[Special] Trump's National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, Resigns Due to Russia

Michael Flynn, traitor? Flynn, who famously demanded that former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton be thrown in prison(1), has been known publicly to have contacted and spoken with Russian agents in 2016 (denied by Flynn, of course). It turns out, the information known by the government was much more severe and incriminating. I will let the Washington Post do its usual job of exposing the Trump administration's failures and corruption(2):

The acting attorney general informed the Trump White House late last month that she believed Michael Flynn had misled senior administration officials about the nature of his communications with the Russian ambassador to the United States, and warned that the national security adviser was potentially vulnerable to Russian blackmail, current and former U.S. officials said.

The message, delivered by Sally Q. Yates and a senior career national security official to the White House counsel, was prompted by concerns that ­Flynn, when asked about his calls and texts with the Russian diplomat, had told Vice ­President-elect Mike Pence and others that he had not discussed the Obama administration sanctions on Russia for its interference in the 2016 election, the officials said. It is unclear what the White House counsel, Donald McGahn, did with the information.

Flynn resigned Monday night in the wake of revelations about his contacts with the Russian ambassador.

In the waning days of the Obama administration, James R. Clapper Jr., who was the director of national intelligence, and John Brennan, the CIA director at the time, shared Yates’s concerns and concurred with her recommendation to inform the Trump White House. They feared that “Flynn had put himself in a compromising position” and thought that Pence had a right to know that he had been misled, according to one of the officials, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

A senior Trump administration official said before Flynn’s resignation that the White House was aware of the matter, adding that “we’ve been working on this for weeks.”

The current and former officials said that although they believed that Pence was misled about the contents of Flynn’s communications with the Russian ambassador, they couldn’t rule out that Flynn was acting with the knowledge of others in the transition.

That leads us to the question of who in the administration knew. While we know Trump is lazy and intellectually not curious(3), we also know he is a man who does not delegate well or trust most people to manage his affairs(4). Ergo, it seems improbable that Trump did not know what was going on, especially given his own questionable ties to Russia. Josh Marshall also puzzles over this question(5):



The current drama goes back to Thursday evening, February 9th, when the Post and the Times both published articles confirming that Flynn had discussed sanctions with Kislyak despite his denials.

But remember, this information had actually been known for a month. Back on January 13th, the Associated Press reported the phone calls in question. Reuters had additional details. The first report of the calls came a day earlier on January 12th in a column by the Washington Post's David Ignatius. What was not confirmed in these articles was whether Flynn and Kislyak discussed. But it always begged credulity to believe that they would not have been discussed on a day when the US was in the midst of a major retaliation against the Russian government.

But here's the thing. President Trump is in a unique position. He doesn't have to guess or cultivate intelligence sources. The FBI and the CIA work for him. What we learned on Thursday night was that there are transcripts of at least one of these conversations and they directly contradict Flynn's denials. He did discuss the sanctions. This information has been available to President Trump since he became President on the 21st. He could have gotten it from FBI Director Comey or possibly from CIA Director Pompeo after he was confirmed on the 23rd. I should note I'm not sure whether these transcripts were only with the FBI or also with the CIA. There are rules about which agencies can scrutinize intelligence collected in the US or on US citizens. But I'm not certain just how they apply in this, shall we say, rather unique situation. In any case, this information was available to President Trump.

* * * 

Flynn has been a close advisor to Trump since the spring of 2016. Trump has consistently championed closer relations with Russia through the campaign. The subject of Russia came up repeatedly in the final months of the campaign as it became increasingly clear that Russia was involved in the hacking campaign against the Democrats. Does it seem likely that Flynn kept his communications with the Russian Ambassador secret from Trump this whole time? To me, it seems highly unlikely.

Again, we have no proof of this. But in all the conversations about Flynn's fate I see very little discussion about whether he did what he did at the President's behest and with his knowledge. That seems odd since it seems like by far the most likely explanation.
And...(6)

We certainly do not know for a fact that President Trump knew about Mike Flynn's conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak before the election. But why is anyone assuming Trump is only learning about that back channel now? That seems like a highly questionable assumption, given how close Flynn and Trump were during the election and how much Russia came up during the campaign. Remember, according to multiple published reports, Flynn was not just in communication with Kislyak at the end of December, when Trump was President-Elect. He was in on-going communication with him before the 2016 election too.

In my opinion, it is not just Flynn that is compromised by Russia. The administration, including the orange skinned, orange haired tangerine tyrant that runs the show, is also deep in Putin's province.
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(1) Huffington Post: Michael Flynn Led ‘Lock Her Up’ Chants At The RNC Last Summer by Ed Mazza (February 14, 2017)

(2) Washington Post: Justice Department Warned White House That Flynn Could be Vulnerable to Russian Blackmail, Officials Say by Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima and Philip Rucker (February 13, 2017)

(3) New York Times: Trump and Staff Rethink Tactics After Stumbles by Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman (February 5, 2017)

(4) New York Times: Trust Records Show Trump Is Still Closely Tied to His Empire by Susanne Craig and Eric Lipton (February 3, 2017)

(5) Talking Points Memo: What Did the President Know? by Josh Marshall (February 13, 2017)

(6) Talking Points Memo: That Makes No Sense by Josh Marshall (February 13, 2017)