Knives out for Flynn.
While the baseline news is that
the White House has declined to support him there are
more brutal stories
elsewhere painting a broader picture of incompetence and dysfunction that goes beyond the Russia calls (there is another in the
WSJ but their paywall seems to have gotten tougher these days).
The NYT article in particular paints Fynn as disorganised and paranoid, failing to maintain a proper flow of documents or organisation within the council. Part of this seems to be down to power plays against what is described as Bannon's "shadow council", but the end result is that national security executive orders are being signed without being seen by the Secretary of Defence or director of the CIA. Meanwhile Trump appointees are injecting politics into NSC meetings (
one exchange on Twitter by Obama era staffers over bringing MAGA mugs to meetings with foreign counterparts), with at least one meeting of deputies headed by a political advisor (Stephen Miller) which looks to be unprecedented. This has lead to fear of political reprisals and paranoia among career staffers in what really needs to be a non-political, hard-headed body.
One name being floated as a replacement is Petraeus, who is generally viewed as someone who could do the job extremely well. Of course, he was guilty of leaking highly classified documents to his mistress while CIA director, and many at the FBI
believe he was let off too easily (he was allowed to plead down to a misdemeanour rather than being tried under the Espionage Act) and should be in jail, which may cause some tensions. Not to mention the reaction of the DoD and CIA if he is granted a security clearance again. This is a guy who the Pentagon was looking to
retroactively demote only a year ago, and many of those who lead the charge are still in senior positions.
While the NYT article suggests that Priebus is the one who has repaired some of the problems,
another article suggests he is seen as in over his head and being considered for replacement. Elsewhere I have seen a lot of the blame for the immigration order and general disunity on Priebus, and a few replacements have been floated already.
This piece muses about his having lost Trump's confidence, as well as Spicer being in the doghouse. Ironically Conway is one of the people named as potentially moving up, even to Chief of Staff, when she is the one who may be facing Congressional/legal action for her statements.
I think the general dysfunction is best summed up by the NYT's second paragraph;
Three weeks into the Trump administration, council staff members get up in the morning, read President Trump’s Twitter posts and struggle to make policy to fit them. Most are kept in the dark about what Mr. Trump tells foreign leaders in his phone calls. Some staff members have turned to encrypted communications to talk with their colleagues, after hearing that Mr. Trump’s top advisers are considering an “insider threat” program that could result in monitoring cellphones and emails for leaks.
Remember this is a executive branch that has not yet nominated appointees for all top positions (the only name floated for Deputy SoS, Elliott Abrams, was reported nixed by
Trump due to political criticisms during the campaign), and is still facing Senate battles to get those it has nominated appointed.
This shows the cabinet positions confirmed so far, with 13 out of 22 outstanding. That's not counting the lack of staff in sub-cabinet positions, notably the lack of lawyers available to fight their legal defence for the executive orders.
There is then
this considerably less airtight piece that suggests the NSA is treating the White House as compromised and is withholding intelligence to keep it out of Kremlin hands. This is probably sensationalism and I haven't been seeing much backing it up elsewhere (other than to say the NSA has always been selective with its intelligence, and that no-one taken seriously talks about 'spies', especially with regards to the NSA). What
is notable is that, until January, the Observer was
published and part owned by Jared Kushner, Trump's son in law and advisor who has reportedly been deeply involved in the internal battles within the White House.
Among this we have casual chaos as
Trump takes a serious briefing alongside an allied head of government at a candlelit dinner table surrounded by high paying guests of his resort.
This photo has surfaced.The national security and intelligence community types I have been following since the election have had as their first concern that Trump would not be able to put together a team that could effectively manage the US's national security apparatus. This is proving to be very true. Combine this with the security threats and damage that Trump's own policies and associations are causing (an overworked and chaotic boarder agency with conflicting orders, ISIS and related groups being handed recruiting windfalls in the Muslim ban, that same ban causing allies and intelligence sources to stop cooperating in the middle east,
backing off on white nationalist terrorist groups, lack of trust of the White House from the IC due to the Russia ties) and things are extremely scary. It looks like any threat, any action against the US, is likely to be played for political gain, and that any practical reaction will be chaotic, under informed and poorly coordinated.
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