SPYGATE - flaw in the narrative
It appears that Trump is claiming that the IC launched a secret surveillance on his campaign before it informed him of the risk posed by suspected RIS operatives. This is bullshit - but let's review the facts.The FBI was investigating Page from 2013, there were suspicions about Micheal Flynn going back to 2014. The Trump campaign began in mid 2015. Flynn was recruit to the Trump campaign because of his public disagreements with the Obama Admin and the rest of the IC. Page started wandering around the Trump campaign in late 2015 and he was interviewed last in March of 2016. He joined the Trump campaign soon after with Sam Clovis hiring him.
Trump and Hillary Clinton were formally briefed in August 2016 by the FBI of the RIS threat to their election campaigns.
In October 2016 Trump openly on TV asked Russia to hunt for Hillary's missing emails. Later laughs it off as a joke.
We also know no - from Micheal Cohen's email exchanges with Felix Sater that all the time that Trump was publicly assuring us that he was not in business with Russia, his lawyer Cohen and fixed Slater were busy trying to set up a major hotel deal in Moscow.
So this claim that Trump was
a) unaware of RIS threats to his campaign is bullshit. If he was trying to get into bed with RU investors on a hotel deal and his fixers were burning shoe leather trying to get meetings with Putin, then it stands to reason that he was acutely aware of RIS interests. No one does business in Russia without being aware of Siloviki interests.
b) not sufficiently alerted by FBI/IC about the RIS infiltration of his campaign is also bullshit because even after he was briefed in August 2016 - he clearly disregarded the advice and explicitly sought help from Russia to win the election.
The FBI is under no obligation to ask Trump (who everyone knows had deep business interests in Russia) about who it investigated as RIS provocations.
Until it was clear that the targeted individuals like Page and Papadopoulos etc.. were actually up to no good and deeply entrenched in the Trump campaign - there was no need to tell Trump of anything.
So this whole thing is IMHO a canard.
The objective here to deflect attention from the story about Cohen and Sater were negotiating with Putin's guys to get Trump a sweet hotel deal in Moscow while he was campaigning and publicly lying about having "No ties to Russia".
If the mainstream media had identified the issue correctly with Trump and educated voters about the extraordinary nature of his lies on key national security issues, I believe we would not be in this mess.
However as the media attempted to keep an even keel between GOP and Democratic groups, it slipped up on the original mission to educate the public on real threats posed to national security.
It is a separate matter that the education would produce no change in the GOP "base" which is hostage to its cataclysmic stupidity.
posted by maverick @ 9:05 AM
2 Comments:
Trumps motivations for seeking even further business (after retaining some wealth in his TV show) at his 60+ age seems weird. Maybe it is an American thing? He could have just gone as Chairman Emeritus.
Something seems really off. What was his wordt case - declare bankruptcy and start all over again?
Basically stating that the drama and shenanigans to go to RIS etc seems very avoidable for anyone with business sense
Post a Comment
<< Home