By Josh Marshall:
The Post's David Ignatius has a column out tonight with a number of observations. But the big news is this ...
According to a senior U.S. government official, Flynn phoned Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak several times on Dec. 29, the day the Obama administration announced the expulsion of 35 Russian officials as well as other measures in retaliation for the hacking. What did Flynn say, and did it undercut the U.S. sanctions? The Logan Act (though never enforced) bars U.S. citizens from correspondence intending to influence a foreign government about “disputes” with the United States. Was its spirit violated? The Trump campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
This is, at a minimum, highly irregular and inappropriate. We don't know if it is more than that. It would be good to find out.
Then there's this.
The Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth has an article which claims that American intelligence officials told their Israeli counterparts in recent meetings that they should be cautious about sharing their closest held secrets with the Trump administration for fear it might be shared with Russia and by Russia with Iran.
* * *
These are, needless to say, highly disturbing claims.
To evaluate them, we should bear in mind that what we are hearing is what American intelligence officials supposedly told Israeli intelligence officials and which Israeli intelligence officials, by whatever means, passed on to an Israeli journalist. The sourcing is at best attenuated. But we should also note that the paper is Israel's largest circulation daily and the reporter is a highly respected investigative journalist, Ronen Bergman.
The Full Story (January 13, 2017)
No comments:
Post a Comment