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[smjjames]

Trumps pick for National Security Advisor says no thanks.

Relevant quote from article: "A friend of Harward's said he was reluctant to take the job because the White House seems so chaotic. Harward called the offer a "shit sandwich," the friend said."

[palsch]

Which is why we (or Congress at least) need to know exactly what was said. If he said 'don't freak out over the sanctions', that'd probablt be fine, but if he said that and promised something regarding sanctions, then that might be a problem.

edit: That link doesn't work palsch, just gives a 'page not found' page.

Should work now, was editing a twitter link on mobile on a moving bus.

As far as this particular charge is concerned it only matters if he told a provable lie to the FBI. Something black and white in his statement to them that contradicts the transcripts they hold against him.

There are a couple of complications I haven't really seen discussed in much detail;

1) Why was there an FBI investigation? They wouldn't be investigating a Logan Act violation, the only law these calls seem to violate. Was there more there there than indicated so far? Was it really, as suggested in some places, a full counter intelligence operation believing he may actually be compromised?

2) Were all the calls actually recorded by the FBI? Flynn was a senior intelligence officer. He would know that the calls are recorded and would likely know ways around such surveillance. I saw one suggestion he may have attempted to encrypt the call, although it's possible he didn't manage to do so successfully. Could the transcripts have been obtained through other means? Did the FBI even have all the transcripts at the time they questioned Flynn?'

Other stories;

The AJC lays into Trump for evading question on anti-Semitism.

Six White House staffers have been dismissed over failed FBI background checks. The example in the article sounds like she knew she couldn't pass the rather detailed background check and so withdrew from the position to take a job with a lower barrier to entry.

Harward is playing hard to get with Trump. He is demanding his own team and Trump doesn't want to give him it. So he has initially declined but seems to still be negotiating according to other sources. A demand not listed but commonly considered good sense is the disbanding of Bannon's "shadow NSC".

Finally found a video source for this; Mattis explicitly says Russia has interfered with a number of democratic elections (in the context of a question about interfering with the US election), while committing to NATO and saying that military cooperation is impossible with Russia without reform on their part.

Today's great twitter source was Tamara Cofman Wittes, another quarter of the Rational Security podcast. She had detailed coverage over the mess Trump, his Israel envoy nominee David Friedman, Secretary of State Tillerson and UN Ambassador Haley have managed to make over Israel in the last 24 hours. Trump managed to contradict his two appointed officials over the two state solution, then Friedman was grilled over grossly offence remarks - comparing liberal Jews to the "kapo" Jews forced to work alongside the Nazis to carry out the Holocaust to avoid being killed themselves - and came across as weak and ambivalent towards any potential peace process. For the record, his defence over the kapo remarks was a lie; he said it was overblown, regrettable rhetoric made in the heat of a campaign, but that doesn't hold up (paywall).

Yet Friedman's attempt to pin it all on the tension of the election campaign stands against his own conduct. Almost a full month after Trump's election victory, at a time when there were already rumors that Friedman could have a role in Trump’s administration, Friedman spoke before the annual Saban Forum in Washington and refused to apologize or take back his inflammatory language, including the remark about J Street.

The New York Times reported that at one closed panel, Friedman was interviewed by The Atlantic's Jeffery Goldberg and the issue of his remarks came up. "At a private session this month at the Saban Forum, an annual gathering of Israeli and American foreign policy figures, Mr. Friedman declined to disavow the comments and even intensified the sentiment," the paper reported.

"Mr. Friedman was asked if he would meet with various groups, including J Street. Mr. Friedman said he would probably meet with individuals but not with the group, according to several people who attended. Mr. Goldberg then raised the kapos comparison and asked if he stood by it. Mr. Friedman did not back away. ‘They’re not Jewish, and they’re not pro-Israel,’ he said, according to the people in the room," the report said.

EDIT: Ninjaed on the Haward thing and I didn't even try to document Trumps blatant lies during the press conference today...

[smjjames]

Which is why we (or Congress at least) need to know exactly what was said. If he said 'don't freak out over the sanctions', that'd probablt be fine, but if he said that and promised something regarding sanctions, then that might be a problem.

edit: That link doesn't work palsch, just gives a 'page not found' page.

Should work now, was editing a twitter link on mobile on a moving bus.

As far as this particular charge is concerned it only matters if he told a provable lie to the FBI. Something black and white in his statement to them that contradicts the transcripts they hold against him.

There are a couple of complications I haven't really seen discussed in much detail;

1) Why was there an FBI investigation? They wouldn't be investigating a Logan Act violation, the only law these calls seem to violate. Was there more there there than indicated so far? Was it really, as suggested in some places, a full counter intelligence operation believing he may actually be compromised?

2) Were all the calls actually recorded by the FBI? Flynn was a senior intelligence officer. He would know that the calls are recorded and would likely know ways around such surveillance. I saw one suggestion he may have attempted to encrypt the call, although it's possible he didn't manage to do so successfully. Could the transcripts have been obtained through other means? Did the FBI even have all the transcripts at the time they questioned Flynn?'

1. They were checking if he did intentionally lie to the FBI, which is a violation, since there was ambiguousity over it and I guess they wanted to be sure, dunno.

2. I don't think routine wiretaps on ambassadors are under the FBI's jurdicision, unless said ambassador was suspected of a crime, which isn't the case here AFAIK. Seems like it's something that would be handled under one of the other intel branches. It does seem odd that Flynn, a former intel officer, would not realize that his call might be intercepted, by a routine listen-in no less.

[alway]

Which is why we (or Congress at least) need to know exactly what was said. If he said 'don't freak out over the sanctions', that'd probablt be fine, but if he said that and promised something regarding sanctions, then that might be a problem.

edit: That link doesn't work palsch, just gives a 'page not found' page.

Should work now, was editing a twitter link on mobile on a moving bus.

As far as this particular charge is concerned it only matters if he told a provable lie to the FBI. Something black and white in his statement to them that contradicts the transcripts they hold against him.

There are a couple of complications I haven't really seen discussed in much detail;

1) Why was there an FBI investigation? They wouldn't be investigating a Logan Act violation, the only law these calls seem to violate. Was there more there there than indicated so far? Was it really, as suggested in some places, a full counter intelligence operation believing he may actually be compromised?

2) Were all the calls actually recorded by the FBI? Flynn was a senior intelligence officer. He would know that the calls are recorded and would likely know ways around such surveillance. I saw one suggestion he may have attempted to encrypt the call, although it's possible he didn't manage to do so successfully. Could the transcripts have been obtained through other means? Did the FBI even have all the transcripts at the time they questioned Flynn?'

1. They were checking if he did intentionally lie to the FBI, which is a violation, since there was ambiguousity over it and I guess they wanted to be sure, dunno.

2. I don't think routine wiretaps on ambassadors are under the FBI's jurdicision, unless said ambassador was suspected of a crime, which isn't the case here AFAIK. Seems like it's something that would be handled under one of the other intel branches. It does seem odd that Flynn, a former intel officer, would not realize that his call might be intercepted, by a routine listen-in no less.

This is the same Flynn whose own aides coined the term "Flynn Facts" about his tendency to embrace conspiracy theories and fake news and insist repeatedly about how he was always right and that was the end if it. He may have been a former intel officer, but the dude wasn't the sharpest towel in the knife drawer.

[muldrake]

An interesting compilation of events that show just how far in the past do Trump's ties with Russia go.

I remain somewhat suspicious of long-term ties to Russia, when he has apparently been trying for years to get approval for a hotel in downtown Moscow and has failed utterly at this project.  It just seems if he had such a huge amount of influence that shit would have been greenlighted long ago.

[palsch]

1. They were checking if he did intentionally lie to the FBI, which is a violation, since there was ambiguousity over it and I guess they wanted to be sure, dunno.

2. I don't think routine wiretaps on ambassadors are under the FBI's jurdicision, unless said ambassador was suspected of a crime, which isn't the case here AFAIK. Seems like it's something that would be handled under one of the other intel branches. It does seem odd that Flynn, a former intel officer, would not realize that his call might be intercepted, by a routine listen-in no less.

1) The questioning was part of the investigation which seems to have been triggered by the phone calls. Exactly what the investigation was about is not clear though. There must have been some indication of illegal action, but the only obvious law is the unenforced (and likely unenforceable) Logan Act, which I can't seem them questioning a senior intelligence official over.

2) This may be a point where the journalism and my addled mind are a bit confused and I'm not going to try to dig into it too much just yet. But lots of reports are talking about FISA implications - with the references coming from people with access to the primary intelligence and intimate knowledge of collection procedures - which to me would hint at an FBI intercept. An NSA intercept would most likely be conducted under executive order 12333 and the people writing and talking about this would damned well know this. Seeing FISA mentions so often lead me to think it wasn't covered under that collection program. A FISA intercept is more likely to be FBI than NSA.

Anyway, even if the intercepts weren't FBI, I'd be interested to know if there were attempts to evade the recordings and whether the FBI had full transcripts when they questioned him. Actually, thinking about it, if it was a 12333 intercept then this policy change may have been relevant. It would have made it easier for the FBI to gain access to NSA intercepts right in the middle of the timeline.

[smjjames]

An interesting compilation of events that show just how far in the past do Trump's ties with Russia go.

I remain somewhat suspicious of long-term ties to Russia, when he has apparently been trying for years to get approval for a hotel in downtown Moscow and has failed utterly at this project.  It just seems if he had such a huge amount of influence that shit would have been greenlighted long ago.

It really doesn't seem like Russia has any actual dirt on him that they can leverage on him. They even told their state media to downplay positive news on him, which doesn't seem like something they'd do if they knew they could control him in some fashion. Though what do I know. And Trumps Sec of Defense and Sec. of State are both taking hard lines on Russia.

Though really, the question still remains, why the heck did he act that way so pro-Russia during the campaign and so many things that seem too much like coincidences to be coincidences.

[Max™]

It's a good thing he's such a rational and well-spoken individual with a long and proven track record of trustworthiness and humility!

Edit: whoops, I was thinking of Mr. Rogers, how silly!

Found a better explanation of the whole "we're gonna repeal Obamacare, and then we're gonna use the repeal to fuck the tax system harder, but we can't do the tax fuckery until we fuck over healthcare" fiasco: http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/2/16/14617086/republican-reconciliation-obamacare-tax-reform

[misko27]

Oh you'd be surprised. Thing is that Trump laid down the law earlier, stating that a replacement for Obamacare must come out at the same time as repeal, which screwed over a lot of republicans. Now they are incredibly divided: the side that wants to replace it is much larger and has the backing of Trump and the leadership, but no alternative has emerged; there's not even a consensus on how long the transition would be. If Trump's team came out with an alternative, they'd certainly at least put it to a vote, but they don't seem likely to do that anytime soon. Meanwhile the small but loud "REPEAL AND LET GOD SORT IT OUT" crowd, backed by the Freedom Caucus (surprised? I know I was) are trying to force a vote on the grounds that any Republicans who vote against it would have to look bad to their district. Trouble is Republicans have been hammered and hounded by Obamacare supporters across the nation, to the point that some congressional republicans have been fearing for their safety.

The upshot is that somehow the republicans have managed to fuck up the one thing that mattered most to them for eight god-damned years.

[palsch]

Harward's official statement declining the appointment, translated.

The scariest thing for me in this is that the sticking point was Trump and Bannon wanting to keep K. T. McFarland. I have yet to hear a single positive thing about her. She is considered incompetent in comparison to Flynn, who is a conspiracy nut. She would have made a perfect scapegoat for the disorder in the NSC and doesn't appear to command or owe any particular loyalty in the administration. She brings no national security or intelligence staff with her and is a recruiting negative for the literally hundreds of unfilled roles in the White House. She is, at best, a PR hack who exaggerated her credentials and was a fellow traveller with Flynn on a number of conspiracy theories. Them bumping Kellogg over her for the APNSA seemed like a sign she would be let go, then suddenly they find her more essential to keep than Harward...

There are also reports that the State Department is effectively unable to operate (or at least being largely marginalised) due to lack of staff. Only the SoS has been appointed so far and the only other suggested nominee was rejected by Trump for being critical during the campaign. And now it appears one of the HUD officials Carson was bringing in has been fired for writing anti-Trump posts.

We have a White House that can't attract staff due showing loyalty to the very people who are chasing competent recruits away demanding purity tests of the few people who will work for them. Add in the six background check fails so far and it's hard to see how we will have a functioning administration any time soon.

Even the disgraced former General Petreus is now said to not want the NSC job;

Former U.S. officials who had backed Harward to lead the NSC said the White House erred in letting news leak of Trump’s offer, because now the also-ran, retired Gen. David Petraeus, was unlikely to entertain taking the post after it was made clear he wasn’t the first choice. The other known candidate is Kellogg.

I'm sure Kellogg would feel great knowing he is the only option, and less important than the incompetent deputy he bypassed for the job.

[scriver]

It's enough to make you suspect Drumpf wasn't actually Deutsch but Belgian.

[Sheb]

It's enough to make you suspect Drumpf wasn't actually Dutch but Belgian.

Wasn't he German?

[scriver]

Sshh, I fixed it.

[smjjames]

Did the Obama admin or Bush 43 or Clinton admin have any that failed the background check? At least publicly anyway.

[martinuzz]

It's enough to make you suspect Drumpf wasn't actually Dutch but Belgian.

Wasn't he German?

German - Scottish.