose schtick is “the smartest guy in the room”, and lets bombastic right-wingers– Coulter, Stephen Moore, Reihan Salam (sp?), Ben Stein– shout down people who actually are the smartest ones in the room
Yarrow
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Wasn’t one of the Romney spawn also rumored to run for Gov of Utah? That’ll be fun to watch.
The longer the Republicans drag this out the worse it’s going to be for them. I’m kind of surprised at this point that they don’t see this. I thought they were savvier than that. Not necessarily smarter, but good at reading how things are going. Maybe it’s an indication they have something to hide as well?
Now wouldn’t that be fun…watching to see what leaks come out about Republicans lower down the food chain. What do the spooks know about McConnell and Ryan and Chaffetz?
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Lyrebird: That judge is an odd bird, but quite bright and quite principled. A born lecturer, but he was aghast at the deep drift right by the GOP, and clearly still is. I haven’t seen him in a couple of years, and I’ll write to thank him for the nice op ed.
Trivia: I successfully appealed a decision he made (as a trial judge) in a consolidated case of 78 criminal defendants, and later unsuccessfully appealed a decision on a motion to supress. I used to tease him “78 to 1, Bella.”
Adam L Silverman
@sukabi: The point of my comment was that the guy who’s name is being floated managed to take a firearms company, during the Obama Administration, which is basically a license to print dollars and fuck it up so badly that virtually everyone that knows anything about guns wants nothing to do with the products his company and its subsidiaries produce. He will neither have the power nor the competence to actually do anything but be an annoyance.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: Yes those other countries’ IC can leak too…and as we’ve seen with Chaffetz and Trump and King and others reactions to our own IC’s leak, much of the GOP will try to make it out to be a conspiracy, the ‘globalist left’ trying to take down Trump, etc etc.
I suppose the next thing will be actual audio of Trump CampaignRussia calls, actual emails, actual texts being released, as well as whatever blackmail material Putin has on at least some GOP lawmakers that’s helping keep them in line.
sukabi
@Adam L Silverman: and they’ve also captured communications between drumpf team and Russian officials…
Bupalos
I think what the Trumpublicans are misunderstanding is how fast this thing can and probably will move. Spookvile will stay 2 jumps ahead, I’m pretty sure any kind of war footing that the administration tries to adopt will have been anticipated. The Trumpublicans cannot escalate fast enough, they’ve already badly underestimated the timescale here (obviously, and I think it’s utterly laughable that they’re just now threatening to crack down on “illegal leaks.”
Chaffetz threatening to turn congressional investigations in that direction? HAHAHAHAHAHA. Dead beaver walking.
Jeffro
@Mike J: @Yarrow: looks like we were on the same wavelength here folks.
KS in MA
WANTED: Democratic candidate to run against Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) in primary for 2018 elections. Must have iron stomach. Candidate with own funding preferred, as national Democratic Party is temporarily in disarray.
Adam L Silverman
@PK: They don’t have to share it. We’ve known for over a month that our allies and partner’s ICs are doing their own investigation into the President’s, his campaign’s, his transition’s, and now his Administration’s connections to Russia. They won’t need to be fed anything from us.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike J:
::cough, cough::
Jeffro
@Bupalos:
it’s weird, isn’t it? I mean it makes sense that he feels he’s in a safe district and so can go all out for Trump without much cost…but how does he look his daughter (and/or wife) in the eye, as so many have said? What in the world would cause a MoC to look at the Russia evidence and say “it’s solving itself”, and now, “we’re going to go after the leakers”
When the dam breaks on this stuff, when we finally find out what Russia has on Chaffetz, Ryan, McConnell, it’s going to be unbelievable. Just Mercer cash alone couldn’t get these guys to tow the line like this. They almost have to be on the hook for something…
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Soonergrunt (mobile): Howdy! Good to see you and hope you’re well. Like you, I’m a bit uncomfortable with IC targeting an executive, but I’m completely uncomfortable with an executive this opaque w/r/t business and debts while clearly connected to Russia. And that makes me hope Schindler’s prediction that people are going to jail is correct. He’s a first class asshole, but he does seem to have good sources.
Bupalos
@hilts: No, it’s the teeth. The beaver teeth. No one makes eye contact because your deepest animal instinct is to keep you eyes on the teeth.
Adam L Silverman
@Mike J: They have their own capabilities and routinely focus SIGINT on Russia as Putin is the major regional threat to NATO and the EU.
Timurid
@Omnes Omnibus:
Just one last thing before I leave the thread:
I’m trying to visualize things that Trump might attempt.
We’re at the point where “that’s simply not done” “that’s not possible” or even “that’s explicitly illegal” may no longer restrain him.
That being said, whatever Trump tries, there is no guarantee that he will succeed. He’s certainly no super genius.
Adam presented good reasons why various gambits would fail. Sending the FBI into Langley would be batshit insane. But this is Trump, so who knows. He;s that fucked in the head. That ploy or others would almost certainly fail, but it would still make a huge mess.
Suffragete City elftx
@Adam L Silverman:
Isn’t his real goal ‘cleaning house’ of all disloyal to the shitgibbon? I would have to assume there are some in IC that are loyal and may be willing to ‘out’ others..a distasteful thought that scares me of possible outcomes.
Jersey Tomato
If Chaffetz wants to find out who is releasing secret information, he should start with himself, since he revealed the existence of a secret CIA annex at Benghazi during hearings in 2012.
Adam L Silverman
@sukabi: Yes, yes they have.
Starfish
@Major Major Major Major: Where is the money coming from to fund his talks around the country? Are people really putting their schools activities funds towards this? Why are the schools allowing a person who a) is not making a legitimate point b) making fun of all the female students on campus? These schools are not creating a proper learning environment.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: They can deny and deflect all they want. Eventually reality will bite back.
Omnes Omnibus
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: We are in uncharted territory. I want, no, I need to know how compromised Trump is. Whistleblowing might well be needed here.
sukabi
@Adam L Silverman: as far as the drumpf team is concerned do you really think that’s a problem for them? Judging from the last 3 weeks, none of them are even vaguely interested in figuring out how to do their jobs. Settling scores, grabbing power, and rewarding the idiots who shoveled money their way.
Adam L Silverman
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: OT: Did you get my email last night? Or do I need to resend?
Yarrow
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: I don’t see it as the IC targeting the Executive. I see it as the IC keeping their oath to defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. Compromised people in the Executive branch, up to and including the president, seems to fit the domestic threats. The IC knows this, they have informed Congress and Congress isn’t doing its job. So the IC is going to make Congress do their job so that they, the IC, in turn are doing theirs.
joel hanes
@p.a.:
see Bush, Geo. W.
I just happen to have a link to the graph I consulted nearly every day during The Recent Unpleasantness
https://web.archive.org/web/20091226120911/http://pollkatz.homestead.com/files/approval-data_files/zzzmainGRAPHICS_14808_image001.gif
You’ll notice that the limit of the series seems to be KFMonkey’s “crazification factor”, approx 27 %.
However, Cheney made W look like the prom queen by comparison — his polling bottomed out just below 19%.
I think 17% is the floor, and I think that Trump/Bannon is just the team to keep digging until it’s achieved.
amk
spy vs sty.
will the pigs fly?
Elie
@Yarrow:
I hear ya about the Republicans. Way back, though, it was speculated that the Republican Party had been hacked by the Russians but then blackmailed into silence. Have no idea but that would fit what we see… a party whose actions are being distorted by an unseen force… Like astronomers detecting a black hole by logging the behavior of the stars that surround it and how their orbits become distorted the closer they get to the event horizon.
I am afraid we are just in for it — from every direction. There is no clean way out of this and the multitude of players and agendas doom us to a long, harrowing period of conflict and many small wars. I don’t think the old Republican and Democratic Parties will survive this as configured. Civil War though maybe without bloodshed (hopefully)…
I would love to be wrong… I just don’t see Trump supporters joining the union anytime soon….
Major Major Major Major
@Starfish: many schools have a first come first served, all comers taken policy to venue reservations. The booking fees are being paid for by student groups’ own funds.
Adam L Silverman
@Suffragete City elftx: I don’t mean to keep belaboring this, but, again: the IC is composed of two groups of personnel. The first are uniformed military. The second are civil servants. And while some of those are excepted service, they still simply can’t be removed and replaced. Unless Congress passes legislation destroying civil service protections, its not easy to clean house.
Soonergrunt (mobile)
@Mike J: this is where Five Eyes works.
Allied intel agency collects on Trump and company, US IC knows about it because Five Eyes all share everything with each other. US spook tells US reporter about it, or tells US reporter “go talk to Mr. Smith at the Canadian embassy.” This is most likely, frankly. Completely avoids constitutional/legal issues.
Alternatively, US IC collects on Trump and company, and Five Eyes sees it, again because they share everything, and Australian agricultural attache makes a phone call to a WaPo reporter.
Omnes Omnibus
@Timurid: Okay, I get that. But I am just saying how you came across to me. If my advice is unnecessary, please take it as well-intentioned
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Omnes Omnibus: My point exactly. I need to know how bad this is, and the IC is the only capable whistleblower.
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks. I’ll review and respond after I thank my pal the judge for his op ed, which will take some actual drafting.
@Yarrow: I agree, while understanding how many people might frame it as “targeting,” which I used without endorsing the framing. We need information that Congress won’t provide, so the IC has to do so.
Adam L Silverman
@Starfish: Student organizations at universities and colleges are funded through the student government, and, in some cases, outside funding streams. In these case the college republican chapters inviting him have funding from the student government and, most likely, they have funding from the national college republican organization.
Yarrow
@Elie: They’ve definitely got something on McConnell. I’d imagine they have dirt on a wide variety of Congressional representatives. It’s going to get ugly for them the longer they drag this out. They are stupid not to see it coming.
They are apparently still scared of their voters because they start investigating Trump and their voters may turn on them. I would guess that whatever the IC has on them is much worse than losing the next election would be, should that info be made public. So we’ll see what leverage is out there and what motivates them to investigate.
The reality is, this is a crisis. Some Republicans will end up looking better than others because calling for investigations and then being ahead of the curve will end up making them looking like the real patriots. The smart ones will have figured that out already. The rest will be roadkill.
Timurid
@Omnes Omnibus:
Sorry, I wasn’t trying to make a mess. I didn’t even realize that I was coming across as super awful compared to recent events, like former optimists telling us it’s time to buy guns.
joel hanes
@Jeffro:
And Trump can’t do one thing to fuck it up
Adam L Silverman
@sukabi: Yes, it matters. Being annoying and obnoxious isn’t going to restructure the IC. I understand that the President neither recognizes or observes norms, traditions, customs, and/or legal precedents. But that said he simply is not going to be able to just do what he wants with the Civil Service.
danielx
@Soonergrunt (mobile):
Agreed, sorta, but if the classified into is to the effect that the KGB* has been influencing our elections, is influencing our policies, has video of a naked Donald Trump peeing on a teenage goat and Trump and Congressional Republicans are letting them get away with the whole fucking nine yards…well. That’s something I, a voter who tries to be informed, want to be informed about.
This guy is actively damaging our security, and I do not think he even truly realizes the problem. As I understand it, NSA is already screening a lot from him because they figure it will go straight to Russia.
*call it it what you want, it’s still the KGB. Especially since ol’ Vlad Vladimirovich re-merged FSB and SVR into none other than – are you ready for it? – the Ministry of State Security (MGB).
John Revolta
@Jeffro: It’s kinda silly, but I always go out and watch it go over whenever I have a chance.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Yarrow: Maybe when they were looking for the 30,000 emails they stumbled over McConnell’s DD214.
Adam L Silverman
@Soonergrunt (mobile): The other four eyes were warned in January not to share with the US anymore.
Omnes Omnibus
@Timurid: Eh, I am on a buck people up – let’s fight these fascists kick. We are better than they are.
Yarrow
This seems about right.
I’ve just copied the rest of the tweets, but you can click through from the above tweet.
seaboogie
@Timurid: Yeah, but it’s the IC with ties to the international community that can leak at will like a rusty sieve…never been so comforted by “deep government” that keeps rolling along in the shadows.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Yarrow: I’ll endorse all that based on my background, training, and experience in criminal practice. Not to mention his projectionitis.
zhena gogolia
E. J. Dionne: Admit It: Trump Is Unfit To Serve. The first comment I saw was “Trump is too unfit to be unfit.” WaPo.
Suzanne
I enjoy fantasizing about Chaffetz losing his job, being divorced by his wife, his children never talking to him again, and enduring a long period of hopeless suffering before dying alone.
Redshift
@sukabi: But that’s the point. I don’t think such incompetence will prevent him from getting the job, but it will prevent him from doing any significant harm to the intelligence agencies.
trollhattan
@joel hanes:
You’ve captured why I was calling him one-term George right through summer of ’01. Trump will do his best to conjure up the Muslim meteor for that sweet bump.
Soonergrunt (mobile)
@Adam L Silverman: yeah, I can see that. But they still know each other, in many cases on a personal level and if one of the others had something imperative, they’d likely reach out through informal channels, and pass sanitized info, or give a heads up.
I think.
I hope.
Bupalos
Trumpublicans are probably trying to assess the resiliency of this whole Trump/Fox electoral phenomena. Their calculus right now is whether that is a real thing that can protect them from anything (and in this context, every absurdity Trump utters or has uttered and continues to get away with is a positive) or if it’s a kind of fad and function of the temporary weakness of the opposition. In quiet moments they probably think “Jesus, this isn’t sustainable… but then again, look, Trump is insane, and yet there he sits!”
The zeitgeist managing to barf back up Kellyanne’s “alternative facts” and “Bowling Green Massacre” instead of digesting it as intended are the biggest wins we’ve had. This “the real problem with the administration actually being russian spies is that that information is classified and shouldn’t be leaked” is another test case, if the zeitgeist can’t digest that, the tower is coming down pronto.
debbie
Having been in the military for so long, shouldn’t Flynn have known his call with the Russian ambassador would be monitored? I don’t understand what he was thinking.
sukabi
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: naw, it’s more likely with all the twisted $exual stuff they found massive evidence of republicans engaging in election fraud… For all drumpfs yammering on about millions of fraudulent voters the republicans are shying away from any investigations into election function…funny.
Soonergrunt (mobile)
@debbie: yes, he should have. I have no explanation for that level of stupid except that Flynn probably had reason to believe that it wouldn’t matter.
Ruckus
@Lyrebird:
Thanks!
They are still working on what, so the what they do is sort of shotgun meds and see what happens. Right now I have 7 appointments scheduled up to May 1st plus labs, most of them new testing. Can’t say that life isn’t interesting. But some of the new meds seem to be having a reasonable effect. Yea!
danielx
@Yarrow:
Somewhere in a drawer I have a t-shirt with the following on the front:
Admit Nothing
Deny Everything
Make Counteraccusations
Omnes Omnibus
@Soonergrunt (mobile): Golly, that would never happen.
How are you doing? I’ve been off Twitter since the thing on November. I am glad to see you posting here again.
Redshift
@Jeffro:
Simple: the original declaration about not being able to look them in the eye was just BS, and he was just using his wife and daughter as props. Since it was never true, he has no trouble at all going enthusiastically in the other direction.
That quote comes to mind about the difficulty of getting a man to believe something when his salary depends on believing the opposite…
Jack the Second
@Major Major Major Major: Bill Maher is one of those great learning lessons in picking your heroes.
He gets a lot of people by being loud and on the right side of a few things, but then you scratch the surface and he’s so far off on so many others — he’s incredibly weak on science and skepticism, in addition to being in the anti-Muslim atheist clique.
Elizabelle
@Jeffro: The ISS. How cool.
Suffragete City elftx
@Adam L Silverman:
It’s quite allright and thank you. I always appreciate your measured responses.
debbie
@Soonergrunt (mobile):
Thanks.
rikyrah
@Lyrebird:
I do remember that ???
Bupalos
@Redshift: Oh, yeah, I didn’t even know with this “looking his daughter in the eye” thing that there is some backstory to that. If anyone has fallen for that, that Chaffetz worries about some political morality that needs to pass muster with normal human beings he cares about, I say to that person “disabuse thyself.” They’re all evil robots (by requirement) but no one is more clearly an evil robot than that freaky beaverian mf’er.
Redshift
@Soonergrunt (mobile): That’s the only way I can square it. He was enough of an arrogant authoritarian to believe that they would own the intelligence agencies and would be able to make it all go away.
Soonergrunt (mobile)
@Omnes Omnibus: working to keep my spirits and optimism up and for those around me. I’ve been gratified to learn these last weeks that there are a lot of people as concerned as we are.
Like you, I say we fight. We fight for our home, and what she can be.
The fight is not ours to win. It is not ours to quit. It is the work of lifetimes, and it never ends.
dm
@Soonergrunt (mobile):
Matthew Yglesias said on his “The Weeds” podcast that the leaks seem too have gone like this: pass word up through the acting attorney general that there’s a problem with Flynn. When nothing happens for a couple of weeks, leak a bit to the press. When still nothing happens, escalate further.
So, I’m less uncomfortable with this than I might be, especially since Flynn resigned so quickly. And since the leaks are consistent with my fears that there’s a mole in the Situation Room.
efgoldman
@dr. bloor:
I don’t suppose very many voters back in his Utah district read WaPo. Is Millbank syndicated?
efgoldman
@Adam L Silverman:
Does it even get him in the gate at Langley?
Omnes Omnibus
@Soonergrunt (mobile): We need you in it so take care of yourself.
patroclus
I’m not that concerned about Jason Chaffetz attempting to find the leakers because I don’t think he’ll find them and even if he finds a few, there’ll be more that he won’t. And, as others have noted, they might not even be U.S. officials/employees and I’m not getting the illegality of it if it’s coming from Canada, Australia or the U.K. They found Snowden and Manning but the leakers of this stuff aren’t quite as exposed or identifiable and they’re trying to remain under cover. We’ll see. What I am upset about is that Chaffetz apparently didn’t get the message from his constituents at his recent townhall – he continues to put party over country and doesn’t appear likely to do much of anything as far as investigating the most corrupt and possibly traitorous administration ever and that’s bad for the country. I don’t think it’s a matter of them having any damaging info about him (or McConnell or others); I think he’s just a clueless Republican, who values that status over patriotism.
Unlike others on this thread, I like Bill Maher and enjoy his comedy a lot and his political commentary not as much. I don’t agree with him on everything – he’s a left-libertarian and I’m not, but I’m not for shutting him up even when he is wrong. As for Milo, well, he’s kind of the Andrew Dice Clay of gay fascist incitement guys – he’s offensive and annoying and inflammatory, but I think his shtick is not effective and that he’ll burn out soon enough. Kind of a more-out-there version of David Horowitz who is similarly ineffective.
Soonergrunt
@efgoldman: Chaffetz had a rough time in his town hall last week.
https://goo.gl/LeiODi
Now, he’s still popular outside Salt Lake County in the southeast part of the state, but his popularity has been trending downward for some time now.
Some people are suggesting Evan McMullin for Governor, but more people around these parts are talking for him to run to primary Chaffetz.
We’ll see.
efgoldman
@Omnes Omnibus:
Could be worse. You’ll recall a certain regular here had NoKo nuking LA. What they were going to use to get it there was never considered.
Mnemosyne
@efgoldman:
A cargo ship in the Port of Los Angeles would work nicely. For NoKo, anyway.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Yarrow:
There are rumors out there about the turtle. Google is your friend.
Yarrow
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I know about the rumors. Could be that or could be that and more. I think there’s something on his wife’s family as well. Whatever it is is big.
Villago Delenda Est
@Soonergrunt (mobile): He wasn’t aware that other NATO countries were listening in. He thought the damage would be contained to NSA intercepts.
He was wrong.
cw moss
@Soonergrunt (mobile): I think this is one of the reasons Silverman the other day (yesterday?) opined that we’ve been in a constitutional crisis since last fall.
prob50
@cmorenc:
Pimp her out and then blame it on drugs and liberals, then ship her off to a Christian Rehabilitation Camp until after your next re-election bid.
No eye contact required.
TenguPhule
Nothing is going to change until the Entire Republican Leadership in Congress are Impaled on Barbed stakes to serve as examples to future generations.
Josie
@Timurid: Just spit balling here, but, given what the IC has already managed to do to the Trump administration, Mr. Feinberg would be better off giving them a wide berth. They have many years of experience in this sort of warfare.
J R in WV
@Major Major Major Major:
Well, actually, if the demonstrators had bashed in the correct thing, Milo, instead of other people’s property, it would have been all different, and probably OK.
Nazis are for hanging. For the sins of their fathers, and the sins they so are so hot to commit if only they could.
J R in WV
@Adam L Silverman:
So, Adam, you’re saying to not invest precious defense funding in a Remington 700 rifle? Thanks for the head up.
Was thinking of .308/7.62, as .338s seem priced very high. Thoughts?
J R in WV
@Yarrow:
Plus their connection to Russia fits foreign threats.
@Soonergrunt (mobile):
Sooner, Does that perspective make you more comfortable? It does me. The oaths are not to the executive, but to the constitution!
Neldob
@James Powell: He just likes to poke people in the eye and cause a stir. Maybe Milo will spontaneously combust.