Ex-Spy Chief Admits Role In "Deep State" Intelligence War On Trump

An ex-spy chief who spoke out publicly against Trump while inspiring other career intelligence figures to follow suit has admitted his leading role in the intelligence community waging political war against the president, describing his actions as something he didn"t "fully think through". In a surprisingly frank interview, the CIA"s Michael Morell - who was longtime Deputy Director and former Acting Director of the nation"s most powerful intelligence agency - said that it wasn"t a great idea to leak against and bash a new president.

Morell had the dubious distinction of being George W. Bush"s personal daily briefer for the agency before and after 9/11, and also served under Obama until his retirement. In the summer of 2016 he took the unusual step (for a former intelligence chief) of openly endorsing Hillary Clinton in a New York Times op-ed entitled, I Ran the C.I.A. Now I"m Endorsing Hillary Clinton, after which he continued to be both an outspoken critic of Trump and an early CIA voice promoting the Russian collusion and election meddling narrative.

Acting director of the CIA Michael Morell with Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta
in 2013. Image source: Wiki Commons, DoD

As Politico"s Susan Glasser put in a newly published interview, Morell "has emerged out of the shadows of the deep state" to become one of Trump"s foremost critics speaking within the intel community. However, Politico summarizes the interview as follows:

But in a revealingly self-critical and at times surprising interview for this week’s Global POLITICO, Morell acknowledges that he and other spy-world critics of the president failed to fully “think through” the negative backlash generated by their going political. “There was a significant downside,” Morell said in the interview.

Not only had Morell during his previous NYT op-ed stated that he was committed to doing "everything I can to ensure that she is elected as our 45th president" but he went so far as to call then candidate Trump "a threat to our national security" - while making the extraordinary claim that "in the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation."

Curiously, Morell in his latest Politico interview indicates when asked about his "public profile" and activism so soon after leaving the agency (something that was relatively unusual prior to Trump taking office) that his post-retirement media appearances have been approved and/or received some level of oversight by the CIA. In the interview Morell states, "I did a 60 Minutes interview about my life inside CIA, and it’s something the agency thought that was a good thing to do, and I taped most of it before I left the agency." 

While such CIA review of former employees" publications and media interaction is nothing new, in Morell"s case was an unprecedented example of a very high profile intelligence figure explicitly campaigning for a presidential candidate and against another while specifically invoking his role at the CIA (he began his NYT column with, "During a 33-year career at the Central Intelligence Agency, I served presidents of both parties — three Republicans and three Democrats..." followed by a litany of key national security events he was central to).

The other important confirmation to come out of the discussion is the clear guiding assumption of the interview - that the intelligence "deep state" did in fact go to war with Trump - which has now been confirmed by Morell himself, which is essentially to hear it straight from the horse"s mouth.

Light bulb goes off for former top CIA official: Maybe it wasn"t a great idea to leak against, bash a new president. From @sbg1: https://t.co/JyJ3SyTXz5 pic.twitter.com/nPAe8ePwCg

— Byron York (@ByronYork) December 11, 2017

The key exchange in the Politico interview begins as follows:

Glasser: Okay, so, flash-forward a year. Was that a mistake?

 

Morell: So, I don’t think it was a mistake. I think there were downsides to it that I didn’t think about at the time. I was concerned about what is the impact it would have on the agency, right? Very concerned about that, thought that through. But I don’t think I fully thought through the implications.

 

And one of the ways I’ve thought about that, Susan, is—okay, how did Donald Trump see this? Right? And from—it’s very important—one of the things we do as intelligence analysts is make sure that our guy—the president—understands the other guy. Right?

 

So, let’s put ourselves here in Donald Trump’s shoes. So, what does he see? Right? He sees a former director of CIA and a former director of NSA, Mike Hayden, who I have the greatest respect for, criticizing him and his policies. Right? And he could rightfully have said, “Huh, what’s going on with these intelligence guys?” Right?

Morell here seems to confirm Trump"s narrative of events concerning Russiagate "fake news" and willful intelligence leaks intended to damage the president, despite his opening obfuscation of "I don"t think it was a mistake" (so he"s essentially admitting the negative consequences but with no regrets).

Surprisingly, Morell even implicates himself with the words, "And then he sees a former acting director and deputy director of CIA criticizing him and endorsing his opponent."  The interview continues:

Glasser: It embroiders his narrative.

 

Morell: Exactly. And then he sees a former acting director and deputy director of CIA criticizing him and endorsing his opponent. And then he gets his first intelligence briefing, after becoming the Republican nominee, and within 24 to 48 hours, there are leaks out of that that are critical of him and his then-national security advisor, Mike Flynn.

 

And so, this stuff starts to build, right? And he must have said to himself, “What is it with these intelligence guys? Are they political?” The current director at the time, John Brennan, during the campaign occasionally would push back on things that Donald Trump had said.

 

So, when Trump talked about the Iran nuclear deal being the worst deal in the history of American diplomacy, and he was going to tear it up on the first day—John Brennan came out publicly and said, “That would be an act of folly.” So, he sees current sitting director pushing back on him. Right?

 

Then he becomes president, and he’s supposed to be getting a daily brief from the moment he becomes the president-elect. Right? And he doesn’t. And within a few days, there’s leaks about how he’s not taking his briefing. So, he must have thought—right?—that, “Who are these guys? Are these guys out to get me? Is this a political organization? Can I think about them as a political organization when I become president?”

 

So, I think there was a significant downside to those of us who became political in that moment. So, if I could have thought of that, would I have ended up in a different place? I don’t know. But it’s something I didn’t think about.

"Is this a political organization?" said Caesar as Brutus was stabbing him. https://t.co/unnJfsbFRE

— Justin Raimondo (@JustinRaimondo) December 11, 2017

Despite Morell"s attempts to mitigate his own significant contributions toward creating a climate of distrust between the White House and the intelligence bureaucracy, it seems clear to the interviewee that Morell"s admissions lend credence to Trump"s side.

Indeed, Susan Glasser reasons, based on Morell"s unexpected confessions, that "you or others who spoke out and have continued to speak out actually tend to underscore his feeling that there’s a political divide."

Glasser: Well, it’s very interesting, because of course, there are so many things you don’t know at that moment in time, including, of course, I’m sure you assumed, along with everybody else, that Hillary Clinton was likely to be elected, and you saw this as contributing to that in some way. But it’s certainly relevant in the context of the situation we find ourselves in a year later. And, if it tends to embolden Trump in his critique of your former colleagues who are still serving in the intelligence agencies, and not only has this been a theme that he has struck repeatedly to criticize—but also to politicize this.

 

And inadvertently, perhaps, you or others who spoke out and have continued to speak out actually tend to underscore his feeling that there’s a political divide, and now you and others are on one side of it, and potentially all your former colleagues, and then he’s on the other side of it...

 

Morell: Yeah, and you can’t pick and choose like that. And when people in the intelligence community—particularly people in CIA, because for every other part of the intelligence community except CIA, you’re working for a cabinet member. At CIA, you are working for the president of the United States. That is your customer. Right? 00:08:03 So, when you see your customer questioning what it is that you are providing to him or her, and that person seems to be cherry-picking what they accept and what they don’t accept, it’s demoralizing. And when it’s demoralizing, people take actions, right? So, I live pretty close to the agency, and there’s a coffee shop between me and the agency, and I’ve met a number of agency officers in that coffee shop who have said to me, “I’m thinking about leaving.”

Yet Morell in a round about way previously admitted that he is personally one of the chief authors of precisely this "demoralizing" scenario in which the president doesn"t fully trust his intelligence briefers.

But we should all remember that this is a man who on the one hand described "Russia"s hacking is the political equivalent of 9/11" and constantly hyped "Russian propaganda", while on the other he went on a lengthy RT News segment in order to promote his newly published book.

Blackwater Founder Erik Prince: Obama Put Me Under "Illegal" Surveillance and Leaked It To WaPo

Blackwater USA founder Erik Prince blasted the US Intelligence community for a "political abuse of the intelligence infrastructure" after leaking information on his whereabouts to the Washington Post. The former Navy SEAL and brother of Trump"s Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, made the comments during his November 30 testimony in front of the House Intelligence Committee, according to transcripts released Wednesday. 

Committee members asked Prince about a business trip to the Indian Ocean country of Seychelles for a summit with United Arab Emirates business associates, with Senator Tom Rooney (R-FL) claiming "there"s an inference that you are acting on behalf of the Russian -- or the Trump campaign and meeting with Russian people." 

During the January 11, 2017 Sychelles meeting, Prince said he was introduced to Russian fund manager, Kirill Dmitriev, who he spoke with for approximately 30 minutes at the bar. Prince made it clear that he has had very little to do with the Trump campaign aside from donating money, attending fundraisers, and writing "some papers on different foreign policy positions" which he gave to Steve Bannon. 

Prince scoffed at the notion he was acting on behalf of the Trump campaign during his January meeting, and then lambasted the US Intelligence community for leaking the details of his meeting to the Washington Post in a story which ran in April, accusing Prince of establishing a backdoor channel to Moscow on behalf of then-candidate Trump.   

"What really bothers me and what I would hope the Intelligence Committee is doing is questioning why Americans that were caught up in waves of signals intelligence, why on Earth would The Washington Post be running an article on any meeting that a private citizen, me, was having in a foreign country? That"s illegal. That is a political abuse of the intelligence infrastructure.

 

And that is really dangerous, especially as this committee and the Congress thinks about reauthorizing very wide-ranging intelligence authorities to dig into private Americans" electronic communications of any sort. That"s what I have an issue with. 

Prince says he was told that an Obama National Security Council staffer provided the intelligence to the Washington Post, after the administration opened a counter-intelligence investigation into the Trump campaign in July 2016 based in part on a salacious dossier funded by Hillary Clinton and the DNC. 

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) pressed Prince on his relationship to the Trump campaign, asking "Did you discuss having any channel of communication between the United States and Russia?" To which Prince replied "No," adding:

Congressman, Erik Prince, a private citizen, traveled to the Seychelles to meet with some Emirati people that he’d known for a few years. And while there, they said, ‘Oh, there is this Russian guy that’s also here to see us. Might be useful for you to meet him.’ And like I said, I met him for a maximum of 30 minutes, probably much less than that because it doesn’t take me that long to drink a beer in a bar.”

Prince suggested that the Obama administration "unmasked" his name from intelligence reports which were then leaked to the Post, and that the article damaged his relationship with the UAE. 

“What are you doing to prevent the illicit use of the intelligence apparatus by a political party, particular the previous one that did that to me,” Prince asked Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA), adding “I’m really bothered by that - and any American should be, particularly as Congress votes to reauthorize significant ability for the intelligence community to dig into our lives, whether you’re a private citizen or not, from all the electronics that you do.”

From The Archives: Obama Administration Confirms "No Problem" With Flynn Contacting Foreign Officials

As we detailed yesterday, ABC was forced to retract an epic mistake in their reporting that claimed contact between Trump staff (Flynn) and Russian officials "druing the campaign" - correcting it to point out that it was in fact "during the transition".

President Trump tweeted his perspective, confirming the new "facts" from ABC...

I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 2, 2017

    CNN   were quick to mock the White House for saying that the Obama administration approved Flynn"s contacts   (and found someone all too eager to go on TV and attack their claims)... (via The Hill)

The White House said on Friday that it was the Obama administration that authorized former national security adviser Michael Flynn"s contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during President Trump"s transition, according to CNN.

 

Flynn pleaded guilty on Friday to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Kislyak in the month before Trump took office, the first current or former Trump White House official brought down by special counsel Robert Mueller"s investigation into Russia"s election meddling.

 

James Clapper, who served as the Director of National Intelligence under Obama, said that the claim that the Obama administration authorized Flynn"s contacts with Kislyak was "absurd," adding that the administration was concerned by the communications at the time.

“That’s absurd. That’s absolutely absurd," Clapper said on CNN.

 

Okay, James Clapper seems pretty clear that the Obama White House did not okay Flynn"s shenanigans. pic.twitter.com/lEmGHJhquN

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) December 1, 2017

Confused yet?

So, given all the confusion, here is a clarifying source free of all possible bias - the Obama administration"s State Department - confirming Trump and Flynn"s story, and crushing Clapper"s continued lies...from the archives:

Obama State Dept: We have no problem with General Flynn and the incoming administration contacting foreign officials pic.twitter.com/FwZDaHU8lO

— Jack Posobiec ???????? (@JackPosobiec) December 2, 2017

Transcript for the hard of hearing:

REPORTER: "This building [the Obama State Department] doesn"t see anything necessarily inapprorpiate in contact between members of the incoming [Trump] administration and foreign officials, no matter what country they"re from?"

 

OBAMA STATE DEPT SPOKESPERSON: "No, no...and again this has been ongoing. We have no problem with them doing such on their own."

Well, that"s going to ruin a few talking points for tomorrow"s Sunday morning political shows.

The Internecine Deep State Conflict Moves To Stage Two

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

It now seems evident that the Neoliberal Camp of the U.S. Deep State is highly vulnerable on an individual basis.

I tend to notice things like a year-old blog entry suddenly getting thousands of page views. The essay that received a surge of recent interest: Is the Deep State at War--With Itself? (December 13, 2016).

I"m reprinting the essay below for those interested, as nothing has emerged to change the conclusions.

That in itself reveals that the internecine war within America"s Deep State is if anything heating up as those attempting to hang a "Russian collusion" narrative on their Deep State opponents have failed to produce any proof of this collusion despite a year of effort.

Then all of a sudden big political donor Harvey Weinstein gets taken down for behaviors that have been well-known within the circles of power for 20+ years. So what changed? Why did Mr. Weinstein"s protective wall suddenly fail after serving him so effectively for decades?

But Mr. Weinstein was only the first to fall. Now high-profile figures across the mainstream media are toppling like dominoes. Doesn"t it seem a bit peculiar that all these Protected Privileged are suddenly being exposed, disgraced and removed from positions of influence and power?

Maybe it"s just random coincidence, but I doubt it. It has the scent of an intentional covert campaign. It"s well known that the mainstream media and Hollywood has been in bed with the security agencies for decades, and so it seems non-random that suddenly all these big-shots have lost their Protected Privileged Status more or less at once.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but it looks like those who played on the losing side"s team (or cheered from the sidelines) just had their privileges revoked.

Were we to speculate on the meaning of this first-sweep of the media: how about a campaign to strip the failed narrative of its media supporters? Now that everyone sees the lay of the land, the Second Stage will be to collect all the dirty laundry that"s been hidden away out of fear, and then methodically expose, disgrace and remove the next layer of media/entertainment supporters of the failed narrative.

Stage Three will be to collect and release the same sort of evidence against the political class. We can discern evidence for this campaign in the number of candidates who suddenly declare they won"t be running for re-election for personal reasons, or to "move on to other projects," etc.

As this campaign moves up the wealth-power pyramid, we"ll see more big shots resigning or retiring. Those that resist will find all their dirty laundry is suddenly being made public.

Isn"t it interesting that PBS and the rest of the mainstream media went all out to support Hillary Clinton"s recent media campaign to revive the "Russian collusion" narrative via her new book, yet the campaign fell flat with the American public?

This is remarkable: a highly coordinated, massive media campaign failed to re-energize the "Russian collusion" narrative, and may have actually backfired by drawing renewed interest in Russian dealings with the Clinton Foundation during Hillary"s term as Secretary of State.

I hesitate to draw a military analogy, but it certainly feels like a replay of the Battle of Midway, in which an over-confident Japanese Imperial Navy was poised to declare victory until the cream of its fleet, four aircraft carriers, were sunk or disabled in the space of a few moments by U.S. Navy dive bombers.

The grand attack that was supposed to reverse these catastrophic losses--Hillary"s book and accompanying media blitz--fizzled, and that failure clearly eroded the defenses of those who supported this counter-attack by the demoralized but still powerful Neoliberal Camp of the Deep State.

It now seems evident that the Neoliberal Camp of the U.S. Deep State is highly vulnerable on an individual basis: all too many over-confident big-wigs appear to have counted a bit too much on their Protected Privileged Status being permanent.

Collectively, they appear to have forgotten, perhaps as a result of their titanic hubris, that only the paranoid survive.

Various cliques within the 3-Letter Agencies are frantically trying to protect their satraps and benefactors, but the tide has turned and all the threats and pay-offs that defended the Protected Privileged so effectively for decades are no longer working.

Now the Protected Privileged are running scared, as well they should, for the opposing camp within the 3-Letter Agencies has all the dirty laundry it needs to bring down the Neoliberal Camp, one disgraced big-shot at a time.

The way of the Tao is reversal.

Here"s last year"s essay on the Deep State conflict:

Is the Deep State at War--With Itself?

December 14, 2016

 

The recent pronouncement by the C.I.A. that Russian hackers intervened in the U.S. presidential election doesn"t pass the sniff test--on multiple levels. Let"s consider the story on the most basic levels.

 

1. If the report is so "secret," why is it dominating the news flow?

 

2. Why was the "secret report" released now?

 

3. What actual forensic evidence is there of intervention? Were voting machines tampered with? Or is this "secret report" just another dose of fact-free "fake news" like The Washington Post"s list of 200 "Russian propaganda" websites?

 

4. The report claims the entire U.S. intelligence community is in agreement on the "proof of Russian intervention on behalf of Trump" story, but then there"s this:

 

"The C.I.A. presentation to senators about Russia’s intentions fell short of a formal U.S. assessment produced by all 17 intelligence agencies. A senior U.S. official said there were minor disagreements among intelligence officials about the agency’s assessment, in part because some questions remain unanswered."

 

Given that the N.S.A. (National Security Agency) was so secret that its existence was denied for decades, do you really think the NSA is going to go public if it disagrees with the C.I.A.?

 

Given the structure of the Deep State and the intelligence community, "minor disagreements" could well mean complete, total disavowal of the C.I.A."s report.

 

That this is the reality is suggested by the F.B.I."s denunciation of the report"s evidence-free, sweeping conclusion: FBI Disputes CIA"s "Fuzzy And Ambiguous" Claims That Russia Sought To Influence Presidential Election

 

5. The supposed interventions clearly fall under the purview of the NSA. So why is the C.I.A. going public in what is clearly a politicized report intended to influence the public via massive, sustained coverage in the mainstream media?

 

6. Notice the double standard: so when the U.S. attempts to influence public opinion in other nations, it"s OK, but when other nations pursue the same goal, it"s not OK?

 

7. What are we to make of the sustained campaign to elevate "Russian hackers and propaganda" from signal noise to the deciding factor in the U.S. election?

 

8. Russian hacking and attempts to influence American public opinion are not new. The intelligence agencies tasked with protecting American cyberspace have long identified state-sponsored hacking from Russia and China as major threats. So why, all of a sudden, are we being told the Russians successfully influenced a U.S. election?

 

What changed? What new capabilities did they develop?

 

9. And most importantly, what evidence is there that Russian efforts affected the election? Were digital fingerprints found on voting machine records? Were payments to American media employees uncovered?

 

Shouldn"t statements purported to be "fact" or the "truth" be substantiated beyond "trust us, an agency with a long history of failed intelligence, misinformation and illegal over-reach"?

 

10. Doesn"t it raise alarms that such a momentous accusation is totally devoid of evidence? If you"re going public with the conclusion, you have to go public with at least some of the evidence.

 

Here"s the media blitz and some skeptical response:

 

CIA: Russia intervened to help Trump win

Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House

Former UK Ambassador Blasts "CIA"s Blatant Lies", Shows "A Little Simple Logic Destroys Their Claims"

Longtime readers know I have proposed a major divide in the Deep State--the elements of the federal government which don"t change regardless of who is in elected office. This includes the intelligence community, the Pentagon, the diplomatic and trade infrastructure, Research and Revelopment, and America"s own organs of media "framing" and "placement."

Is the Deep State Fracturing into Disunity? (March 14, 2014)

More recently, I wondered if the more progressive elements of the Deep State recognized the dangers to U.S. security posed by the neocons and their candidate, Hillary Clinton, and had decided to undermine her candidacy:

Could the Deep State Be Sabotaging Hillary? (August 8, 2016)

In other words, it"s not the Russians who sabotaged Hillary--it"s America"s own Deep State that undermined her coronation. It wasn"t a matter of personalities; it was much more profound than that. It was about the risks posed by the neocon strategies and policies, and just as importantly, the politicization of the intelligence network.

And this is precisely what we discern in the C.I.A."s unprecedented and quite frankly, absurd "secret report:" a blatantly politicized "report" that is not supported by any evidence, nor is it supported by the other 16 intelligence agencies. (Silence doesn"t mean approval in this sphere.)

We can now discern the warring camps of the Deep State more clearly. On the one side is the C.I.A., the mainstream media, and the civilians who have feasted on wealth and power from their participation in the neocon"s Global Project.

On the other side is the Defense Department"s own intelligence agencies (D.I.A. et al.), the N.S.A., the F.B.I. and at least a few well-placed civilians who recognize the neocon agenda as a clear and present danger to the security of the nation.

From this perspective, the C.I.A."s rash, evidence-free "report" is a rear-guard political action against the winning faction of the Deep State. The Deep State elements that profited from the neocon agenda were confident that Hillary"s victory would guarantee another eight years of globalist intervention. Her loss means they are now on the defensive, and like a cornered, enraged beast, they are lashing out with whatever they have in hand.

This goes a long way in explaining the C.I.A"s release of a painfully threadbare and politicized "report."

*  *  *

If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com. Check out both of my new books, Inequality and the Collapse of Privilege ($3.95 Kindle, $8.95 print) and Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform ($3.95 Kindle, $8.95 print, $5.95 audiobook) For more, please visit the OTM essentials website.

Michael Flynn Charged With Lying To FBI, Set To Plead Guilty

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has charged former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn with "willfully and knowingly" making "false, fictitious and fraudulent statements" to the FBI regarding conversations with Russia"s ambassador. Flynn, in turn, is expected to plead guilty in a DC court to making false statements to FBI agents in January 2017, according to the court filing presented below. The plea hearing is set for 10:30 am ET.

• COURT FILING SAYS FLYNN FALSELY STATED HE DID NOT ASK RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR TO REFRAIN FROM ESCALATING SITUATION AFTER U.S. HAD IMPOSED SANCTIONS ON RUSSIA


• COURT FILING SAYS FLYNN FALSELY STATED HE DID NOT RECALL THAT RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR TOLD HIM RUSSIA HAD CHOSEN TO MODERATE ITS RESPONSE TO U.S. SANCTIONS AS A RESULT OF HIS REQUEST


• COURT FILING SAYS FLYNN FALSELY STATED THAT HE DID NOT ASK RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR TO DELAY VOTE ON PENDING UN SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION AND THAT AMBASSADOR NEVER DESCRIBED RUSSIA"S RESPONSE TO HIS REQUEST

Michael Flynn is now the second person involved with the Trump campaign to admit wrongdoing in Mueller’s probe into allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia; he is however the first Trump administration official charged in relation to Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and aide Rick Gates were charged with money laundering from alleged crimes that took place before they worked with Trump. A campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI earlier this year over contacts with officials connected to the Russian government.

After he left the administration, Flynn filed a foreign registration form showing that he hadn’t disclosed multiple contacts and payments from foreign entities while serving as a campaign adviser to Trump starting in February 2016. The company received $530,000 from a Dutch company working on behalf of Turkey’s government, to lobby the U.S. for extradition of an exiled cleric who has opposed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. He’s also disclosed payments from the Russian news site RT, described in an unclassified U.S. intelligence report as “the Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet.”

The news about Flynn comes a day after CNN reported that Jared Kushner had met earlier this month with Mueller"s team as part of the investigation into Russia"s meddling in the election, according to two people familiar with the meeting.

The question is whether as part of the plea Flynn will "reveal" something about Trump, because if 6 months after the Mueller probe the best he could get out of Flynn is making a "false statement" about meeting the Russian ambassador, then Trump has nothing to be worried about.

How We Can Be Certain That Mueller Won"t Prove Trump-Russia Collusion?

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

Dear America. Stop trying to make Russiagate happen. It’s not going to happen. Deus ex Mueller isn’t coming. You’re going to have to solve your country’s problems yourselves, America. He may dig up evidence of corruption, but Robert Mueller’s investigation will never – ever – find proof that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election using hackers and propaganda. If you attribute all your problems to Trump, you’re guaranteeing more Trumps after him, because you’re not addressing the disease which created him, you’re just addressing the symptom.

A while back I figured out a trick for using Twitter as a tool to find out what sorts of things establishment loyalists really don’t want me saying. Once I discover a really hot button, I write an article that bangs on that button as hard as possible. One of those buttons is expressing my certainty that Robert Mueller’s investigation will never, ever find any proof that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election using hackers and propaganda.

We are not allowed to say such things. If you debate a Russiagater for any length of time and you know how to debunk their assertions, they always, always, always wind up resorting to a “just you wait until Mueller finishes his investigation” declaration, which from my point of view is the same as debating a fundamentalist Christian whose argument boils down to “Well I’ll be proven right when you die and God sends you to Hell!”

You can always feel right if you kick the can around some corner in the future that can’t be seen and analyzed critically. Luckily for us, we’ve got information that we can look at right now which does not require any religious faith...

Anonymous Leaks to the WashPost About the CIA’s Russia Beliefs Are No Substitute for Evidence https://t.co/OB33Xbb49V

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 10, 2016

U.S. Officials: Putin Personally Involved in U.S. Election Hack https://t.co/339F3GnbRQ

— AM Joy w/Joy Reid (@amjoyshow) December 15, 2016

NSA staff used spy tools on spouses, ex-lovers. Think it takes a warrant? Nope, just somebody willing to do it. https://t.co/AW2UYitHzb

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 9, 2017

How to tell if the CIA is listening to your Samsung Smart TV: The blue light on the back of the TV is still on. https://t.co/NRlye8j4c2

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 22, 2017

RELEASE: CIA "ELSA" malware can geolocate your Windows laptop or desktop by listening to surrounding WiFi signals https://t.co/XjyyXIqXAz pic.twitter.com/WCw6dgF9ql

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) June 28, 2017

We know from the Snowden leaks on the NSA, the CIA files released by WikiLeaks, and the ongoing controversies regarding FBI surveillance that the US intelligence community has the most expansive, most sophisticated and most intrusive surveillance network in the history of human civilization.

Following the presidential election last year, anonymous sources from within the intelligence community were hemorrhaging leaks to the press on a regular basis that were damaging to the incoming administration.

If there was any evidence to be found that Donald Trump colluded with the Russian government to steal the 2016 election using hackers and propaganda, the US intelligence community would have found it and leaked it to the New York Times or the Washington Post last year.

Mueller isn’t going to find anything in 2017 that these vast, sprawling networks wouldn’t have found in 2016. He’s not going to find anything by “following the money” that couldn’t be found infinitely more efficaciously via Orwellian espionage. The factions within the intelligence community that were working to sabotage the incoming administration last year would have leaked proof of collusion if they’d had it. They did not have it then, and they do not have it now. Mueller will continue finding evidence of corruption throughout his investigation, since corruption is to DC insiders as water is to fish, but he will not find evidence of collusion to win the 2016 election that will lead to Trump’s impeachment. It will not happen.

This sits on top of all the many, many, many reasons to be extremely suspicious of the Russiagate narrative in the first place.

Russia-gate"s Shaky Doundation - The Russia-gate hysteria now routinely includes rhetoric about the U.S. being at “war” with nuclear-armed Russia, but the shaky factual foundation continues to show more cracks, as historian Daniel Herman describes.

 

Russigate Is More Fiction Than Fact  - From accusations of Trump campaign collusion to Russian Facebook ad buys, the media has substituted hype for evidence.

 

The Big Fat Compendium Of Russiagate Debunkery - Russiagate is like a mirage: from a distance it looks like something, but once you move in for a closer look, there’s nothing there. Nothing. Nothing solid, nothing substantial, nothing you can point at and say, “Here it is."

Humans are storytelling creatures.

The most significant and most underappreciated facet of our existence is how much of our interface with the world consists not of our direct experience of it, but of our mental stories about it. Combine that fact with the century of research and development that has gone into refining propaganda tactics and the US plutocracy’s stranglehold on mainstream media, and you get a nation lost in establishment narratives. People forming their worldviews based on phantasms of the mind instead of concrete facts.

I’ve noticed a strange uptick in establishment loyalists speaking to me as though Trump-Russia collusion is already an established fact, and that I’m simply not well-informed. There is still the same amount of publicly available evidence for this collusion as there ever was (zero), so this tells me that the only thing which has changed is the narrative. Pundits/propagandists are increasingly speaking as though this is something that has already been established, and the people who consume that propaganda go out and circulate it as though it’s an established fact. When you’re not plugged into that echo chamber, though, it looks very weird.

This is why Russiagaters find my certainty that collusion will never be proven so intensely abrasive. Their entire worldview consists of pure narrative?—?literally nothing other than authoritative assertions from pundits who speak in a confident tone of voice?—?so when they encounter someone doing the same thing but with hard facts, it causes psychological discomfort. This discomfort is called cognitive dissonance. It’s what being wrong feels like.

The Only People Who Still Believe In Russiagate Are Those Who Desperately Need To...

I mean, I get it. Really, I do. When I stop listening to the narratives of both his supporters and his detractors and just look at the hard facts, from my point of view Trump is doing some really shitty things and doesn’t seem much different from his neoliberal neocon predecessors. Republicans are horrible, and he seems pretty much like a garden variety Republican who says rude things on Twitter. If I look at those hard facts, then add in two years of psychological brutalization by the corporate media telling Americans that Trump is an evil Nazi who will turn the country into a smouldering crater, I can understand why people would be in a hurry to get him out of office.

And when I converse with Russiagaters, that’s generally what this boils down to. “Impeach Trump” is a punishment in search of a crime. They’ve been whipped into a frenzied state of fear by establishment psyops, and they want Mueller to pull a deus ex machina and save them from the evil orange monster. They believe Mueller will get Trump impeached for Russian collusion because they badly want to.

It’s not going to happen, though. Deus ex Mueller isn’t coming. You’re going to have to solve your country’s problems yourselves, America.

And this is actually a good thing, because Trump is not the source of your country’s problems. Believing that a Trump impeachment will fix any of America’s major ills is like believing cough suppressants cure pneumonia. What do you get when you have pneumonia and you take cough suppressants instead of antibiotics? You get wrong-sounding Muppets, that’s what.

If you attribute all your problems to Trump, you’re guaranteeing more Trumps after him, because you’re not addressing the disease which created him, you’re just addressing the symptom.

The problem is not Trump.

The problem is that America is ruled by an unelected power establishment which maintains its rule by sabotaging democracy, exacerbating economic injustice and expanding the US war machine.

Stop listening to the lies that they pipe into your echo chambers and turn to face your real demons.

*  *  *

Hey you, thanks for reading! My work is entirely reader-funded so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following me on Twitter, and maybe throwing some money into my hat on Patreon.

Trump Reverses, Sides With Intel Agencies Over Russia Election Meddling; Offers To Mediate South China Sea Dispute

One day after Trump caused the latest round of broad media outrage when he reportedly sided with Putin over Russia"s alleged "election interference", while slamming US intel agencies, and repeating his allegation that the investigation is a ‘hoax’, and the FBI a “bunch of hacks,” Trump reversed himself and "cleared up confusion" over whether he accepts Russian President Vladimir Putin’s denials of meddling in the U.S. election last year.

Speaking at a news conference in Vietnam with President Tran Dai Quang on Sunday morning local time, Trump distanced himself from remarks he made one day earlier in which he suggested he believed Putin when he said there had been no Russian meddling in the election that took him to the White House. The comments drew a backlash of criticism at home because US intelligence agencies have long since "concluded" there was Russian meddling.

Trump clarifies his comments on Putin + election hacking: "I believe that he feels that he and Russia did not meddle in the election. As to whether or not I believe it or not, I"m with our agencies" pic.twitter.com/nDqJqeytkk

— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) November 12, 2017

As a result, Trump was careful to make clear he sided with the intelligence agencies under his own leadership: "What I said is, I believe Putin believes that," Trump told reporters in Hanoi, Vietnam. "I believe that he feels that he and Russia did not meddle in the election. What he believes is what he believes."

Trump then added that "as to whether I believe it or not, I"m with our agencies, especially as currently constituted, with their leadership. I believe in our intel agencies. I"ve worked with them very strongly."

The comment was made shortly after Trump tweeted that "When will all the haters and fools out there realize that having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. There always playing politics - bad for our country. I want to solve North Korea, Syria, Ukraine, terrorism, and Russia can greatly help!"

When will all the haters and fools out there realize that having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. There always playing politics - bad for our country. I want to solve North Korea, Syria, Ukraine, terrorism, and Russia can greatly help!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 12, 2017

Still, despite the backlash driven clarification, Trump has repeatedly called allegations of campaign collusion with Moscow a hoax, angering US intel chiefs. U.S. intelligence agencies have also concluded Russians interfered to tip the election in Trump’s favour through hacking and releasing emails to embarrass Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and spreading social media propaganda, in a year-long attempt to deflect attention from Hillary Clinton"s shocking loss, and scapegoat it on outside actors.

On Saturday, former U.S. intelligence director James Clapper told Reuters: “the fact the president of the United States would take Putin at his word over that of the intelligence community is quite simply unconscionable.”

As noted above, Trump"s comments siding with intel agencies bizarrely also come after he hit former U.S. intelligence officials by name, including former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former FBI Director James Comey. 

"I mean, give me a break, they are political hacks," Trump said on Air Force One, according to White House pool reports. He was discussing the U.S. intelligence community"s conclusion that Russia sought to influence the 2016 election in favor of Trump. "So you look at it, I mean, you have Brennan, you have Clapper and you have Comey," he continued. "Comey is proven now to be a liar and he is proven now to be a leaker.”

Separately,  also during his meeting with the Vietnam president, Trump offered to mediate and arbitrate in the dispute over the South China Sea, where four Southeast Asian countries and Taiwan contest China’s sweeping claims to the busy waterway. “I am a very good mediator and a very good arbitrator,” President Trump said during his meeting with Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang in Hanoi.  “If I can be of help in any way let me know.”

Trump also said that U.S. and Vietnam “will be great trade partners" and added that "we’re going to do a tremendous amount of trade...billions and billions."

"He"s F**ked": Trump Blames Kushner For Mueller Probe As West Wing "Fears Impeachment", VF Reports

In a new bombshell report, Vanity Fair says that for the first time since the Mueller investigation began earlier this year, key Trump allies in the West Wing are starting to worry that the notion of an impeachment might be slightly more than just a Democratic pipe dream.  As former aide Sam Nunberg said, Mueller"s indictment of Paul Manafort has sparked concerns in the White House that Mueller has every intention of parsing through every Trump/Kushner financial dealing until he uncovers something incriminating.

Until now, Robert Mueller has haunted Donald Trump’s White House as a hovering, mostly unseen menace. But by securing indictments of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, and a surprise guilty plea from foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, Mueller announced loudly that the Russia investigation poses an existential threat to the president. “Here’s what Manafort’s indictment tells me: Mueller is going to go over every financial dealing of Jared Kushner and the Trump Organization,” said former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg. “Trump is at 33 percent in Gallup. You can’t go any lower. He’s fucked.”

 

The first charges in the Mueller probe have kindled talk of what the endgame for Trump looks like, according to conversations with a half-dozen advisers and friends of the president. For the first time since the investigation began, the prospect of impeachment is being considered as a realistic outcome and not just a liberal fever dream. According to a source, advisers in the West Wing are on edge and doing whatever they can not to be ensnared. One person close to Dina Powell and Gary Cohn said they’re making sure to leave rooms if the subject of Russia comes up.

While he has refrained so far from publicly criticizing Special Counsel Mueller, Vanity Fair says the President is growing increasingly frustrated and privately lashing out at his own legal team and even son-in-law Jared Kushner, who some around Trump have described as the "worst political adviser in the White House in modern history."

Trump, meanwhile, has reacted to the deteriorating situation by lashing out on Twitter and venting in private to friends. He’s frustrated that the investigation seems to have no end in sight. “Trump wants to be critical of Mueller,” one person who’s been briefed on Trump’s thinking says. “He thinks it’s unfair criticism. Clinton hasn’t gotten anything like this. And what about Tony Podesta? Trump is like, When is that going to end?”

 

According to two sources, Trump has complained to advisers about his legal team for letting the Mueller probe progress this far. Speaking to Steve Bannon on Tuesday, Trump blamed Jared Kushner for his role in decisions, specifically the firings of Mike Flynn and James Comey, that led to Mueller’s appointment, according to a source briefed on the call. When Roger Stone recently told Trump that Kushner was giving him bad political advice, Trump agreed, according to someone familiar with the conversation. “Jared is the worst political adviser in the White House in modern history,” Nunberg said. “I’m only saying publicly what everyone says behind the scenes at Fox News, in conservative media, and the Senate and Congress.”

Focusing on the Kushner angle, Trump is reportedly increasingly blaming his son-in-law for his role in decisions that led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller.  In a call Tuesday to former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon, Trump put blame on Kushner for the part he took in choices to fire former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former FBI director James Comey, Vanity Fair reported.

Roger Stone also recently said Kushner wasn"t giving Trump good advice — a sentiment which Trump reportedly agreed with, according to someone familiar with the conversation. Sam Nunberg, a former campaign aide to President Trump who was fired, echoed the statement.

"Jared is the worst political adviser in the White House in modern history,” Nunberg said. “I’m only saying publicly what everyone says behind the scenes at Fox News, in conservative media, and the Senate and Congress."

Meanwhile, former Chief Strategist Steve Bannon is apparently also increasingly concerned that the establishment GOP might jump at the opportunity to "fuck over Trump" by supporting impeachment proceedings.  Among other things, Bannon has proposed that Trump hire a more aggressive head lawyer and go on the offensive to "defund Mueller’s investigation or limit its scope."

But these soft-power approaches are being criticized by Trump allies including Steve Bannon and Roger Stone, who both believe establishment Republicans are waiting for a chance to impeach Trump. “The establishment has proven time and time again they will fuck Trump over,” a Bannon ally told me.

 

In a series of phone calls with Trump on Monday and Tuesday, Bannon told the president to shake up the legal team by installing an aggressive lawyer above Cobb, according to two sources briefed on the call. Bannon has also discussed ways to pressure Congress to defund Mueller’s investigation or limit its scope. “Mueller shouldn’t be allowed to be a clean shot on goal,” a Bannon confidant told me. “He must be contested and checked. Right now he has unchecked power.”

 

Bannon’s sense of urgency is being fueled by his belief that Trump’s hold on power is slipping. The collapse of Obamacare repeal, and the dimming chances that tax reform will pass soon—many Trump allies are deeply pessimistic about its prospects—have created the political climate for establishment Republicans to turn on Trump. Two weeks ago, according to a source, Bannon did a spitball analysis of the Cabinet to see which members would remain loyal to Trump in the event the 25th Amendment were invoked, thereby triggering a vote to remove the president from office. Bannon recently told people he’s not sure if Trump would survive such a vote. “One thing Steve wants Trump to do is take this more seriously,” the Bannon confidant told me. “Stop joking around. Stop tweeting.”

So what comes next: is the end nigh for the Trump administration, torn apart by internal strife and intrigue, especially if it fails to pass tax reform, or will the administration simply slam Vanity Fair"s reporting - as Bannon did three weeks ago after the publication reported that the former chief strategist had lost faith in Trump"s ability to complete his current term - and press on (with or without Kushner)?  And how will Mueller"s probe impact any/all of this? We look forward to the answer, knowing that no matter the final outcome, stocks will simply keep grinding to new, record highs.

Do Shifting Democrat Talking Points Confirm That "Trump Is Unlikely To Be Implicated" In Russia Probe?

Over the past several weeks, the Russia-related talking points of Democrats and their mainstream media echo chambers have shifted from constantly insisting that Trump colluded with Russia during the 2016 election to focus on a seemingly irrelevant amount of advertising dollars that may have been spent on various social media platforms by people that "may have been connected" to the Kremlin...which, to our understanding, is defined as anyone with their browser language set to Russian.

Alas, as the Washington Examiner points out today, this shift in talking points could finally indicate that Democrats are admitting that there is no "there" there when it comes to the "Trump collusion" narrative.

Have you noticed? In recent public comments, the lawmakers investigating the Trump-Russia affair, along with some of the commentators who dissect its every development, seem to be focusing more on the facts of Russia"s attempts to interfere with the 2016 election and less on allegations that Donald Trump or his associates colluded with those efforts.

 

Why the change?

 

"Because that"s where the evidence is going," one lawmaker who follows the matter closely told me in a text exchange. "I mean, things could always change, but that observation is just the reality of the situation right now, as I see it."

 

"Because they"ve been spinning their wheels on something for which evidence has yet to emerge," said another lawmaker.

 

"I think it"s 1) the Mueller probe means that stuff [allegations of collusion] is sort of in his wheelhouse now," said yet another lawmaker, "and 2) I think there"s recognition that Trump himself is unlikely to be implicated in this."

Meanwhile, the New York Times admitted over the weekend that the 3 separate Congressional investigations are seemingly going nowhere as the hopes of a "comprehensive, authoritative and bipartisan accounting of the extraordinary efforts of a hostile power to disrupt American democracy appears to be dwindling."

All three committees looking into Russian interference — one in the House, two in the Senate — have run into problems, from insufficient staffing to fights over when the committees should wrap up their investigations. The Senate Judiciary Committee’s inquiry has barely started, delayed in part by negotiations over the scope of the investigation. Leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee, while maintaining bipartisan comity, have sought to tamp down expectations about what they might find.

 

Nine months into the Trump administration, any notion that Capitol Hill would provide a comprehensive, authoritative and bipartisan accounting of the extraordinary efforts of a hostile power to disrupt American democracy appears to be dwindling.

And even CNN"s Chris Cuomo seemingly revealed some frustration and doubt in a recent interview with Adam Schiff saying "if it was so obvious, it if were so egregious, you should have known by now."

"Well, no one"s saying this was obvious," Schiff answered. "Obviously, there was a deep interest in the Russians in keeping their work hidden. But you can"t say there"s no evidence of collusion."

 

"We"ve seen even in the public realm, I think, very graphic evidence that the Trump campaign was willing to collude with the Russians," Schiff continued. That was most likely a reference to the infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting which Kremlin-connected Russians enticed Donald Trump, Jr. into attending by promising dirt on Hillary Clinton. In fact, the Russians wanted to push their goal of killing the Magnitsky Act, and the meeting, by all accounts, ended quickly. But Schiff argues that it suggests the willingness to collude, if not collusion itself.

 

"So you can"t say even in the public realm, let alone what we"re looking at [in secret], that there"s no evidence," Schiff concluded. "Now, is there proof beyond a reasonable doubt? Are we ready to announce a conclusion? We"re not there yet."

Of course, it does seem somewhat "convenient" that Democrats are suddenly eager to bury the Russian collusion narratives just as pressure is building for an investigation into the Clintons" role in a massive Russian bribery, extortion and money laundering scheme that ultimately handed the Russians 20% of America"s uranium reserves. For those who missed them, here are out recent notes on the topic:

• FBI Uncovered Russian Bribery Plot Before Obama Approved Uranium One Deal, Netting Clintons Millions


• Emails Reveal Bill Clinton Met With Vladimir Putin Just Before Uranium One Deal


• FBI Informant "Threatened" After Offering Details Linking Clinton Foundation To Russian Bribery Case

So what say you?  Is the timing pure coincidence or are the Clintons and Democrats suddenly eager for a truce now the Russia narratives have become "inconvenient."

Trump Lawyer: Trump Has Sent Private Messages "Back And Forth" With Special Counsel Mueller

It seems that the USA Today has just dropped the official Trump-Russia collusion bombshell of the day after reporting that, according to Trump"s Chief Counsel John Dowd, Trump and Special Counsel Mueller apparently exchange "messages back and forth" on the reg.

"He appreciates what Bob Mueller is doing,"" Trump"s chief counsel John Dowd told USA TODAY in an interview Tuesday. "He asked me to share that with him and that"s what I"ve done.""

Trump"s legal team has been in contact with Mueller"s office, and Dowd says he has passed along the president"s messages expressing “appreciation and greetings’’ to the special counsel.

“The president has sent messages back and forth,’’ Dowd said, declining to elaborate further.

Of course, after Trump"s rather "complicated" relationship with Comey ended with a nasty separation and a series of Congressional hearings, we"re going to go out on a limb and assume that Democrats on the various Congressional intelligence committees aren"t going to be terribly happy about this new revelation.  That said, Dowd confirmed that "all communication with Mueller have been proper"...which we"re sure Democrats will take at face value.

Dowd has said all communications with Mueller have been proper.

“We get along well with Bob Mueller; our communications have been constructive,’’ the attorney said. “But it is important that our communications remain confidential. It’s important that there not be any breakdown in that trust.’’

Of course, this is a rather interesting development in light of the fact that the mainstream media has been speculating for weeks now that Trump may be looking to unilaterally fire Mueller...a move which Dowd says has "never been on the table."

For weeks, Washington political circles have been on high alert for the possibility the president could try to get rid of Mueller or otherwise wrest control of the Russia probe he denounces as a "hoax."

Yet in a sign that forcing out the former FBI director overseeing the federal Russia investigation is politically untenable, a growing number of government officials have moved to tamp down any talk of ousting Mueller – including, apparently Trump himself.

“That’s never been on the table, never,’’ Dowd said of the possibility Trump might try to remove the special counsel. “It’s a manifestation of the media. My dealings with Bob Mueller have always been cordial, respectful — the way it should be."

Meanwhile, our cynical side can"t help but think that if one were to want to raise suspicions among Democrats as to Mueller"s true impartiality thus causing "conflict of interest" rumblings on the left...this could be a clever approach to get rid of Mueller without be blamed.

Then again, it could all be nothing more than professional "back and forth" between a Special Counsel looking for answers and a White House happy to oblige...as shocking, and uninteresting, as that may sound.

Pat Buchanan On Russiagate: "It's Hard To See When This Ends, Or How It Ends Well For America"

Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

For a year, the big question of Russiagate has boiled down to this: Did Donald Trump’s campaign collude with the Russians in hacking the DNC?

And until last week, the answer was “no.”

As ex-CIA director Mike Morell said in March, “On the question of the Trump campaign conspiring with the Russians … there is smoke, but there is no fire, at all. … There’s no little campfire, there’s no little candle, there’s no spark.”

Well, last week, it appeared there had been a fire in Trump Tower. On June 9, 2016, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort met with Russians — in anticipation of promised dirt on Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

While not a crime, this was a blunder. For Donald Jr. had long insisted there had been no collusion with the Russians. Caught in flagrante, he went full Pinocchio for four days.

And as the details of that June 9 meeting spilled out, Trump defenders were left with egg on their faces, while anti-Trump media were able to keep the spotlight laser-focused on where they want it — Russiagate.

This reality underscores a truth of our time. In the 19th century, power meant control of the means of production; today, power lies in control of the means of communication.

Who controls the media spotlight controls what people talk about and think about. And mainstream media are determined to keep that spotlight on Trump-Russia, and as far away as possible from their agenda — breaking the Trump presidency and bringing him down.

Almost daily, there are leaks from the investigative and security arms of the U.S. government designed to damage this president.

Just days into Trump’s presidency, a rifle-shot intel community leak of a December meeting between Trump national security adviser Gen. Michael Flynn and Russia’s ambassador forced the firing of Flynn.

An Oval Office meeting with the Russian foreign minister in which Trump disclosed that Israeli intelligence had ferreted out evidence that ISIS was developing computer bombs to explode on airliners was leaked. This alerted ISIS, damaged the president, and imperiled Israeli intelligence sources and methods.

Some of the leaks from national security and investigative agencies are felonies, not only violations of the leaker’s solemn oath to protect secrets, but of federal law.

Yet the press is happy to collude with these leakers and to pay them in the coin they seek. First, by publishing the secrets the leakers want revealed. Second, by protecting them from exposure to arrest and prosecution for the crimes they are committing.

The mutual agendas of the deep-state leakers and the mainstream media mesh perfectly.

Consider the original Russiagate offense.

Confidential emails of the DNC and John Podesta were hacked, i.e., stolen by Russian intelligence and given to WikiLeaks. And who was the third and indispensable party in this “Tinker to Evers to Chance” double-play combination?

The media itself. While deploring Russian hacking as an “act of war” against “our democracy,” the media published the fruits of the hacking. It was the media that revealed what Podesta wrote and how the DNC tilted the tables against Bernie Sanders.

If the media believed Russian hacking was a crime against our democracy, why did they publish the fruits of that crime?

Is it not monumental hypocrisy to denounce Russia’s hacking of the computers of Democratic political leaders and institutions, while splashing the contents of the theft all over Page 1?

Not only do our Beltway media traffic in stolen secrets and stolen goods, but the knowledge that they will publish secrets and protect those who leak them is an incentive for bureaucratic disloyalty and criminality.

Our mainstream media are like the fellow who avoids the risk of stealing cars, but wants to fence them once stolen and repainted.

Some journalists know exactly who is leaking against Trump, but they are as protective of their colleagues’ “sources” as of their own. Thus, the public is left in the dark as to what the real agenda is here, and who is sabotaging a president in whom they placed so much hope.

And thus does democracy die in darkness.

Do the American people not have a “right to know” who are the leakers within the government who are daily spilling secrets to destroy their president? Are the identities of the saboteurs not a legitimate subject of investigation? Ought they not be exposed and rooted out?

Where is the special prosecutor to investigate the collusion between bureaucrats and members of the press who traffic in the stolen secrets of the republic?

Bottom line: Trump is facing a stacked deck.

People inside the executive branch are daily providing fresh meat to feed the scandal. Anti-Trump media are transfixed by it. It is the Watergate of their generation. They can smell the blood in the water. The Pulitzers are calling. And they love it, for they loathe Donald Trump both for who he is and what he stands for.

It is hard to see when this ends, or how it ends well for the country.

Donald Trump Jr Releases Emails Exchanged Ahead Of Meeting With Russian Lawyer

When we discussed the latest sequel in the NYT story involving Donald Trump Jr and the Russian attorney who allegedly, but not really, had damaging information about Hillary Clinton, and who was supposedly working for the Russian government, although both she and the Kremlin deny this, we said that "in short, the situation could be resolved quickly and effectively once the Goldstone"s email is presented."

12 hours later Donald Trump Jr has done just this, and moments ago he released the entire email chain from his conversation with Rob Goldstone, as well as the following explanation:

To everyone, in order to be totally transparent, I am releasing the entire email chain of my emails with Rob Goldstone about the meeting on June 9, 2016. The first email on June 3, 2016 was from Rob, who was relating a request from Emin, a person I knew from the 2013 Ms. Universe Pageant near Moscow. Emin and his father have a very highly respected company in Moscow. The information they suggested they had about Hillary Clinton I thought was Political Opposition Research.

I first wanted to just have a phone call but when that didn"t work out, they said the woman would be in New York and asked if I would meet. I decided to take the meeting. The woman, as she has said publicly, was not a government official. And, as we have said, she had no information to provide and wanted to talk about adoption policy and the Magnitsky Act.

To put this in context, this occurred before the current Russian fever was in vogue.

As Rob Goldstone said just today in the press, the entire meeting was "the most inane nonsense I ever heard. And I was actually agitated by It."

Here"s my statement and the full email chain pic.twitter.com/x050r5n5LQ

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) July 11, 2017

The key highlight is the introductory section, in which Goldstone says that the Russian Crown prosecutor is offering to provide "the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father" and adds that "this is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government"s support for Mr. Trump."

Emin just called and asked me to contact you with something very Interesting.

The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.

This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government"s support for Mr. Trump - helped along by Aras and Emin.

What do you think is the best way to handle this Information and would you be able to speak to Emin about It directly?

To this Trump Jr."s response was: "…if it"s what you say I love it especially later in the summer."

As a reminder, the email chain was to arrange a meeting between Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer who had promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton. Trump Jr.’s email release comes after the NYT reported last night that he was warned beforehand that the Russian lawyer promising dirt on Clinton was part of a Russian government effort to help his father’s presidential campaign.

The meeting took place on June 6, 2016. In addition to Trump, Jr., Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, also attended.

Previously, Trump Jr. had said that the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, did not have the promised opposition research and instead arranged the meeting to press for changes on a U.S. policy that restricts adoptions of Russian children.

The full chain is below in reverse chronological order:

According to Reuters, legal experts were divided on whether Trump Jr."s participation in the meeting with the Russian lawyer could lead to criminal liability.

Collusion in and of itself is not a crime. But if the younger Trump conspired or aided and abetted a criminal action, such as hacking into American computer networks, that could be grounds for criminal charges. Several lawyers also said that the meeting could run afoul of federal election laws barring campaigns from accepting gifts or things of value from foreign nationals.

It also adds that the emails "do not at first glance appear to provide evidence of illegal activity, and Trump Jr. has said a meeting he later had with a Russian lawyer arranged via Goldstone primarily involved discussion of U.S. sanctions." However, as we discussed yesterday, Goldstone"s statement that the promise of incriminating information on Democratic presidential candidate Clinton was "part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump" provides new ammunition for investigators who are probing whether there was collusion between the Kremlin and Trump’s presidential campaign, which will certainly further derail and delay and hope of an economic agenda being passed by Trump in his first year in office, or for that matter, ever.

Trump Security Chief Turned White House Aide Called As Witness In Russia Probe

It’s been a couple of weeks since the mainstream media has ID’d a Trump associate who’s been drawn into the ongoing investigations in the alleged collusion between the campaign and Russia. Today’s disclosure comes courtesy of ABC, which identified longtime bodyguard Keith Schiller as a possible witness. Congressional investigators allegedly want to interview Schiller, the former head of security for the Trump Organization who currently serves as the White House director of Oval Office operations.

Here’s ABC:

“Congressional investigators now want to interview Keith Schiller, President Donald Trump’s longtime bodyguard-turned-White House aide, as part of their investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign, sources familiar with the investigation told ABC News.

Schiller, the former head of security for the Trump Organization who now serves as the White House director of Oval Office operations, is one of several Trump associates on the House Intelligence Committee’s witness list in its ongoing investigation into Russian election interference.

ABC claims that the committee’s decision to interview Schiller marks a “new phase” in the investigation, which is examining how Russia attempted to influence the election, the Obama administration’s response and allegations of collusion between Trump associates and Russian officials. But it"s unclear exactly what the news organization means by this.

"The committee’s focus on Schiller and other Trump campaign officials and associates marks a new phase in the investigation -- which is examining how Russia attempted to influence the election, the Obama administration’s response and allegations of collusion between Trump associates and Russian officials.

“It"s the latest indication that the investigations are touching Trump"s inner circle. In late July, longtime Trump associate Roger Stone is expected to appear before congressional investigators for a closed-door interview. The growing list of other Trump associates the committee has said they want to meet includes former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, Trump son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.”

To date, Kushner, Stone, Flynn and Manafort have all volunteered to cooperate with the ongoing investigations and have denied any wrongdoing. Notably, ABC’s report is devoid of any details about the questions Schiller might be asked, or the circumstances surrounding whatever it is he may have witnessed. But, as is becoming tradition with these anonymously sourced reports about the Russia investigation, the most telling details can be found at the bottom of the story.

“One White House official was unsurprised to learn that Schiller has been contacted. As the investigations expand, several White House aides have expressed privately to ABC News that they are expecting to hear from Congress or the special counsel.”

That’s right: Schiller is being called as a witness because it’s likely that EVERYBODY EVEN REMOTELY CLOSE to the president is being summoned to speak with investigators. As ABC noted lower down in the story, special counsel Robert Mueller has already interviewed dozens of witnesses as part of its probe. Schiller, a former NYPD officer, has been at Trump’s side for nearly 20 years, and is one of his closest advisers and aides -- playing the role of a body man, confidant and gatekeeper for the businessman-turned-president.

Perhaps investigators will focus on the circumstances surrounding the firing of former FBI Director James Comey – a decision for which the Trump administration has provided multiple conflicting explanations, provoking outrage from Democrats. According to ABC, Schiller played a small role in the firing of Comey.

When Trump made the decision to fire FBI Director James Comey, it was Schiller who hand-delivered the letter of termination from the president to FBI headquarters.

Schiller typically keeps a low profile, though ABC notes that he headlines during the campaign after hitting a protester outside Trump Tower and ejecting Univision anchor Jorge Ramos from a Trump campaign press conference. Investigators appear to have a wide remit to interview Trump associates, and it’s looking increasingly likely that they won’t be satisfied until every single person in Trump’s orbit has been interviewed. Who knows? Maybe Anthony Senecal, the Mar-a-Lago butler who was the subject of his very own New York Times profile during the campaign, will be next?