EXCLUSIVE from @ErinBanco
Rex Tillerson secretly met with House foreign affairs committee members today to talk about his time working for Trumphttps://t.co/niUHT4aF31
— Sam Stein (@samstein) May 21, 2019
IMO, Exxon Rex showed up right now just to piss on Jared Kushner’s pretensions, specifically the Chief-Son-in-Law’s recent attempt to PowerPoint-sell Arab oil oligarchs into buying off the Palestinians for Netenyahu’s benefit. To a professional Inergy-Bidnizguy like Tillerson, that’s so amateur as to be a multinational embarrassment…
Former secretary of state Rex Tillerson spoke with the leaders of the House Foreign Affairs committee on Tuesday in a lengthy session that, an aide said, touched on his time working in the Trump administration, the frictions he had with the president’s son-in-law, and efforts to tackle issues like Russian interference in the 2016 election…
Tillerson reached out to the committee and expressed a willingness to meet, a committee aide said. In a more than six-hour meeting, he told members and staffers that the Trump administration actively avoided confronting Russia about allegations of interference in the election in an effort to develop a solid relationship with the Kremlin, a committee aide told The Daily Beast.
Tillerson also told members and aides that he had tried to establish a formal and disciplined interagency process at the State Department whereby the president could receive informed briefings on sensitive foreign policy matters, the aide said. That effort never manifested, Tillerson told the committee, in part because of the president’s management style, but also because of interference from other aides.
Tillerson told the committee that the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, at times impeded his ability to communicate effectively and introduce to President Trump policy proposals developed by State Department experts on major foreign affairs matters across the globe, not just in the Middle East. Kushner, a White House adviser, has publicly focused much of his international efforts on the Middle East and is set to unveil a Middle East peace plan in the coming weeks…
Tillerson had a notoriously prickly relationship with the president, reportedly calling him a “moron” in private. But he was present during critical moments of the administration, including Trump’s private 2017 meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Hamburg, Germany…
Another political rule the Squatter-in-Chief failed to understand: Never piss off people who know where the bodies are buried — especially if they still have the shovels.
TenguPhule
Oh sweet asscovering bullshit. Tillerson was one of the biggest wreckers of the State Dept’s responsibilities.
dmsilev
@TenguPhule: Tillerson is far from an objective witness. It’s still rather interesting that he was willing to do this, and apparently didn’t give the White House any advance notice either (or else they would have invented some reason to keep him from showing up).
Joe Falco
I’m willing to let Rex paint himself a victim if it means one more hook to drag Dolt 45 down from power and bring him to justice.
Gin & Tonic
@TenguPhule: Of course it’s bullshit, but if he’s shivving Prince Jared, do you really care?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@dmsilev: If a private citizen wants to talk to a Congressional committee, I’m not sure sure what the administration can do to stop them, short of arresting them.
Jager
I’ve been in meetings with guys like Kushner. My old boss (a crusty WWII vet landing craft captain) and I sat in a meeting listening to a dope like Kushner explain the broadcast business. My boss, who was an early investor in FM and had been in the business for over 40 years listened for about 5 minutes, turned to me and said, “let’s get a cup of coffee and make a few phone calls”. We got up and left.
Good for old Rex.
Omnes Omnibus
@?BillinGlendaleCA: They told McGahn not to go. Not that they could have stopped him if he were willing to talk.
NotMax
Fed-up-with-this Rex?
Martin
Nancy will accede to impeachment by next week. It’s inevitable.
Jay
@TenguPhule:
In an ongoing process, since Dolt 43, the State Department has been gutted, bypassed and marginalized, as the US turned more and more to Military Proconculs,
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/614/the_pentagon_takes_command
as befits an Military Empire,
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175622/tomgram%3A_william_astore%2C_generals_behaving_badly/
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/2004-03-01/illusions-empire-defining-new-american-order%3famp
TaMara (HFG)
I finally turned off MSNBC…the entire McConnell Russian factory in Kentucky put me over the edge.
khead
@Martin:
We’ll see. I hope you are right. Let’s get it on!
geg6
@Joe Falco:
This.
@Gin & Tonic:
And this.
Hitlesswonder
Sadly, the only thing that will save the Republic is if some number of significant Republicans turn on the President. Democratic opposition is meaningless to the media and majority of the public. It’s bizarre that this is treated asymmetrically…Republican criticism of a Democratic administration is important, principled, and derives from the hearts of true Americans. I think the corruption of the media is more extensive and works in ways that I have not really comprehended.
Wag
@Martin: Agreed
Wag
@Martin:
Actually, I suspect that she has been on board for quite some time, but has played her cards close to her chest, al the while sharpening the blades that she will stick into Trump’s heart.
She won’t stab him in the back. She will have the courage to face him while she does it. She will leave his back open for the GOP to stab.
Soprano2
@Hitlesswonder: I’ve come to believe it’s this simple; white Republicans criticizing a Democratic administration = serious, sober criticism that should be listened to. Female and non-white Democrats criticizing Republicans = pointless complaining and partisan sniping. It’s just that simple to the press.
Yutsano
@Martin: @Wag: She’s coming for the king. This is definitely a situation where she cannot miss.
But closer to the end of next week. When the administration starts defying court orders.
Kirk Spencer
So I ran across this. I do not know if my fellow jackals will agree, but I found it worth considering.
Twitter thread (and I have no idea how to properly embed, so would appreciate anyone fixing it.)
Cheryl Rofer
@Kirk Spencer: It’s a good thread, and your link goes right to it in an easy to read form.
I follow a number of historians and regularly see front pages of newspapers from Watergate. It seemed as though Nixon was totally lawless then, and that he would get away with it.
The move toward impeachment is speeding up. We can thank Justin Amash, even though this would probably have happened anyway.
opiejeanne
@Wag: This! I trust Nancy.
smike
@Hitlesswonder:
Bingo! Look at the power brokers of the media – rich, want to get richer, astute avoiders of oversight and willing to pay a lot of money to avoid the consequences of their corruption. Being able to manipulate public opinion is a tool at hand that is constantly being fine-tuned.
joel hanes
@Hitlesswonder:
I think the corruption of the media is more extensive and works in ways that I have not really comprehended.
pretty much ever since Reagan hypnotized the nation, DC has been wired for Republicans
Uncle Cosmo
@Wag:
(Billy Joel malgre lui)
Procopius
@Jay:
Yes, and a lot of that dismemberment was done by Tillerson and was duly noted by the press at the time, which now seems undecided whether to treat him as a good guy or a bad guy. FYI he’s a bad guy. He reveled in tearing the State Department down.
Procopius
@smike: My google-fu deserted me. I cannot find a reference to the change made during the 1970s by the FCC. My memory is that they repealed the “Fairness Doctrine,” so if a station reports on one party they have to spend equal time reporting on the other party. Of course they do something similar in “both siderism” today. It seems to me they also allowed a single company to own both a newspaper and a radio/TV station in the same town, which was banned before, but the earliest reference I can find to that is the [email protected]#$% Telecommunications Act of 1993 from Bill [family blog] Clinton. The concentration of the media is almost never commented on, but essentially five corporations control 95% of media outlets. That allows for complete control of the media beyond even what the Nazis could do.
J R in WV
@Hitlesswonder:
Surprisingly, I agree with you on this topic…
The NY Times is an example, they have literally supported fascist dictators all over the world for nearly a hundred years, including Uncle Joe Stalin and Mr. Adolph Hitler in the 1920s and 1930s.
If you read the NYTimes of the period, you will learn that there was no famine in the Ukraine, ever. And Mr; Hitler was a modest and unassuming artistic gentleman. I’m sure the NYT management is not the only fascist-supporting group of wealthy media ownership, either.