Michael Flynn was present for weeks of daily CIA briefings, despite concerns that he was vulnerable to blackmail https://t.co/CUo68E05tQ
— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 21, 2017
As Miss Manners would’ve told Pompeo, sometimes the rules are there to protect you from your friends. It’s certainly possible to imagine (if you squint hard enough) that a guy from one’s personal circle, well-known for his range of interests, might choose to sit in on the briefings in all innocence. Surely a man with such a storied military career would know what could not be safely repeated outside the room, immune from minor peccadilloes of money or fame…
Senior officials across the government became convinced in January that the incoming national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, had become vulnerable to Russian blackmail.
At the F.B.I., the C.I.A., the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — agencies responsible for keeping American secrets safe from foreign spies — career officials agreed that Mr. Flynn represented an urgent problem.
Yet nearly every day for three weeks, the new C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo, sat in the Oval Office and briefed President Trump on the nation’s most sensitive intelligence — with Mr. Flynn listening. Mr. Pompeo has not said whether C.I.A. officials left him in the dark about their views of Mr. Flynn, but one administration official said Mr. Pompeo did not share any concerns about Mr. Flynn with the president.
The episode highlights a remarkable aspect of Mr. Flynn’s tumultuous, 25-day tenure in the White House: He sat atop a national security apparatus that churned ahead despite its own conclusion that he was at risk of being compromised by a hostile foreign power…
The concerns about Mr. Flynn’s vulnerabilities, born from misleading statements he made to White House officials about his conversations with the Russian ambassador, are at the heart of a legal and political storm that has engulfed the Trump administration. Many of Mr. Trump’s political problems, including the appointment of a special counsel and the controversy over the firing of the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, can ultimately be traced to Mr. Flynn’s stormy tenure.
Time and again, the Trump administration looked the other way in the face of warning signs about Mr. Flynn…
Concerns across the government about Mr. Flynn were so great after Mr. Trump took office that six days after the inauguration, on Jan. 26, the acting attorney general, Sally Q. Yates, warned the White House that Mr. Flynn had been “compromised.”…
White House officials have said they moved deliberately both out of respect for Mr. Flynn and because they were not sure how seriously they should take the concerns. They also said the president believed that Ms. Yates, an Obama administration holdover, had a political agenda. She was fired days later over her refusal to defend in court Mr. Trump’s ban on travel for people from several predominantly Muslim countries.
A warning from Mr. Pompeo might have persuaded the White House to take Ms. Yates’s concerns more seriously. Mr. Pompeo, a former congressman, is a Republican stalwart whom Mr. Trump has described as “brilliant and unrelenting.”…
Speaking of protection from one’s “friends”, is is fair to assume that one reason Pompeo chose not to speak up about Flynn’s presence was that he hoped to avoid a fate like that meddlesome talebearer Sally Yates?
Steeplejack
I can’t keep up with this mess. I read, or saw on one of the MSNBC shows, that Pompeo has been strangely absent from all the congressional committee hearings. Then I saw some snippet of him tonight. Was he one of the ones who testified today (Wednesday)?
NotMax
More crooks than found at a shepherd’s convention.
Brachiator
The Guardian reports that at an Iowa rally, Trump unveiled his version of the Prosperity Gospel and the rubes ate it up.
Trump supporters don’t care about Russiagate. They don’t see a problem. Checks, balances, corruption, why bother. Trump is gonna make us all his Apprentice. We’re hired!
TenguPhule
@Brachiator:
I think the only thing I will enjoy about the upcoming collapse of society is when those people get what they’ve been asking for these many years good and hard.
clay
@Brachiator: A rally, huh? Man, I wish I had a job easy enough that I could jet around the country giving speeches that serve no purpose but ego-inflation. But I just don’t have that kind of free time.
Elizabelle
@Steeplejack: OT. Found your favorite cava for 3.25 euros in a neighborhood grocery store, on sale from regular 3.99 euros. It’s all over the place here.
Opened a bottle of the Conde de Caralt rose last night. Even less expensive than the cava, and delicious. Not sweet, tastes lightly of strawberries. Very refreshing. Thanks for recommending the brand.
Steeplejack
@Elizabelle:
I replied to your earlier message (a day or two ago). Three euros and change was making me nervous! But I’m glad you like it. I’ll have to try the rosé, if I can find it. Total Wine has another Conde, with a white label—the Brut has a gold label—but I’ve never tried it. I like the Brut because it’s a little more tart than the other cavas I’ve had. More like “real” champagne. It’s a great low-end bubbly.
JWR
@Brachiator:
Not exactly. Even on my local, (not cable), news, it was reported that when Trump asked his throng if it would’ve been better to have appointed a poor person to run the economy, they reacted with an odd silence for a Trump rally. Maybe reality bites, after all?
PPCLI
@JWR: When addressing a large group of people, many if not most if not all of them not particularly well-off, I can see the message of “Of course I picked a super-rich person. Who wants a loser in a position like that???” could strike a wrong note.
p.a.
@JWR:
then he put a Hillary doll on his hand, banged it on the podium thrice, and the crowd went wild… wash, rinse, repeat.
MomSense
@Steeplejack:
I can’t keep up either. What a pathetic mess this all is.
JWR
@p.a.:
Yeah, pretty much.
Jinchi
It’s important to remember that Flynn would still be working in the White House and working in back channels with the Russians if he hadn’t been publicly exposed.
No. It’s fair to assume that he was happy to work with Trump’s hand-picked National Security Advisor despite knowing Flynn was a security risk.
rikyrah
@TenguPhule:
I hear you
rikyrah
@Jinchi:
Just remember, 44 warned him about Flynn, and he didn’t listen.
rikyrah
I have read the story, and it still makes no phucking sense to me.
You believe the man is SUSPECT – AND YOU CONTINUE HAVING BRIEFINGS WITH HIM?!??
THE PHUCK????
Laura
@rikyrah: Well, there were all those opportunities for personal enrichment, so what’s a guy to do?
Priorities Rikyrah, priorities.
Ruckus
@Laura:
The very heart of the matter.
The concept that conservatives have used forever is that change can be unstable and go in unintended directions so caution and slowness are the bywords. It was bullshit hundreds of years ago and it has never changed. It has always been and will always be opportunities for personal enrichment are better when there is much less equality under the law. That a large percentage of the population will suffer greatly is of no concern. That humanity is never a concept is of no concern. Personal enrichment is the only thing that matters. Fuck a bunch of boats rising on the tide, my boat is the only one that matters.
opportunities for personal enrichment The very basis of conservatism.
Ruckus
@rikyrah:
Sort of makes you wonder, not just about Flynn but about all of them doesn’t it?
They don’t care that Flynn is “compromised” because they all are complicit in the scam. Fuck the poor, the less fortunate, the general masses, whatever it takes to make them just a little (or a lot) richer. Because richer is the only thing that matters.
Trump. It’s not a government, it’s a crime syndicate.