She warned the WH that Flynn was compromised. The Russians knew he was lying and had proof. Trump and the GOP are trying to deflect it. So now Al Franken raised an interesting question. Who else was coordinating with the Russians before Trump took office?
Opinion piece on the hearing be free to make up your minds
__________________
Into terror!, Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell
Obviously the real question here is where did the leak come from? I'm sure the media will get right on that because they hate leaks. ??
But for the most part, it's nice to see elected officials acting like adults. Senator Cruz excepted, of course. And the Trump administration, which apparently doesn't know WTF they are doing, but we all already knew that.
-- ∇×V
Quote:vorticity wrote:
Obviously the real question here is where did the leak come from? I'm sure the media will get right on that because they hate leaks. ??
But for the most part, it's nice to see elected officials acting like adults. Senator Cruz excepted, of course. And the Trump administration, which apparently doesn't know WTF they are doing, but we all already knew that.
Well, remember Trump gave Sen. Graham's cell phone number during the campaign? It's biting hm in the ass now. If this had happened to HRC, the GOP would be yowling for impeachment now. Come 2018, we might have the GOP equivalent of Benghazi. But with more substance. The next step is to summon Mr. McGahn and explain why it took so long to remove Flynn. Even better, why did they hire him knowing the security risk and why did they allow Pence to be the stalking horse? Also, who else is coordinating with Russia before Trump took the oath of office? And after.
__________________
Into terror!, Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell
Well, the question I didn't hear was "Do you have any information that the President has been compromised by Russia?" But we are very close already to "What did the President know, and when did he know it?" It's starting to be obvious that Trump was informed of serious problems about Flynn even before he took office. And the firing of Sally Yates, which I thought at the time was a rather straightforward case of political retribution for not supporting the President's religious discrimination policy -- now it looks like they may have gotten rid of her to cover up their own collusion with Russia.
I don't know how long this will go on. Right now the GOP establishment thinks they've got a man who will put a rubber stamp on anything as long as he gets credit for it. But until they get their own house in order, how are they going to use it? How much are they willing to risk for short-term victories? This is all going to come back to bite them in 2018, as people finally allow themselves to realize that their votes were mistaken. (None of this is to say that Hillary would have made a great president, just not an abjectly terrible one, wow is this bar low) They should take a President Pence now over a rubber stamp that will make hundreds of foreign policy mistakes.
Also to all of the liberals who say "Pence is worse": shut up. Mike Pence is a reasonably effective leader who has policies you don't like. Trump is a rogue agent who is a threat to the whole liberal democracy project, if not the entire biosphere. Yes, losing reproductive rights would suck, but if we lose democracy, we don't even get a choice about rights at all.
-- ∇×V
The gist of it
Here is what struck me about the entire testimony:
1. Obama told Trump about Flynn's vulnerabilities. Sean Spicer admitted that they thought it was sour grapes.
2. Sally Yates warned McGahn about Flynn being compromised. It took 18 days from being warned to being fired. And that was 4 days after the Washington Post broke the news. Does anyone suspect the White House would had kept Flynn on the payroll if the news didn't leakl?
3. One of the most damming things:
Quote:“One of the questions that Mr. McGahn asked me when I went back over the second day was essentially, ‘Why does it matter to DOJ if one White House official lies to another White House official?’” Yates recounted in her testimony.
Quote:Reince Priebus has tried to downplay what Yates told McGahn. “Our legal counsel got a heads-up from Sally Yates that something wasn’t adding up with his story. And then so our legal department went into a review of the situation,” Priebus said on CBS “Face the Nation” in February. “The legal department came back and said they didn’t see anything wrong with what was actually said.”
Why does the White House counsel think it's a nothing burger if the National Security Adviser is lying about his contact and taking payment from the Russians? the only reason I can think of is
Flynn is not the only one on staff with connections to the Russians.
There is way too much smoke to dismiss it. Time to start hauling the White House staff to explain what they know and when did they know it. You have an 18 minute gap in Watergate. You have an 18 day gap in this affair.
__________________
Into terror!, Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell